Ronald waited, and talked to Miss Brandon in the mean while. He had a bereaved air when he arrived, which was calculated to excite sympathy, and his conversation was subdued in tone, and grave in subject. But Sybil did her best to cheer him, and in the fullness of her sympathy did perhaps more than was absolutely necessary. Ronald’s wound was not deep, but he had a firm conviction that it ought to be.
Any man would have thought the same in his place. Certainly, few people would have understood what they felt in such a position. He had grown up believing he was to marry a young and charming woman of whom he was really exceedingly fond, and now he was suddenly told that the whole thing was a mistake. It was enough to break a man’s heart, and yet Ronald’s heart was not broken, and to his great surprise beat nearly as regularly the day after his disaster as it had done during the whole two-and-twenty years of his life. He could not understand his own calmness, and he was sure that he ought to be profoundly grieved over the whole affair, so that his face was drawn into an expression of solemnity somewhat out of keeping with its singular youthful freshness of color and outline.
The idea of devoting himself to the infernal gods as a sacrifice to the blighted passion had passed away in the course of the drive on the previous afternoon. He had felt no inclination to drown his cares in drink during the evening, but on the contrary he had gone for a brisk walk in Beacon Street, and had ascertained by actual observation, and the assistance of a box of matches, the precise position of No. 936. This had occupied some time, as it is a peculiarity of Boston to put the number of the houses on the back instead of the front, so that the only certain course to follow in searching for a friend, is to reach the rear of his house by a circuitous route through side streets and back alleys, and then, having fixed the exact position of his residence by astronomical observation, to return to the front and inquire for him. It is true that even then one is frequently mistaken, but there is nothing else to be done.
It was perhaps not extraordinary that Ronald should be at some pains to find out where Mrs. Wyndham lived, for Sybil was the only person besides Joe and Miss Schenectady whom he had yet met, and he wanted company, for he hated and dreaded solitude with his whole heart. Having traveled all the night previous, he went home and slept a sounder sleep than falls to the lot of most jilted lovers.
The next day he rose early and “did” Boston. It did not take him long, and he said to himself that half of it was very jolly, and half of it was too utterly beastly for anything. The Common, and the Gardens, and Commonwealth Avenue, you know, were rather pretty, and must have cost a deuce of a lot of money in this country; but as for the State House, and Paul Revere’s Church, and the Old South, and the city generally, why, it was simply disgusting, all that, you know. And in the afternoon he went to see Sybil Brandon, and began talking about what he had seen.
She was, if anything, more beautiful than ever, and as she looked at him, and held out her hand with a friendly greeting, Ronald felt himself actually blushing, and Sybil saw it and blushed too, a very little. Then they sat down by the window where there were plants, and they looked out at the snow and the people passing. Sybil asked Ronald what he had been doing.
“I have been doing Boston,” he said. “Of course it was the proper thing. But I am afraid I do not know much about it.”
“But do you like it?” she asked. “It is much more important, I think, to know whether you like things or dislike them, than to know everything about them. Do not you think so?”
“Oh, of course,” said Ronald. “But I like Boston very much; I mean the part where you live. All this, you know–Commonwealth Place, and the Public Park, you know, and Beacon Avenue, of course, very much. But the city “–
“You do not like the city?” suggested Sybil, seeing he hesitated, and smiling at his strange confusion of names.