"The rest of the summer I propose to enjoy," he declared.
As for David Marshall himself, he employed the rest of the summer in a
laborious attempt to form the acquaintance of his coming son-in-law.
Scodd-Paston presented to him an assemblage of qualities towards whose
scheduling and comprehending he received but little help from his
familiarity with the ordinary workaday type of local young man. Paston
was uniformly gay, jovial, companionable, definite sometimes as regarded
particulars, indefinite always as regarded generals. He stood constantly
in a lambent flicker of humorous good-nature, and he baffled the old
gentleman as one is baffled by the play of sunshine over a rippling pool.
Marshall would ask himself whether the depth of the pool was a
finger-length or a fathom, and would speculate on what there might be
lying at the bottom of it--strange deposits, perhaps, representing the
social and business developments of another age, or at least another
civilization. He sometimes questioned his daughter's capacity to cope
with the classification of such a collection--supposing so exacting a
task ever to devolve upon her.
He sometimes canvassed the matter with Theodore Brower, as the two sat
smoking together on the door-step through the long summer twilights,
while other warm-weather loungers scuffled aimlessly over the cindered
paths of the dingy grass-stretch opposite, or, lying on their backs,
crossed their legs self-indulgently and lifted over-worn brogans towards
the contemptuous stars.
Pages:
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314