"Step this way, please, and I'll call him," requested his
interlocutor, standing aside from the doorway.
Newmark entered the cool, dusky interior, and was shown to the left
into a dim, long room. He perched on a mahogany chair, and had time
to notice the bookcases with the white owl atop, the old piano with
the yellowing keys, the haircloth sofa and chairs, the steel
engravings, and the two oil portraits, when Orde's large figure
darkened the door.
For an instant the young man, who must just have come in from the
outside sunshine, blinked into the dimness. Newmark, too, blinked
back, although he could by this time see perfectly well.
Newmark had known Orde only as a riverman. Like most Easterners,
then and now, he was unable to imagine a man in rough clothes as
being anything but essentially a rough man. The figure he saw
before him was decently and correctly dressed in what was then the
proper Sunday costume. His big figure set off the cloth to
advantage, and even his wind-reddened face seemed toned down and
refined by the change in costume and surroundings.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Newmark!" cried Orde in his hearty way, and
holding out his hand. "I'm glad to see you. Where you been? Come
on out of there.
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