WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL
I
It was past eleven when Percival got back to "Post Offic." He had been absent seven hours. He felt himself removed by thrice as many years from the moment when he had flung away from Aunt Maggie to work off by active exercise the feelings aroused in him when, to his demands that he must be doing something with his life, she had prayed him only wait.
Day then, night now, and he as changed.
The mood he brought her was unlike any he had proposed should be his case. On Plowman's Ridge before he saw Japhra he had imagined for his return a petulant, a trying-to-be-calm scene in which he should repeat his purpose that an end must be made of the purposeless way of life in which she was keeping him. By Fir-Tree Pool, with wise Japhra propounding how a man must encourage his spirit and defeat his flesh, he had imagined himself gentle with dear Aunt Maggie; gently showing her what restlessness had him, persuading her to his ends, or, of his love for her, accepting her wishes. Now he was come back and neither case was his. Day then, night now, and he as changed. Now he had lived that hour with Dora in the drive; now he had kissed her; now had heard her breathe "I shall always love you." Gone every thought of petulant distress; gone Japhra's counsels—gone boyhood, manhood come!
The change was stamped upon his face, figured in his air. Aunt Maggie looked up eagerly as he entered. She had waited him anxiously. He stood a moment on the threshold of the room and looked at her with steady, reckoning eyes. She saw; and she greeted him fearfully. "Why, Percival, dear, how very late you are," she said.
He replied: "It took me longer to get back than I expected."
His tone matched his aspect and the look in his eyes. Aunt Maggie's voice trembled a little: "You must have been a long way, dear?"
"A good many miles," he said, and came forward and went to his place at the table where supper was laid, and sat down.
"Are you very tired, dear?—you look tired."