“Joy will be part of the Kingdom of God.”
RENAN.
CHAPTER ONE
Immediately after the wedding Alexina and Molly went South. Molly turned petulant at sight of Aden and Alexina could not blame her; indeed, she and Celeste were of a mind with her as they drove from the station to the hotel.
The horses ploughed through loose, greyish sand, the sidewalks along the street, ostensibly the business thoroughfare, were of board, not in the best of repair, and the skyline of the street was varied according as the frame stores had or did not have a sham front simulating a second story. Men sat on tilted chairs beneath awnings along the way and stared at the occupants of the carriage as it passed. It was mid-afternoon, which, in Aden, seemed to be a glaring, shadeless hour and, but for these occasional somnolent starers, a deserted one. Yet people lived here, existed, spent their lives in this crude, poor hideousness, this mean newness; the Leroys lived here! And that their son would let them, would remain himself!
“What did we come for anyhow?” queried Molly. “The world is full of charming places. You do adopt the queerest notions, Malise.”
Malise sat convicted. It had sounded so alluring, so suggestive of charm and languor; the very name of Aden had breathed a sort of magic.
And Alexina had come, too, buoyed up by a large and epic idea of restitution. How foolish, how young, how almost insulting from the Leroys’ standpoint it suddenly seemed.