"Richard is very young," Dr. Scott would remind her in his nervous way. He stammered when he addressed his wife, who seldom allowed him to finish his long, beautiful sentences. Sometimes she helped him with a word, sometimes she finished the sentence herself, radically altering his meaning, and proceeding precipitately to some lighter theme.
He sat opposite his wife and awaited impatiently the moment of release. About twenty-five years after he was married, he had made for himself a refuge in a room adjoining his classroom. Here a single wide window opened upon a part of the prospect which Mrs. Bent and her daughter enjoyed daily; here was a fireplace and here ample space for shelves. He transported himself thither with desk, pamphlets, old books, and all other movable possessions except his clothes, to spend that part of his time which was not devoted to eating or sleeping or teaching. There Mrs. Scott did not seek him out, having everything in her own hands, and needing no advice upon any subject domestic or foreign.
He had an intense desire for a little fame, both because he did not wish to be wholly forgotten, and because he longed for association with those who were working in the same field. He wrote short articles for the "Era" and longer articles for the "Continent," and occasionally he received letters in comment from scholars. He read widely, and his mind, quickened by some modern instance, offered at once a parallel from literature or history. An eruption of Ætna reminded him of magnificent and almost forgotten lines of Cowper; a summer evening recalled stanza upon stanza; in spring he thought in verse.
Occasionally he received for his compositions a small honorarium. The first he had passed with fatal gallantry to Mrs. Scott. When she spent it for an atrocious "Head of an Arab" in Arabian colors, he determined to use the next for books. But she expected a continuation of these perquisites and was quick to suspect their arrival. Instead of adding new volumes of Pater or old editions of the poetry of Robert Herrick to his library, he added new pieces of statuary and other objects of doubtful value to his wife's collection. When the precious slips of paper passed from his hand, he was tempted to wonder why he had married. But loyalty was a religion with him and he would be loyal even in thought.
The vacant place opposite Cora belonged to her brother Walter, or, as he preferred to sign himself, W. Simpson Scott, a product peculiarly his mother's, moulded by her hand, holding her convictions. Earnestly advised in his boyhood that without a large income one could do and be nothing in the world, he had accepted a position with an uncle, a manufacturer in New York, and had risen until he was now his uncle's chief assistant at a salary well known in Waltonville. He proved himself to be equal to all those commercial emergencies in which a little sharp dealing goes farther than a good deal of hard work. He came home about twice a year, bringing with him the most recent of slang, the most fashionable of wardrobes, the latest musical-comedy songs, and the most contemptuous opinion of Waltonville.
To the Scott household the closing of the college for the summer brought little change. The time that Dr. Scott had spent in the classroom he would spend now in his study; the time that Cora had spent with her books she would spend embroidering. Mrs. Scott's life would know at first no change, but in August she would take Cora to Atlantic City to meet Walter, and Dr. Scott would spend a month in heavenly quiet and with an entirely negligible indigestion.
When Evan Utterly reached the porch steps, Mrs. Scott stood still at the foot of the stairway which she was about to ascend and looked and listened, regretting the chance which had taken her husband to the porch before her. Somehow Utterly in his beautiful white clothes had escaped her attention at the morning exercises, or she would have had up to this time an uncomfortable period of speculation.
Vaguely provoked because she was not summoned at once, she stood still, her eyes roving from the parlor, with its gilt chairs and its pale upholstery, to the sitting-room, with its table spread with Cora's presents. There could be no better time to entertain a stranger!
She heard Utterly comment upon the Attic beauty of the campus; then his voice sank. He was still talking about Waltonville's charm, but she suspected a confidential communication. She determined to wait until she heard more. There was only one situation in life in which she was truly patient and in such a situation she now waited and listened. When a single clear statement reached her alert ears, she moved nearer to the door. The stranger had said that he was a member of the staff of "Willard's Magazine"! She had a passion for literature, she believed, and here was doubtless a very celebrated literary man at her door! She laid her hand lightly upon the latch, thereby producing a little sound which the stranger could not hear, but which Dr. Scott could not mistake. Surely he would rise at once and invite her to join them!