sight of its official
windows. Its first manager was a son of the chief owner, who built his
house in the style of a gentleman's country-seat, small but exclusive
and quite apart from the work. I liked the somber seclusion of the
place, planted deep with trees of about twenty years' growth, showing
their delicate, changing greens against the darker belt of pines. But
its aspect increased, if anything, that uneasy sensation, like a cold
wind in my back, which I still had in thinking of Fleming.

I had driven out to dine with Dean on the evening of my arrival. It was
the last week in January; there had been much rain already for the
foot-hills. Wet sprays from the untrimmed rose hedges disputed my
passage through the inner gate. Discolored pine-needles lay in sodden
drifts on the neglected grass. The hydrant leaked frozen puddles down
the brick-paved walk. Mounting the veranda steps I laid my hand on the
knocker, when an old Chinese servant popped his head out at a side-door
and violently beckoned me in that way.

Dean, as I knew, had made his home with the Flemings for some time
before their departure. After a few talks with him and a survey of the
house I decided we might venture to continue the arrangement without
getting in each other's way. It was a house peculiarly adapted to a
_solitude a deux_. There was no telephone nearer than the office. I
argued that Fleming was a man who could protect himself from frivolous
intrusions, and his wife could have had but little in common with her
neighbors in the village.

He had resigned on account of her health, I was told. It must have been
a hasty flitting or an inconclusive one. The odd, attractive rooms were
full of their belongings still. We two casual bachelors with our
circumspect habits could make no impression on the all but speaking
silence of those empty rooms. They filled me at times with a curious
emotion of sadness and unrest.

Joshua seldom talked of the Flemings, though I knew he received letters
from them. That he was deeply attached to their memory, hoarded it and
brooded over it, I could not doubt. I even suspected some jealous
sentiment on his part which made it hard for him to see me using their
chairs, planting myself amongst their cushions and investigating their
book-shelves. I thought it strange they had left so many things behind
them of a personal nature. They seemed to have ceased to care for what
most of us rolling stones are wont to cling to.