The victoria passed a stone house with wide lawns and an inhospitable air
of wealth and importunate rank; over the sward two peacocks swung,
ambulating like caravals in a green sea; and one expected a fine lady to
come smiling and glittering from the door. Oddly enough, though he had
never seen the place before, it struck Harkless with a sense of
familiarity. "Who lives there?" he asked abruptly.
"Who lives there? On the left? Why that--that is the Sherwood place,"
Meredith answered, in a tone which sounded as if he were not quite sure of
it, but inclined to think his information correct. Harkless relapsed into
silence.
Meredith's home was a few blocks further up the same street; a capacious
house in the Western fashion of the Seventies. In front, on the lawn,
there was a fountain with a leaping play of water; maples and shrubbery
were everywhere; and here and there stood a stiff sentinel of Lombardy
poplar. It was all cool and incongruous and comfortable; and, on the
porch, sheltered from publicity by a multitude of palms and flowering
plants, a white-jacketed negro appeared with a noble smile and a more
important tray, whereon tinkled bedewed glasses and a crystal pitcher,
against whose sides the ice clinked sweetly. There was a complement of
straws.
When they had helped him to an easy chair on the porch, Harkless whistled
luxuriously.
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