Poindexter

“ Poindexter was in the habit of regarding all human infirmity gave way to something like bitterness. "I might have guessed it," he said, with a slight rise of color. "He's an old fool; and she—well, perhaps it's all the better for her!" He glanced backwards almost tenderly in the direction of Los Cuervos, and then turned his head towards the embarcadero. ”

“ The girl was puzzled. Why should Mrs. Poindexter-Jones care about the simple home life of a family in her employ.
But, before she had time to wonder long, the invalid was changing the subject. “Jenny, do you like to read aloud?” she asked.
There was sincere enthusiasm in the reply. “Oh, Mrs. Poindexter-Jones, I love to! I read aloud every day to my dear friend Lenora Gale, who is visiting me. We are reading poetry just now, but I care a great deal for prose also. Books and nature are the two things for which I care most.” ”

“ John Poindexter has no more heart for his daughter than he had for his wife or that long-forgotten child from whose grave this tragedy has sprung. Had Felix triumphed he would never have wrung the heart of this man. As he once said, when a man cares for nothing and nobody, not even for himself, it is useless to curse him.
As for Felix himself, judge him not, when you realize, as you now must, that his last conscious act was to reach for and put in his mouth the paper which connected Eva with his death. ”

“ With an assumption of falling in with his friend's manner, rather than from any personal anxiety, he continued, “Well?”
“That man Poindexter was down here with her. Put her in the hacienda to hold possession afore the news came out.”
“Impossible!” said Tucker, rising hastily. “It don't belong—that is—” he hesitated.
“Yer thinking the creditors 'll get it, mebbe,” returned Patterson, gazing at the floor. “Not as long as she's in it; no sir! Whether it's really hers, or she's only keeping house for Poindexter, she's a fixture, you bet. They're a team when they pull together, they are!” ”

“ She had barely crossed the second street when she heard the quick clatter of hoofs behind her; a buggy drove up to the curbstone, and Poindexter leaped out. She entered quickly, but for a moment he still held the reins of the impatient horse. "He's rather fresh," he said, eying her keenly: "are you sure you can manage him?"
"Give me the reins," she said simply.
He placed them in the two firm, well-shaped hands that reached from the depths of the vehicle, and was satisfied. Yet he lingered. ”

“ His violent denunciations of Federalists resulted in a challenge from Abijah Hunt, one of the largest merchants in the southwest, whom Poindexter killed in the duel that followed. Poindexter was accused by his enemies of firing before the word was given, and bitter and prolonged controversies followed, but the charge was never substantiated. He became a member of the territorial legislature in 1805, and in 1807 was chosen delegate to congress, where he won reputation as an orator. ”

“ Patterson turned. The irrepressible look of humorous tolerance of all human frailty had suffused Poindexter's black eyes with mischievous moisture. “If you think it quite safe to confide to your wife this prospect of her improvement by widowhood, you may!”
CHAPTER III
Mr. Patterson did not inform his wife of the lawyer's personal threat to himself. But he managed, after Poindexter had left, to make her conscious that Mrs. Tucker might be a power to be placated and feared. ”

“ Every one was anxiously anticipating the fierce meeting of these foes on the president's retirement from office, when [Pg 163] Mr. Poindexter last year, in a fit either of somnambulism or of delirium from illness, walked out of a chamber window in the middle of the night, and was so much injured that he soon died. ”

“ Meanwhile the bereaved father, throwing himself at the side of the bier, began tearing away at the pall in his desire to look upon the face of her he had left in such rosy health four years before. But he was stopped, not by Poindexter, who had vanished from the scene, but by Felix, the cold, severe-looking boy who stood like a guard behind his sister. Reaching out a hand so white it was in itself a shock, he laid it in a certain prohibitory way on the pall, as if saying no. ”

“ I began, but he stopped me with an imperious gesture.
"We will not discuss your wi—Mrs. Adams," he protested. "Where is John Poindexter?"
"At the hotel," I rejoined. "Or possibly he has returned home. I no longer take account of his existence. Felix, I shall never leave my wife. I had rather prove recreant to the oath I took before I realized the worth of the woman whose happiness I vowed to destroy. This is what I have come to tell you. Make it easy for me, Felix. You are a man who has loved and suffered. Let us bury the past ”

