The picture super-imposed itself silently over this stuffy bourgeois respectability, like the shadow of a dream.
He heard plainly enough the commonplace drawl of the woman before him offering him the platitudes of her kind.
"You are lookin' real well, Mr.Thorpe," she was saying, "an' I just know Helen will be glad to see you.

She had a hull afternoon out to-day and won't be back to tea.

Dew set and tell me about what you've been a-doin' and how you're a-gettin' along." "No, thank you, Mrs.Renwick," he replied, "I'll come back later.

How is Helen ?" "She's purty well; and sech a nice girL I think she's getting right handsome." "Can you tell me where she went ?" But Mrs.Renwick did not know.

So Thorpe wandered about the maple-shaded streets of the little town.
For the purposes he had in view five hundred dollars would be none too much.