He took his departure politely and formally, but he had all the sensations of flight. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed the moment he was out of the house. “To think I was on the point of letting myself in for her! What is a woman, anyhow? Some confounded provision Nature makes against her own defeat—a snare laid for us, nothing else. They have their own mind and purposes, contrary to our mind and purposes, whether they are good or bad. Something infernally tricky about the bad ones: something infernally permanent about the good ones. They all want to set, like hens,” he snorted. “No wonder Cutter kicked out. Don’t blame him. She’s crazy, crazy as a loon, if she is not worse, and of course she isn’t that. Well, the joke is on me, not Cutter. And mum’s the word when I get back to New York. Children! Gad, she must be planning an orphanage. Wonder if he knows what she’s doing with his money. Wonder if this town is on to the racket.”
He halted under the first street light and looked at his watch; barely time to meet Arnold at the hotel. They were to dine together and discuss the sale of the mining property which was to be handled through the Shannon National Bank. He quickened his step. He must get off on the eight o’clock express for New York. He had received a shock, a revulsion of his romantic emotions. Something distasteful had happened to him. He wanted to get away and recover from this nausea.
We all excite a certain amount of interest among our fellow men, not because we are interesting, perhaps, but because we live, and to that extent are in a degree mysterious. But when suddenly a man or woman becomes aware of a silent and persistent attention, it is disconcerting, because in secret, at least, he knows he has done enough to queer himself, if it should be known or even suspected. He has, however, the usual human confidence in the deferred publication of these deeds until the day of all revelations, when the Final Courts sit to judge all men. At this end of time it will not matter, because of the leveling effects of knowing all men even as they know him.
In my opinion this will be a day of gasping astonishments among the dusty saints and sinners hurriedly summoned so long after they shall have forgotten even their virtues, much less their sins, which in the flesh we manage to bury beyond painful recollection as soon as possible. But now and then we get a whiff of what will happen, when a great and good man in the community defaults and absconds with the church funds. Meanwhile the news that still travels fastest is the news of some one’s business which is nobody else’s business.
CHAPTER XVIII
The next day after Shippen’s visit Helen went into Shannon to make some purchases and to make sure of the amount of her balance at the bank.
When she stepped from the car in front of Brim’s general merchandise store, it was as if she had stepped into a foreign land. The street, all things about her, were so familiar that she only remembered afterwards the strangeness of familiar faces. Two men whom she knew passed her with their eyes down. A woman regarded her with furtive curiosity and returned her salutation with the briefest bow, as if she did not really know her. All this happened so quickly that she was not yet aware that something very personal to her was happening.
She was still off her guard when Mrs. Flitch sailed by her between the lace and stocking counter, merely giving her an eye-for-an-eye look, but with no further recognition, although Helen had wished her a “Good afternoon, Mrs. Flitch.” She disposed of this hint by wondering what she had done to Mrs. Flitch, because this lady was notoriously sensitive. She had a turgid temper and reserved the right to show her poverty and independence on the slightest provocation by ceasing to speak to you.