It was a day with which to reckon, there was no doubt about that. An autumn day of silence, crispness, and colour. Suddenly, something Manly had said came hurtingly into Northrup’s consciousness: “... or a woman’s face!”
Then, because of the day and a certain regained strength, Northrup laughed and shook off that impression of having left something behind him and set off at a brisk rate on the road to the inn. He soon came to the lake. It lay to the right of the road. The many-coloured hills rose protectingly on the left. All along the edge of the water a flaming trail of sumach marked the curves where the obliging land withdrew as the lake intruded.
“I might be a thousand miles from home,” Northrup thought as he swung along.
In reality, he had been only a week on his way and had taken it easy. He had made no plans; had walked until he was weary, had slept where he could find quarters, and was doing what he had all his life wanted to do, and which at last Manly had given him courage to do: leave the self that circumstances had evolved and take to the open trail, seeking, as Manly had figuratively put it, his real self.
During his long illness reality seemed to have fallen from his perceptions––or was it unreality? He knew that he must find out or he could never again hope to take his place among men with any assurance. As far as he could he must cut himself off from the past, blot out the time-honoured prejudices that might or might not be legitimate. He must settle that score!
Northrup was a tall, lean man with a slant of the body that suggested resistance. His face, too, carried out the impression. The eyes, deep set and keenly gray, brooded questioningly when the humour of a situation did not control them. The mouth was not an architectural mouth; the lines had been evolved; the mouth was still in the making. It might become hard or bitter: it could never become cruel. There was hope in the firm jaw, and the week of outdoor air and sun had done much to remove the pallor of sickness and harden the muscles.
With every mile that set him apart from his old environment the eyes grew less gloomy; the lines of the mouth more relaxed: in fact, Northrup’s appearance at that moment might have made Manly sympathize with the creator of Frankenstein. The released Northrup held startling possibilities.
Striding ahead, whistling, swinging his stick, he permitted himself to recall the face of the woman in the yellow house. He had taken the faces of women in the past largely for granted. They represented types, ages, periods. Only once before had he become aware of what Life, as he had not known it, could do to women’s faces: While he was writing his last book––the one that had lifted him from a low literary level and set him hopefully upon a higher––he had lived, for a time, on the lower East Side of New York; had confronted the ugly results of an existence evolved from chance, not design.