As he turned into Pompton Avenue and started up the long slope crowned by the garish white marble Mausoleum, his step was as strong and untired as an athlete’s. On his frame of steel and inscrutable face the untold strain of past weeks had left no visible mark.
A few steps in advance of him, and going in the same direction, slouched a lank, enervated figure.
The Railroader, by the gleam of a street lamp, recognized Gerald, and moved faster to catch up with him. At such rare intervals as he had time to think of domestic affairs, Caleb was more than a little concerned of late over the behavior of this only son of his. Since the visit of his wife to Granite, Gerald’s demeanor had undergone a change that had puzzled even his father’s acute mind. He had waxed listless, taciturn and unnaturally docile. No command seemed too distasteful for him to execute uncomplainingly. No outbreak of rough sarcasm or wrath from Caleb could draw from him a retort, nor so much as a show of interest. Conover knew the lad had taken to drinking heavily and frequently, but also that Gerald’s deepest potations apparently had no other outward effect than to increase his listless apathy.
Partly from malice, partly to rouse the youth, Conover had thrown upon him many details of campaign work. To the older man’s wonderment Gerald had accomplished every task with a quiet, wholly uninterested competence that was so unlike his old self as to seem the labor of another man. More and more, since Anice’s departure, Conover had come to lean on Gerald’s help. And now it no longer astonished him to find such help capably given. Yet the father was not satisfied.
“It ain’t natural,” he said to himself, as he now overhauled his son. “Ain’t like Jerry. Something’s the matter with him. He’s getting to be some use in the world. But he’ll go crazy, too, if he keeps up those moony ways of his. He needs a shaking up.”
He instituted the shaking-up process in literal form by a resounding slap between Gerald’s narrow shoulders. But even this most maddening of all possible salutations evoked nothing but a listless “Hello, father,” from its victim.
“Start Weaver off for Grafton?” queried Caleb, falling into step with his son.
“Yes.”
“Make out any of that padrone list I told you to frame up for me?”
“I’ve just finished it. Here it is.”