Perhaps Mirandy was right. Who shall say? CHAPTER XXV AT TWILIGHT Tom had never explored this old trail. It was one of the things that he had been always intending to do but had never done. He had hoped that Audry might introduce him to its romantic neighborhood and indeed she had piloted him as far as the first intersecting crevice, where she balked. On a certain evening after supper he was sitting on the little porch of the cottage. Audry was busy with her accustomed task of helping Miranda with the dishes and he could hear her girlish, cocksure talk in the kitchen. Audry was always very positive about everything. She knew what she knew. On the campus, as they called the clearing, Whalen and Fairgreaves were picking up bits of wood. Tom smiled as he observed the graceful, athletic form of the amiable Fairgreaves. Each time he stooped he looked as if he were bowing to some grand lady. His khaki trousers and cutaway coat made him look outlandish. Yet, thought Tom, here was a kind man. If Fairgreaves were a failure at least he could enjoy the success of others. He was the soul of generosity. He could not be so bad. Perhaps the world needs just such amiable ne’er-do-wells as Fairgreaves. Tom was just about to go over and join them in their self-imposed after supper task when Fairgreaves sauntered with ingratiating step toward the group on the rear porch, where the chauffeur who had been deprived of his license was playing a harmonica. The inventor who was waiting for the million dollar suit to be decided in his favor was sitting on the railing smoking a pipe. Billy the sailor sat with his feet against the rail. They all seemed to be enjoying their ease. Billy the sailor was telling how he had once assisted in killing a skipper who had killed a seaman. The men all seemed to think that was a pretty good thing to do. They were not too conventional, these men. “What’s new, Legitt’?” one of them asked as Fairgreaves approached them. “There is nothing new under the sun,” said Fairgreaves elegantly. “The hell there ain’t,” said Billy the sailor. Whalen did not join the group but sauntered off with an effect of aimless weariness toward the edge of the clearing and disappeared in the woods. It seemed to Tom that his stroll and its direction were wholly unpremeditated. Tom had lately wanted a chance to talk with Whalen alone. He had seen his former companion come and go and had been with the others when Whalen was present. But he wanted to see him alone. There was no particular reason for this, except that he felt an impulse to renew, if possible, some measure of their former intimacy.