The room to which Marcia had assigned him was under the eaves and had not yet been ceiled. Through its one window poured in a flood of summer moonlight.
To the old campaigner the bare quarters were not physically uncomfortable. He had slept—and slept snug—in worse beds, and indeed in no bed at all.
But his thoughts were stretching him on a couch of fire.
Now that the miserable day was over, he had time to think, time to realize. And his reflections turned him heart-sick. At times he would sink into an apathy of misery. Again a wave of angry shame would scourge him.
This was his post of responsibility, of protectorship—to be assigned to the office of unpaid servant and unwelcome hanger-on in the house of his own son! To endure weeks, perhaps months of snubs, of petty insults, of orders worse than insults. To have his cronies of the Eagle see him pottering around town on household errands such as in those days were usually performed in Ideala by negro servants.
He could hear in anticipation old Stage’s disgusting toothful chuckle.
To drink he had turned for refuge, in every crisis or bitterness, for the past fourteen years. And to drink and its nepenthe his mind now rushed. He was prompted to get up and dress and go to the Eagle. The barroom there would not be closed for another half-hour.
Then he remembered that Marcia, following her nightly custom, had locked the lower doors and had put their keys into her housewife-bag. The lower windows, too, were lock-shuttered.
There was, clearly, no egress by the ordinary route.
As difficulties arose, his thirst increased with them, and grew to a gnawing, sentient thing. And with added desire came calculation.