“Folks can pretend to be deaf if they want to,” said Minna Eddy, “but they hear, an’ they’ll hear more.”

“That was fifteen dollars beside the findings, and they amounted to twelve dollars and sixty-three cents more,” said Madame Griggs, and this time she addressed the young man whom she took to be a lawyer.  She met his nervous winks with a piteous smile of appealing confidence.  She wondered if possibly he might not be willing to undertake her cause in connection with the other supposed dressmakers’ at a reduced rate.  Nobody paid the slightest attention when she spoke, Anna Carroll least of all.

Suddenly, Henry Lee tiptoed into the room.  He came in smiling and nervous.  When he saw the assembled company he started, and gave an inquiring glance at Carroll, who regarded him in an absent-minded fashion, as if he hardly comprehended the fact of his entrance.  It was the glance of a man whose mind is too crowded to admit of more.  But Lee went close to him, bowing low to Anna, and extending his hand with urbanity, flustered, it is true, yet still with urbanity.

“Good-evening, captain,” he said, and even then, in sore distress of mind as he was, he looked about at the company for admiration for this proof of his intimacy with such a man.

“Good-evening,” Carroll said, mechanically, and he shook hands.  Anna Carroll also said “Good-evening,” and smiled automatically.

“A fine evening,” said Lee, but he got no rejoinder to that.  He looked at the company, and his small, smug, fatuous face, which was somewhat pale and haggard, frowned with astonishment.  Again he looked for information into Carroll’s unanswering face.  He looked at an empty chair near him; then he looked at Carroll and his sister standing, and did not seat himself.  He also leaned against the mantel on the other corner from Carroll, and endeavored to assume an unconcerned air, as if it were quite the usual thing for him to drop into the house and encounter such a nondescript company.  He looked across at the druggist and postmaster, and bowed with flourishing politeness.  He said to Carroll, endeavoring to make his voice so unobtrusive that it would be unheard by the company, but with the non-success usual to a nervous and self-conscious man, that he had a word to say to him later on when he was at liberty, some matter of business which he wished to talk over with him.

“Very well,” Carroll replied.  Then Lee followed up his remark, which had in a measure reassured him.

“Got a cigar handy, captain?” said he.  “I came off without one in my pocket.”