Storm halted him with an abrupt gesture of negation.
“I haven’t made any plans yet, Brewster. The maids I’ve got are used to my ways and capable of running things temporarily, although it will be necessary to make other arrangements, of course, if I decide to remain in Greenlea.” The reply was mechanical, for his thoughts were busied with the new vista which the other’s assumption had opened before his mental vision. “I am grateful to Mrs. Brewster for her interest, and if I need the woman of whom she spoke I will let her know. Just now I am drifting; I haven’t looked ahead.”
Barker met him as usual at the station, and during the short drive home he glanced about him at the smug, familiar scene with a buoyant sense of coming escape. To get away! To cut loose now, at once, from all these prying people, the petty social intercourse, the thousand and one things which reminded him of Leila and of what he had done! The revulsion of feeling from the contentment of past years which had swept over him that day culminated with a sudden rush of hatred for it all. The house loomed before him a veritable nightmare, and the coming days had appeared each a separate ordeal from the prospect of which he shrank with unutterable loathing.
He had felt chained to the old order of things by the fear of arousing suspicion if he ran away precipitately, but the one man of whose opinion he had been most apprehensive had himself suggested the way out as the most natural course in the world.
Storm could have laughed at his uneasiness of the morning; the other fellows had been merely embarrassed, that was all, reluctant to mention his tragic bereavement, and trying with awkward constraint to bridge over the chasm. If they took it for granted, as Brewster did, that he would seek a temporary change of scene, the main obstacle was removed from his path. It would be a simple matter to sell the house, and then the world would be before him.
On the hall table he found a letter from George Holworthy, and tore it open with an absent-minded smile. He would soon be free even from old George!
Dear Norman, (he read):
Tried to get out to see you to-night, but must meet Abbott. Had a talk with Jim Potter yesterday. The firm has ordered him to the Coast immediately and he is winding up his affairs here and wants to get rid of his apartment. