III-X

The heat thickened with the dusk. The wailing
clamor of William Vibard's accordion
rose from the porch. He had, of late,
avoided sitting with Rose and her husband; they
irritated him in countless, insignificant ways.
Rose's superiority had risen above the commonplace
details of the house; she sat on the porch and regarded
Gordon with a strained, rigid smile. After
a pretense at procuring work William Vibard had
relapsed into an endless debauch of sound. His
manner became increasingly abstracted; he ate, he
lived, with the gestures of a man playing an accordion.

The lines on Gordon's thin, dark face had multiplied;
his eyes, in the shadow of his bony forehead,
burned steady, pale blue; his chin was resolute; but
a new doubt, a constant, faint perplexity, blurred
the line of his mouth.

From the road above came the familiar sound of
hoof-beats, muffled in dust, but it stopped opposite
his dwelling; and, soon after, the porch creaked
under slow, heavy feet, and a thick, black-clad figure
knocked and entered.

[[311]]

p310 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p311w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p312

v?