Читать книгу Hard-Pan. A Story of Bonanza Fortunes онлайн

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She came out quickly, carrying the smaller of the two lamps, divested once more of its paper flower shade. To give a better light she held it up and looked at him, smiling a little from under the halo made by her hair. In answer to his good night she gave him her hand, which he pressed with a warm, strong grip.

As he went down the few steps from the porch the colonel stood in the doorway, his figure in sharp silhouette against the light within.

“Don’t be a month finding your way down here again,” he said. “People say it’s out of the beaten tracks, but we prefer it to any other locality in the city. Viola and I like the old associations, and I’ve struck my roots here too deep to have them pulled up. Well, good night! So long!”

The door closed, and as John Gault opened the gate, the light vanished from the two long panes of glass that edged it on both sides, and gleamed out through the cracks and crevices between the blinds of the bay-window.

It was a warm night, soft and still, and Gault decided to walk. With his head bent down he walked slowly, striking the cracks in the pavement with the tip of his cane. From small gardens still tended and watered in this unkempt wilderness of brick and stucco, whiffs of delicate fragrance drifted out across the pavements, only to be stifled by the sickly odors that rose from the open sewer-mouths.