He gave her a propitiatory smile, hoping she
might like him a little, too, and hoping also that she would not mind
Vincent. Sometimes people did, especially nice ladies such as evidently
Mrs. Crittenden was. He observed that as usual Vincent had cut in ahead
of everybody else, had mentioned their names, both of them, and was
talking with that . . . well, the way he _did_, which people either liked
very much or couldn't abide. He looked at Vincent as he talked. He was
not a great talker himself, which gave him a great deal of practice in
watching people who did. He often felt that he _saw_ more than he heard,
so much more did people's faces express than their words.
He noticed that the younger man was smiling a good deal, showing those
fine teeth of his, and he had one of those instantaneously-gone,
flash-light reminiscences of elderly people, . . . the day when Mr. Marsh
had been called away from the office and had asked him to go with little
Vincent to keep an appointment with the dentist. Heavens! How the kid
had roared and kicked! And now he sat there, smiling, "making a call,"
probably with that very filling in his tooth, grown-up, not even so very
young any more, with a little gray in his thick hair, what people often
called a good-looking man. How life did run between your fingers! Well,
he would close his hand tight upon what was left to him.
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