A sudden gust of wind blew the door to with a crash, and an equally sudden impulse made him go hastily down the steps and along the path.
The front door opened.
“Eddie!” she called. “Come back this instant!”
He strode up the road and turned the corner.
“Do her good!” he said grimly to himself. “Now I’m out, I’ll just stay out for a while. I’ll smoke, and take a stroll.”
Unfortunately, however, he had changed into an old coat, and had nothing to smoke with him, and no money to buy anything. Also, he was hatless. He shrugged his shoulders with a fine gesture of indifference. He could stroll, anyhow, and think—think this thing out to the bitter end.
It was all bitter, beginning and middle as well as the end. Mildred wished to make a slave of him, to break his spirit, to destroy his manly pride. No—this should not be!
It was a strange, uneasy sort of night—blowing up for rain, he thought. Filmy black clouds went racing across a pallid sky, and the trees rocked and tossed. It was cool, too, for May. He quickened his steps a little.
“I’m upset,” he thought. “I’m more upset than I realized.”
Somehow, the familiar suburban street had a new and almost sinister aspect. The trim houses with their lighted windows looked like houses on the stage—delusions, with no backs to them. Faint and eerie music was coming through some one’s radio. A dog howled, far away. Everything was different.