To Thomasina's astonishment Eleanor burst into tears, and rising, overwhelmed with mortification, went indoors.
"She ain't very well," explained Mrs. Bent, who was overwhelmed also. "Please do excuse her, Miss Davis. She has studied hard and she has practiced too much since she got her piano. That is, she did, but she don't now."
"Perhaps she ought to see Dr. Green."
"Perhaps." But Mrs. Bent's forehead did not smooth itself out at the suggestion. Her anxieties tightened about her daily like a coil of wire long ago flung out and now being wound closer and closer.
Thomasina said nothing to Mrs. Lister about Basil's story. They had never talked about him, for though they had been intimate companions, Mary Alcestis had shut her out with every one else from her grief. She believed that Thomasina had thought even when they were children that she did not love him enough, was not always amiable with him. Not love Basil! It was because she had loved him so dearly, so desperately, that she had tried to watch over him, to lead him, to admonish him. A woman who had never been really in love, who had never married, who had never had children, who had always maintained even toward Dr. Lister an air of mental equality, could not be expected to know the height and depth of love which Mary Alcestis knew. Thomasina, for all her bright mind and all her knowledge of many things, had had little experience of life's realities.
From others the Listers had comments in plenty. "To the relatives of Basil Everman, Waltonville, Pennsylvania," had come to be a familiar address to the postmaster. Editors wrote asking whether there had not been preserved other compositions of Basil Everman. They would welcome even fragmentary notes. Could not anything be found by searching? Dr. Lister went to the attic and opened the little trunk and took the Euripides and the Æschylus down to his study. He laid his hand for an instant on the upper drawer of the old bureau where Basil's clothes were packed, but did not open it. These clothes should long, long ago have been given away or burned.
A few old friends wrote to Dr. Scott for information about his distinguished fellow citizen. The story was to be followed in "Willard's" by "Roses of Pæstum" and "Storm." It promised to be fashionable to reprint old material. Dr. Lister heard nothing from Mr. Utterly, but imagined him swelling with pride and heard his sharp, high voice going on interminably about the rights of the public in all the details of an author's life.
Richard sat about quietly, holding a book in his hand, but not reading. His first experience with pain appalled him. So this was the world, was it? this was life? Was this dull shade the real color of the sky, this heavy vapor the atmosphere? He could not reconcile so malevolent a trick of fate with any conception of benevolence. Presently he began to resent his misery. He had done nothing to deserve this pain.
To his side, as he sat in Dr. Lister's study or on the porch, his mother made frequent journeys.
"Dinner-time, Richard," said Mary Alcestis gently. "Fried chicken, Richard," she would add hopefully. Or, "'Manda has just finished baking, Richard. Would you like a little cake? It would please 'Manda, Richard." Or—now Mrs. Lister's heart throbbed with hope—"Would you like to have the piano tuned, Richard?"