“ The colonel was a widower, and in poor health, and since he was living mainly on his half-pay, and had very little to give his daughter, the affair was looked upon as a love match, the rather since Edith was a handsome young woman of charming character. The Reverend David Poindexter certainly had every appearance of being deeply in love; and it is often seen that the passions of reserved men, when once aroused, are stronger than those of persons more generally demonstrative.
Colonel Saltine did not at first receive his proposed son-in-law with favor. ”

“ A withered old peon woman, who in dress, complexion, and fibrous hair might have been an animated fragment of the debris, rustled out of a low vaulted passage and welcomed them with a feeble crepitation. Following her into the dim interior Mrs. Tucker was surprised to find some slight attempt at comfort and even adornment in the two or three habitable apartments. They were scrupulously clean and dry, two qualities which in her feminine eyes atoned for poverty of material.
“I could not send anything from San Bruno, the nearest village, without attracting attention,” explained Poindexter ”

“ He followed me out to the wagon, and hinted something about Poindexter wantin' help if he went to work on the tunnel, and 'lowed I'd find it handier to have a job nearder home, now that the grape-haulin' was over. But I told 'im there was no trouble about that. The nearder home I got, the more work I found, gener'ly. Pay was kind o' short, but then a man must be a trifle stickin' that wouldn't do his own work fer nothin'."
Lysander got up and carried the baby into the adjoining room, bending his lank form from habit rather than from necessity, as he passed through the doorway. ”

“ But she had lost for a moment the thread. "If it devolves on the Pococks, why do you stay?"
"Just to see that I do play fair—and a little also, no doubt, that they do." Strether was luminous as he had never been. "I came out to find myself in presence of new facts—facts that have kept striking me as less and less met by our old reasons. The matter's perfectly simple. New reasons—reasons as new as the facts themselves—are wanted; and of this our friends at Woollett—Chad's and mine—were at the earliest moment definitely notified. If any are producible Mrs. Pocock will produce them ”

“ Pöking?"--He growled out in reply: "What should be the matter with me? It isn't me, it's those confounded aristocrats who are friendly one moment, and turn a cold shoulder on one the next. He offered me a chair, and then asked me very politely how he could be of service to me--I didn't want his help, I'm better off than he is--but I couldn't think of anything to say at the moment, and the silence grew so frightful that there was nothing for it but to go away."--Notwithstanding this repulse Pomuchelskopp did not crow any lower ”

“ Poeskop grinned at the compliment.
"Baas, I will find out all right," he said eagerly. "I like Baas Guy--he is my baas; and I will, somehow or other, bring him away with me if I can. At all events, I will reach him. We Bushmen, you know, can creep like the snake on his stomach. I shall becreep Baas Guy to-night. You will see. Poeskop knows. You stay here. I will come back by morning. If I can bring Baas Guy, well and good. If not, we try some other plan."
"Very well," said Mr. Blakeney, "we will wait here. Do the best you can, but don't run Baas Guy into danger. ”

“ The Pococks were a quantity as yet unmeasured, and as he had practically brought them over, he had to that extent exposed himself. He wanted to feel right about it, but he could only, at the best, for the time, feel vague. "I shall look to you, you know, immensely," our friend had said, "to help me with them"; and he had been quite conscious of the effect of the remark, and of others of the same sort, on Waymarsh's sombre sensibility. He had insisted on the fact that he would quite like Mrs. Pocock—one could be certain he would ”

“ He knew everything, Strether more and more felt, that he thus disclaimed, and his little punishment was just in this doom to a second fib. What falser position—given the man—could the most vindictive mind impose? He ended by squeezing through a passage in which, three months before, he would certainly have stuck fast. "Mrs. Pocock will probably be ready herself to answer any inquiry you may put to her. But," he continued, "but———" He faltered on it.
"But what? Don't put her too many?"
Waymarsh looked large, but the harm was done; he couldn't, do what he would, help looking rosy. ”

