XII
THE ONE THING WE LACK
GILDERMAN, when he left the club, found that he was in that peculiar psychological state that comes upon one now and then–a state in which one feels that one has not altogether determined to do a certain thing and yet finds one’s self in the very act of doing it. As it had been the day before, so now he found himself possessed by a strange impulsion that drove him forward as though not of his own volition. He walked briskly down towards the depot, but it did not seem to him that he even yet had made up his mind to embark upon the undertaking. Even when he found himself in the depot looking up at the time-clocks, and saw that the next train left in ten minutes–even when he had bought his ticket, it did not seem to him that he had actually determined to do what he was about to do. Such times of almost involuntary progression towards some object comes now and then to every man. It is as though there was some inner will-force that subjected the outer actions, urging them forward to carry the intention through to its conclusion. Gilderman’s mind did not actually resist the impulse that led him to go down to Brookfield. He yielded himself to going, but, at the same time, he did not yield a full and complete concurrence to that inner motive that impelled him to go. The cause of inspiration, though he did not know it, was very profound. It seemed to him that he simply allowed himself to drift as circumstances directed.
When he reached the end of his journey, he found on inquiring at the station that He whom he sought was no longer there, but that He had gone down towards the city that morning. The station-master, who had a little leisure between the trains, told him that he could get a conveyance at the Walton House. There was, he said, a very good livery-stable connected with the hotel. He walked down to the end of the platform with Gilderman and pointed out to him the direction he was to take, and then he stood for a while looking after the young Roman as he walked away across the bridge and down the road.
It was the same direction which Gilderman had taken the day before. Everything seemed strangely familiar to him. There was the bridge and the stream below it, and the open field and the distant row of frame houses. As he passed the tobacco-shop, the woman with whom he had spoken yesterday was standing in the doorway. She looked hard at him as he passed, and Gilderman felt a certain awkward consciousness that she recognized him.
Just beyond the tobacco-shop he turned up a side street towards the hotel. He remembered now having seen it the day before. There were men standing on the rather ramshackle porch in front of the hotel, and they, too, stared hard at Gilderman as he went by. Again, as upon the day before, Gilderman recognized how distinctly out of place he was and how curious the hotel loungers must be regarding him. He was glad when he found himself in the open stable-yard out of their sight.
A man, evidently the innkeeper–a short, stocky, gray-haired man–was standing watching one of the boys bathe the leg of an evidently lame horse. He looked up as Gilderman approached, but he did not move to meet him. Gilderman walked directly up to him and told him what he wanted.
A team? Oh yes, he could have a team. He sized Gilderman up without at all knowing who he really was. Of course he would want something toppy. Then he called to a colored man to go tell Bob to put the little gray to the dog-cart. He held an unlighted cigar between his lips, and he rolled it every now and then from one side of his mouth to the other, looking rather curiously at Gilderman. “I suppose you’re a newspaper reporter?” he said, after giving Gilderman’s person a sweeping look.
“No,” said Gilderman, “I’m not.” He volunteered nothing further, and there was that in his brief denial that did not encourage further question. Every now and then the innkeeper looked curiously at him, but he ventured no further inquiry. There was an indescribable remoteness about the young Roman that repelled, without effort and without offence, any approach at familiarity.
Then they brought the gray horse out of the stable and began to hitch it to the dog-cart. It was, indeed, a neat, toppy little animal, and Gilderman looked upon it with pleasure. The innkeeper went over to see that all was right, pulling here and there at a strap or buckle, and Gilderman, taking out his cigar-case, lit a cigar. The gray sky was beginning to break up into patches of blue, and suddenly the sun shone out and down upon his back. It was very warm. Then the driver jumped to his seat and wheeled the team out into the stable-yard, and Gilderman mounted lightly to the place beside him.
As the horse trotted briskly away down the road Gilderman saw, on a distant hill, a far-away view of the cemetery where he had been the day before. How strange that he should see it so soon again. It looked empty and deserted now. Then presently they had left it behind and were out into the open country. They drove for somewhat over two miles without seeing any sign of Him whom Gilderman sought. There they reached a little rise of ground just outside of a village, and, looking down the stretch of road, they could see that a crowd was gathered about a big stuccoed building, which Gilderman recognized as an inn.