Mayhew,
hysterically. "YOU are the one who is dragging us down. If my
nephew deserts us, I will brand him as a coward and no gentleman."
"I'll not desert you unless you desert yourself," said Stanton, with
a gesture of disgust and impatience; "but if you persist in going
down into the deepest quagmires you can find, you cannot expect me
to follow you;" and with these words he left the room.
Mr. Mayhew was soon sunk in the deepest lethargy, and his wife
spent the afternoon in impotently fretting and fuming against her
"miserable fate," as she termed it, and in trying to devise some
way of keeping up appearances.
Chapter XXVIII. Rather Volcanic.
Stanton was glad to escape from the house after the interview
described in the previous chapter; and observing that Van Berg
was reclining under a tree at some little distance from the hotel,
stolled thither and threw himself down on the grass beside him.
But his perturbation was so evident that his friend remarked:
"You are out of sorts, Ik. What's the matter?"
"I've been settling this Sibley business with my aunt and cousin,"
snarled Stanton; "and some women always make such blasted fools of
themselves.
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