The Wild Fawn by Mary Imlay Taylor

COLONEL DENBIGH was walking to and fro at the back of his house, considering it. There was no doubt at all that it needed a new coat of paint. It needed it almost as much as the colonel needed the extra money to pay for it. He chuckled a little, pulling at the ends of his long white moustache.

"Neither of us likely to get it," he thought, "and I reckon I look almost as much out of repair as the old place does anyway!"