"The question," replied Darrow, with an energy that shook the little car, "goes as deep as hell!"
They were driving rapidly up Grace Street; and as they shot past the club on the corner, Stephen noticed the serene aristocratic profile of Peyton at one of the brilliantly lighted windows. A little farther on, when they turned into Franklin Street, he saw that the old print shop was in darkness, except for the lights in the rooms of the caretaker and the lodgers in the upper storey. Corinna had gone home, he supposed, and he wondered idly if she were with Benham? As they went on they passed the house of the Blairs, where he caught a glimpse of Margaret on the porch, parting from the handsome young clergyman. The sight stirred him strangely, as if the memory of his dead life had been awakened by a scent or a faded flower in a book. How different he was from the boy Margaret had known in that primitive period which people defined as "before the war"! It was as if he had belonged then to some primary emotional stratum of life. All the complex forces, the play and interplay of desire and repulsion, of energy and lassitude, had developed in the last two or three years.
On either side, softly shaded lights were shining from the windows, and women, in rich furs, were getting out of luxurious cars. It was the world that Stephen knew; life moulded in sculptural forms and encrusted with the delicate patina of tradition. Here was all that he had once loved; yet he realized suddenly, with a sensation of loneliness, that here, not in the mean streets, he felt, as Vetch would have said, "stranger than Robinson Crusoe." Something was missing. Something was lost that he could never recover. Was it Vetch, after all, who had shown him the way out, who had knocked a hole in the wall?
When Darrow stopped the car before the Culpeper gate, Stephen turned and held out his hand. "Thank you," he said simply. "I shall see you again."
Crossing the pavement with a rapid step, he entered the gate and ran up the steps to the porch between the white columns. As he passed into the richly tempered glow of the hall, it seemed to him that an invisible force, an aroma of the past, drifted out of the old house and enveloped him like the sweetness of flowers. He was caught again, he was submerged, in the spirit of race.
A little later, when he was passing his mother's door, he glanced in and saw her standing before the mirror in her evening gown of gray silk, with the foam-like ruffles of rose-point on her bosom and at her elbows, which were still round and young looking.
Catching his reflection in the glass, she called out in her crisp tones, "My dear boy, where on earth have you been? You know we promised to dine with Julia, and then to go to those tableaux for the benefit of the children in Vienna. She has worked so hard to make them a success that she would never forgive us if we stayed away."
"Yes, I know. I had forgotten," he replied. Why was he always forgetting? Then he asked impulsively, while pity burned at white heat within him, "Is Father here? I want to speak to him before we go out."
"He came in an hour ago," said Mrs. Culpeper; and as she spoke the mild leonine countenance of Mr. Culpeper, vaguely resembling some playful and domesticated king of beasts, appeared at the door of his dressing-room.
"Do you wish to see me, my boy?" he asked affectionately. "We were just wondering if you had forgotten and stayed at the club."