You've got to be mighty particular in such matters, you know, or you'll have the trustees down on you like a 'thousand of bricks.'" "I will thank the trustees to mind their own business," said Theron, stiffly, and the subject dropped.
The bedroom window upstairs was open, and upon the fresh night air was borne in the shrill, jangling sound of a piano, being played off somewhere in the distance, but so vehemently that the noise imposed itself upon the silence far and wide.

Theron listened to this as he undressed.

It proceeded from the direction of the main street, and he knew, as by instinct, that it was the Madden girl who was playing.

The incongruity of the hour escaped his notice.

He mused instead upon the wild and tropical tangle of moods, emotions, passions, which had grown up in that strange temperament.