Still, the deliberative habits of his curiously sensitive and conventional nature were stronger than the force of his last and deepest attachment. Three days followed his interview with Viola, and he had not yet gone to see her. He could not bring himself to intrude upon her. Her girl’s passion of shame and grief seemed a sanctuary into which no man’s coarse eye should look. He thought of her with a deep, almost reverential tenderness, but he did not feel as if he ought to see her till the first anguish of her discovery had spent itself. Then—then—he would take her in his arms, and there would be nothing to say, only to ask her to forgive him, to hear her say it, and then happiness—happiness—happiness—on to the end of time.
On the fourth day he decided to send her some flowers. But after he had bought them it seemed to him so meaningless, so banal, to send such a formal offering, one that he had sent so often to women for whom his sentiments were so widely different, that he suddenly changed his mind, and ordered the flowers to be sent to his sister-in-law, who was just then in town. When he walked away from the florist’s he looked rather ashamed of himself and of his burst of sentiment. But what did he want to send her flowers for? He wanted to see her, to take her hands in his and look down deep into those beautiful gray eyes and say—perhaps not say anything. She and he understood.
He made up his mind that he would go on the morrow, and on this decision he went to sleep with a light heart. In the morning he was awakened by a messenger to say that his brother Mortimer had returned from the country seriously ill. He was at the house on Pacific Avenue inside an hour. Mortimer had come home a week before with a bad cold which had developed into a dangerous case of pneumonia. Maud Gault was helpless and distracted. Her brother-in-law spent the day in attending to the numerous duties which crop up with sickness, and in the evening telegraphed for Letitia.
For the four following days Mortimer Gault hung between life and death, brooded over by a frantic wife, three doctors, two nurses, a fond sister-in-law, and an extremely anxious brother. The tie between the two men was very close—John had never realized how close till those four days of desperate anxiety were over. During this time, as he sat either by his brother’s bedside or in one of the rooms adjoining, or made hasty visits to his office, he thought of Viola and wondered if she was puzzled by his lengthened absence. He did not think that she would misunderstand it. Like many men, he took it for granted that her knowledge of his character and affairs had been as thorough as the knowledge his superior insight and experience had given him into all that pertained to her.
On the sixth day after his brother’s summons Mortimer was pronounced out of danger. This was the first opportunity John had had of seeing Viola.
At four o’clock he alighted from the car that had carried him across town to the old quarter about South Park. As he passed through the dingy side streets holiday reigned in his heart. Life in the past seemed dun and dreary compared to what it had become under the influence of the still, almost rapt joy which now possessed him. An immense, deep tenderness seemed to well from his heart over all his being. His love for Viola seemed to have made him see and feel all that was love-worthy in others—in the children that ran across his path or played in chattering groups in the gutters, the women he met trudging home with baskets on their arms, the lean-shanked boys playing ball in the deserted gardens, the tousled young matrons exchanging gossip from open upper windows. He had never noticed these people before, save with cold repugnance; now he seemed to be able to see into them and note their justifiable ambitions, their unselfish struggles, their smiling, patient courage. The thought passed through his mind that perhaps this exalted, unusual affection was the love of the future state, the happiness that awaits the liberated soul.
He turned the last corner and came in sight of the house. For the first few advancing steps he did not realize what gave it an unfamiliar look. Then, as he approached, he saw that the vines which had hung in bunches about the bay-window were cut away. There were frilled white curtains in the lower windows. He drew near, staring astonished through his glasses, each step revealing some innovation.
They were evidently renovating the whole place. The two thick-set brick posts that supported the gate had been painted. The steps to the porch had been mended with new wood. Then, as he put his hand forward to unlatch the gate, he saw a woman—a broad-backed, red-necked woman in a blue print dress—kneeling on the ground just below the bay-window, evidently gardening. The sight surprised him into immobility, and for a moment he stood motionless, gazing at the back of her head, where her hair was twisted into a tight and uncompromising coil about as big as a silver dollar.
The next moment he pressed the latch, and the gate opened with a click. The woman started and turned round. Evidently greatly surprised at the figure her glance encountered, she straightened herself from her stooping posture, eying him curiously and wiping her earthy hands on her apron.
“Is Miss Reed in?” he said, advancing up the flagged walk.