Careless of all else, he remained until six o'clock absorbed and confused by what he read. Words and phrases like "telekinesis," "teleplastic," "parasitic personalities," "externalized motricity," "bio-psychic energy" danced about in his brain like fantastic insects. He fairly staggered with the weight of the conceptions laid upon him, and when at last he went out into the streets he had forgotten his race for place behind the counter.
It was nearly sunset, and his afternoon—his day—had gone for naught! He was as far as ever from securing work—and wages—to keep his little mother and himself from the corrupting care of charity. He was a bit disgusted with himself, too, for wasting valuable time, and yet he was enough of the scholar to feel a glow of delight in the company he had been keeping. There was something large and free in the attitude of those Italian men toward the universe, and before he had walked far he promised himself to go again and continue that line of investigation. As he walked up the avenue he came face to face with the dark, thin-faced girl who had knocked at his mother's door the day before. She seemed about to speak, but he passed her with blank look.
He found his mother at the window waiting for him, and upon seeing him she hurried to meet him at the head of the stairs.
"What luck?" she called, with a smile.
He shook his head. "Nothing doing," and received her caress rather coldly, for he perceived Mrs. Joyce in the room. "It isn't so easy to find a job. I'll be lucky if I dig one up in a week, I suppose."
Mrs. Joyce greeted him cordially. "I've just been making a proposition to your mother, Victor—I hope you'll let me call you Victor—which is, that we all go abroad for a few months till this storm blows over."
He looked at her with gravely interrogating glance. "How could we do that?"
She explained. "You both go as my guests, of course. We can motor through France in June and get up into Switzerland in July."
He sank into a chair and dazedly studied her. "Why should you offer to do all that for us?"
"Because I am very grateful to your mother for what she has done for me. She not only cured my mother of cancer—she has cured me of despair. She has taught me to believe again in the mystery of the world."