“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Nearly a year now.”
“I thought it had been ten.”
Mrs. Blair laughed as she said: “Connie was wishing this morning that he’d marry her and get it over with.”
CHAPTER XXII
AN ADVERTISEMENT OF DESTINY
The first days of spring contrasted strongly with Marley’s mood. Because of some mysterious similarity in the two seasons he found the melancholy suggestion of fall in this spring, just as, with his high-flown hopes, he had found some of the joyous suggestion of spring in the autumn before. But as failure followed failure, he began to feel more and more an alien in Macochee; he had a sense of exile among his own kind, he was tortured by the thought that here, in a world where each man had some work to do and where, as it seemed, all men had suddenly grown happy in that work, there was no work for him to do.
He was young, healthy, and ambitious; he had given years to what he had been taught was a necessary preparation, and then suddenly, just as he felt himself ready for life, he found that there was no place in life for him. As he went about seeking employment there was borne in on him a sense of criticism and opposition, and he was depressed and humiliated. By the end of the winter he disliked showing himself anywhere; he no longer stopped in the McBriar House of an afternoon to watch Lawrence and Halliday at the billiards they played so well; he thought he detected a coolness in Lawrence’s treatment of him. He felt, or imagined, this coolness in everybody’s attitude now, and finally began to suspect it in the Blairs.
“What’s the matter?” asked Powell, one morning. “You ain’t sick, are you?”
Marley shook his head.
“Well, something ails you. I can see that.” He waited for Marley to speak. “Is there anything I can do for you?”