“Yes, I know him,” said the doctor.
“If he thinks he will be happier when he’s
gone away, you must be happier too, Mrs. Sisson.
That’s all. Don’t let him triumph
over you by making you miserable. You enjoy
yourself as well. You’re only a girl—–”
But a tear came from his eye, and he blew his nose
vigorously on a large white silk handkerchief, and
began to polish his pince nez. Then he
turned, and they all bundled out of the room.
The doctor took his departure. Mrs. Sisson went
almost immediately upstairs, and Millicent shortly
crept after her. Then Aaron, who had stood motionless
as if turned to a pillar of salt, went quietly down
the passage and into the living room. His face
was very pale, ghastly-looking. He caught a
glimpse of himself in the mirror over the mantel,
as he passed, and felt weak, as if he were really a
criminal. But his heart did not relax, nevertheless.
So he hurried into the night, down the garden, climbed
the fence into the field, and went away across the
field in the rain, towards the highroad.
He felt sick in every fibre. He almost hated
the little handbag he carried, which held his flute
and piccolo. It seemed a burden just then—a
millstone round his neck. He hated the scene
he had left— and he hated the hard, inviolable
heart that stuck unchanging in his own breast.
Coming to the high-road, he saw a tall, luminous tram-car
roving along through the rain. The trams ran
across country from town to town. He dared not
board, because people knew him. So he took a
side road, and walked in a detour for two miles.
Then he came out on the high-road again and waited
for a tram-car. The rain blew on his face.
He waited a long time for the last car.
AT THE OPERA
A friend had given Josephine Ford a box at the opera
for one evening; our story continues by night.
The box was large and important, near the stage.
Josephine and Julia were there, with Robert and Jim—also
two more men. The women sat in the front of the
box, conspicuously. They were both poor, they
were rather excited. But they belonged to a
set which looked on social triumphs as a downfall that
one allows oneself. The two men, Lilly and Struthers,
were artists, the former literary, the latter a painter.
Lilly sat by Josephine in the front of the box:
he was her little lion of the evening.
Few women can sit in the front of a big box, on a
crowded and full-swing opera night, without thrilling
and dilating. There is an intoxication in being
thus thrust forward, conspicuous and enhanced, right
in the eye of the vast crowd that lines the hollow
shell of the auditorium. Thus even Josephine
and Julia leaned their elbows and poised their heads
regally, looking condescendingly down upon the watchful
world. They were two poor women, having nothing
to do with society. Half bohemians.
