glad there wasn't any rooms."

"Oh, I'm very sorry," I said; and I indulged a real regret from the
vantage I had. "It would have been very pleasant to have you there.
Perhaps later--we shall be giving up our rooms at the end of the
month."

"No," he said, with a long breath. "If I've got to leave 'em, I
guess it'll be just as well to leave 'em where they're acquainted
with the house anyway." His remark betrayed a point in his thinking
which had not perhaps been reached in his talk with the ladies.
"It's a quiet place, and they're used to it; and I guess they
wouldn't want to stay through the rest of the month, quite. I don't
believe my wife would, anyway."

He did not say this very confidently, but hopefully rather, and I
thought it afforded me an opening to find out something yet more
definite about the ladies.

"Miss Gage is remarkably fine-looking," I began.

"Think so?" he answered. "Well, so does my wife. I don't know as I
like her style exactly," he said, with a kind of latent grudge.

"Her style is magnificent," I insisted.

"Well, maybe so. I guess she's good enough looking, if that's what
you mean. But I think it's always a kind of a mistake for three
persons to come off together, I don't care who they are. Then
there's three opinions. She's a nice girl, and a good girl, and she