Turning to a cigarette and yesterday's paper
she drooped into a sulky shape of fat and slovenly blue wrapper beside
the neglected dishes of their insufficient breakfast.
He went through the empty house to the front again, where at least the
sun was warm and bright. The air held a faint dry fragrance that came
from the haymaking of the deep country in which Nantbrook lay. Lemuel
Doret could see the hotel at a crossing on the left, a small gray block
of stone with a flat portico, a heavy gilt beer sign and whitewashed
sheds beyond. The barkeeper stood at a door, a huge girth circled by a
soiled apron; nearer a bundle of brooms and glittering stacked paint
cans marked the local store. It was, he was forced to admit, far from
gay; but he found a great contentment in the sunny peace, in the
limitless space of the unenclosed sky; the air, the fields, the birds
in the trees were free.
As he stood frowning in thought he saw the figure of a strange man
walking over the road; Lemuel knew that he was strange by the formality
of the clothes. He wore a hard straw hat, collar and diamond-pinned
tie, and a suit with a waistcoat. At first Doret's interest was
perfunctory, but as the other drew nearer his inspection changed to a
painful absorption. Suddenly his attitude grew tense; he had the
appearance of a man gazing at an enthralling but dangerous spectacle,
such--for example--as a wall that might topple over, crushing anything
human within its sweep.
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