eight o'clock train!"

"We were going to look at a house," explained Honora, "and Howard has no
other time."

"I'll go, too," declared Mr. Brent, promptly. "You mightn't think me a
judge of houses, but I am. I've lived in so many bad ones that I know a
good one when I see it now."

"Honora has got a wild notion into her head that I'm going to take the
Farnham house," said Howard, smiling. There, on the deck of the
ferryboat, in the flooding sunlight, the idea seemed to give him
amusement. With the morning light Pharaoh must have hardened his heart.

"Well, perhaps you are," said Mr. Brent, conveying to Honora his delight
in the situation by a scarcely perceptible wink. "I shouldn't like to
take the other end of the bet. Why shouldn't you? You're fat and healthy
and making money faster than you can gather it in."

Howard coughed, and laughed a little, uncomfortably. Trixton Brent was
not a man to offend.

"Honora has got that delusion, too," he replied. He steeled himself in
his usual manner for the ordeal to come by smoking a cigarette, for the
arrival of such a powerful ally on his wife's side lent a different
aspect to the situation.

Honora, during this colloquy, was silent. She was a little uncomfortable,
and pretended not to see Mr. Brent's wink.