“ I says, "Dan I mean it. With a wig and a Sunday School class to hide the baldness, you'd shame our Prominent Citizen. I don't see how Miss Tarbell overlooked you. Will you stop now?" But he only hesitated.
"Poachey," he says. "I got nothing against you. Don't misunderstand me. I never see anyone better than you to get the goods when the graft is started. No, Poachey, in some way you do them better than me; but in other ways you can't help me the way I need. You don't originate half the new business you ought; you haven't the instinct. ”

“ Is it Pokyr?”
His doubts were speedily set at rest by the arrival of our hero and Mr. Pokyr in another dogcart.
“ The small pistols or the large ones?” said Mr. Pokyr, after he was safely out of the vehicle, producing two cases of weapons.
“ Small ones!” cried both the combatants, in a breath.
“ Stop, stop, gentlemen —we must settle these things,” said Pokyr, conferring with O’Higgins. “ Shall we use the large or the small, Captain? Both brace are certain death”—this remark was made in a voice both Mr. Samuel and Mr. Chutney could too plainly hear—“never knew either of them missfire.” ”

“ The Queen's ring passed them through the gates, and breaking into a canter side by side, the horsemen swung round the east wing out into the Mall.
The clocks were striking two as they traversed the spacious avenue, now dark and silent.
"Do you still want to shoot me, sir?" asked Brand.
"Drop that 'sir'," answered the young Prince. "It sounds absurd from you. Call me Lancaster. Forget that nonsense I talked. She trusts you. That's good enough for me." ”

“ Now I must fight." He took the aerograph from the desk. "So far as I can see the Queen is safe, and yet—I will leave you this instrument. If ever you are in danger, release this key and touch it so—three sharp strokes repeated again and again. The signal shall be forwarded by my London agents, and the answer will be four double strokes."
"And you will come?"
"Instantly."
"Mr. Brand, I want to send Gloucester away. He's dangerous."
"Then have him closely watched. Enemies are invaluable, for their every movement is an index of danger to be overcome. ”

“ Piquette got up and paced the length of the room, turning quickly.
"You are an idiot, Pochard," she stormed at him furiously. "An American! Don't you know what you have done? It is the hero of Boissière Wood that you have struck down. An American—who has risked his life for you and me——"
"But Monsieur 'Orton——"
"He has lied to you. I do not believe——" She broke off, caught Pochard by the arm again and shook him. ”

“ Last night Jesse came home from Vancouver, and it being Sunday evening, he read and expounded the Scriptures to the amazement of the three new ranch-hands. The Chinamen, being heathens, were let off.
"Not being wise in the ways of high society, I ain't free to comment on Mrs. Potiphar, who kep' a steward instead of doing her job as housekeeper, or on this General Sir Something Potiphar, C.O.D., C.P.R., H.B.C., P.D.Q., commanding the Haw-Haw Guards, who seems to neglect his missus. As a plain stockman I pursues after Joseph." ”

“ Her mother had, in a case her private judgement of which remained educative of Mrs. Pocock’s critical sense, found the man. The man owed his unchallenged state, in general, to the fact that Mrs. Newsome’s discoveries were accepted at Woollett; but he knew in his bones, our friend did, how almost irresistibly Mrs. Pocock would now be moved to show what she thought of his own. Give her a free hand, would be the moral, and the woman would soon be found.
His impression of Miss Gostrey after her introduction to Chad was meanwhile an impression of a person almost unnaturally on her guard. ”

“ I began to understand what Billy meant, and it was with sick fear I asked concerning my dear man's stanchest friend, his banker, Captain Boulton Taylor.
"You'd better know, mum." There was pain in the lad's face, reluctance in his voice. "Being the nearest magistrate, he tried to down Polly for keeping a disorderly house. But then, as old man Taylor owned, he didn't know enough law to plug a rat hole. There ain't no municipality, so Spite House is outside the law. But Polly's friends proved all the good she done to men who was hurt, or sick, or broke. ”