He wore a
single-breasted coat of cheap broadcloth, fastened across his chest
with a carnelian clasp-button of his father's, such as country youth
wore thirty years ago, and a belated summer scarf of gingham, tied
in a breadth of knot long since abandoned by polite society.
Sewell had never thought his wife's reception-room very splendidly
appointed, but Barker must have been oppressed by it, for he sat in
absolute silence after resuming his chair, and made no sign of
intending to open the matter upon which he came. In the kindness of
his heart Sewell could not refrain from helping him on.
"When did you come to Boston?" he asked with a cheeriness which he
was far from feeling.
"This morning," said Barker briefly, but without the tremor in his
voice which Sewell expected.
"You've never been here before, I suppose," suggested Sewell, with
the vague intention of generalising or particularising the
conversation, as the case might be.
Barker abruptly rejected the overture, whatever it was. "I don't
know as you got a letter from me a spell back," he said.
"Yes, I did," confessed Sewell. "I did receive that letter," he
repeated, "and I ought to have answered it long ago. But the fact
is--" He corrected himself when it came to his saying this, and
said, "I mean that I put it by, intending to answer it when I could
do so in the proper way, until, I'm very sorry to say, I forgot it
altogether.
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