Dowden found the mention of Beasley not only unpleasant to
himself but a possible embarrassment to the ladies (who, I supposed,
were aware of the quarrel) on his account.
After lunch, not having to report at the office immediately, I took unto
myself the solace of a cigar, which kept me company during a stroll
about Mrs. Apperthwaite's capacious yard. In the rear I found an
old-fashioned rose-garden--the bushes long since bloomless and now
brown with autumn--and I paced its gravelled paths up and down, at the
same time favoring Mr. Beasley's house with a covert study that would
have done credit to a porch-climber, for the sting of my blunder at the
table was quiescent, or at least neutralized, under the itch of a
curiosity far from satisfied concerning the interesting premises next
door. The gentleman in the dressing-gown, I was sure, could have been no
other than the Honorable David Beasley himself. He came not in eyeshot
now, neither he nor any other; there was no sign of life about the
place. That portion of his yard which lay behind the house was not
within my vision, it is true, his property being here separated from
Mrs. Apperthwaite's by a board fence higher than a tall man could reach;
but there was no sound from the other side of this partition, save that
caused by the quiet movement of rusty leaves in the breeze.
My cigar was at half-length when the green lattice door of Mrs.
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