But it was too evident that he felt little sense of responsibility for
the maintenance of the conversation. He sat back in a chair of
exceptionable comfortableness, and allowed Beverley Byrd to discourse
with him; a privilege which Byrd exercised fitfully, for his heart was
in the talk that Sharlee was dutifully supporting with Mr. Miller. Into
this talk he resolutely declined to be drawn, but his ear was alert for
opportunities--which came not infrequently--to thrust in a polished oar
to the discomfiture of the intruder.
Not that he would necessarily care to do it, but the runner could read
Mr. Miller, without a glass, at one hundred paces' distance. He was of
the climber type, a self-made man in the earlier and less inspiring
stages of the making. Culture had a dangerous fascination for him. He
adored to talk of books; a rash worship, it seemed, since his but bowing
acquaintance with them trapped him frequently into mistaken identities
over which Sharlee with difficulty kept a straight face, while Byrd
palpably rejoiced.
"You know _Thanatopsis_, of course," he would ask, with a rapt and
glowing eye--"Lord Byron's beautiful poem on the philosophy of life? Now
that is my idea of what poetry ought to be, Miss Weyland.
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