“Yes, I’m glad, now.”
“Maybe it was for the best,” said Carman.
When they had left him Marley quickly and crudely tried to change the subject, but Powell insisted on saying:
“I want you to know that I’ve always felt like a dog over that.”
“Oh, don’t mention it,” Marley begged. “I was honest when I told Carman I was glad it turned out as it did.”
“Yes,” said Powell, “I guess it was all for the best.”
To Marley’s relief they dropped the matter then, and went over to Con’s Corner. There Powell lighted a cigar, and Marley could not resist asking for a brand of cigarettes, the kind that Weston smoked, though he knew that Con would not have them. He felt mean about it afterward, but he could not forego some of the petty distinctions of living in a city and he indulged a little revenge toward the people who had deserted him in what had seemed to him his need, and now, in what seemed to them his prosperity, were so ready to rally to him. Marley went home at noon feeling that his triumph had been almost as great as if he had come home in a private car.
His triumph soon was at an end; they came to the afternoon of the day when Marley was to return to Chicago. It was a golden day, with a sun shining out of a sky without clouds, and yet a delicious breeze blew out of the little hills. Marley and Lavinia walked out the white and dusty pike that made the road to Mingo. They walked slowly along the edge of the road, in silence, under the sadness of the parting that was before them. They longed ineffably that the moments might be stayed; somehow they felt they might be stayed by their silence.
But when they had ascended the hill and stood beside the old oak-tree which grew by the road, they looked out across the valley of the Mad River, miles and miles away—across fields now golden with the wheat, or green with the rustling corn that glinted in the sun, off and away to the trees that became vague and dim in the hazy distance. Back whence they had come lay Macochee; they could see the tower of the Court House, the red spire of the Methodist church, the gleam of the sun on some great window in the roof of the car-shops; on the other side of town crawled a train, trailing its smoke behind it. Marley looked at Lavinia—she was leaning against the tree, and as he looked he saw that her blue eyes were filling slowly with tears.
“Isn’t it beautiful!” he said, looking away from her to the simple scenery of Ohio.