But for my interest in Naomi, and my other interest in the little
love-looks which I now and then surprised passing between her and
Ambrose, I should never have sat through that supper. I should
certainly have taken refuge in my French novel and my own room.

At last the unendurably long meal, served with ostentatious profusion,
was at an end. Miss Meadowcroft rose with her ghostly solemnity, and
granted me my dismissal in these words:

"We are early people at the farm, Mr. Lefrank. I wish you good-night."

She laid her bony hands on the back of Mr. Meadowcroft's invalid-chair,
cut him short in his farewell salutation to me, and wheeled him out to
his bed as if she were wheeling him out to his grave.

"Do you go to your room immediately, sir? If not, may I offer you a
cigar--provided the young gentlemen will permit it?"

So, picking his words with painful deliberation, and pointing his
reference to "the young gentlemen" with one sardonic side-look at them,
Mr. John Jago performed the duties of hospitality on his side. I
excused myself from accepting the cigar. With studied politeness, the
man of the glittering brown eyes wished me a goodnight's rest, and left
the room.

Ambrose and Silas both approached me hospitably, with their open
cigar-cases in their hands.

"You were quite right to say 'No,'" Ambrose began. "Never smoke with
John Jago. His cigars will poison you."