The chances of making money disreputably are so great
that the chances are against a man who has made money if he's made a
great deal of it.'"
March listened with a face of ironical insinuation. "That was very good;
and he seems to have had a good deal of confidence in your patience and
in your sense of his importance to the occasion--"
"No, no," Fulkerson protested, "there's none of that kind of thing about
the colonel. I told him to take time to think it over; he's the
simplest-hearted old fellow in the world."
"I should say so. After all, he didn't give any reason he had for
accepting. But perhaps the young lady had the reason."
"Pshaw, March!" said Fulkerson.
VI.
So far as the Dryfoos family was concerned, the dinner might as well have
been given at Frescobaldi's rooms. None of the ladies appeared. Mrs.
Dryfoos was glad to escape to her own chamber, where she sat before an
autumnal fire, shaking her head and talking to herself at times, with the
foreboding of evil which old women like her make part of their religion.
The girls stood just out of sight at the head of the stairs, and disputed
which guest it was at each arrival; Mrs. Mandel had gone to her room to
write letters, after beseeching them not to stand there.
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