It would always require a longer time for Mauney to become roused than for most people, in any vital matter. He would be sure to react very slowly to the irritating stimuli. He would gain cognizance of issues very tardily, and keep on half-doubting things that he hated to believe.
Friday, at noon, he crossed Church Street, from the collegiate to his boarding house, conscious of only one thing, that the morning’s work had been utterly unsatisfactory. Just why his discipline over his classes had weakened he was not ready even now to enquire. The faces of half a hundred students can be very unfriendly at times. They can act as a unified mirror to throw back at a teacher the gloom, the uncertainty, the desperate undercurrent of his own mood. There had been slight lapses of memory when those inquisitive faces had roused him to complete the phrases almost escaped. No doubt he had appeared to them stupidly absent-minded. In the principal’s office there had been a queer conversation, too. Dover had only been explaining some detail of routine, but he had worn an expression of impatient emphasis, as though he were trying to impress an idiot. That, too, had been due, no doubt, to Mauney’s own preoccupation.
Noon recess on this Friday marked the end of the week’s work. A half-holiday had been granted for some reason or other—preparation for field-day, now that he thought of it. He entered his room with a grateful sense of finding at last shelter and opportunity to think.
He knew that these bright days, with streets flooded by dry, hard sunlight were important and sombre days. Other people seemed to be free of care. Field sports and picnics up the river, and long, refreshing drives along the river road—these enjoyments were not, and could not be, for him. Nor was this September so much different from all his past autumns. Each fall had found him enmeshed in difficulties. He was beginning to perceive that his life lay just outside the border of the sunlight. And that, unprofitable though all his problems might be, they were, nevertheless, undeniably with him. He could not shirk them. Perhaps some strength might be gained in the effort to solve them. At any rate he realized quite clearly, as he removed his coat and tossed it on the bed, that the problem to-day was Freda MacDowell.
First of all he would shave. He had no sooner poured a little water into the basin on the washstand than the landlady knocked on his door.
“Come in, Mrs. Hudson,” he said wearily.
As she entered, clothed as usual in her plain, print gown, his eyes focused on a yellow envelope in her hand.
“It’s a telegraph,” she announced officiously, but without proffering it. “And it’s afther coming while ye were at the schule, Mister Bard. Poor mon! I due hope as it is nothin’ alarming. It’s the sight of a telegraph that I due dhread, Mister Bard. For wanse, several years ago, I did receive wan meself.”
“But it may be nothing,” said Mauney cheerfully, as he reached for it.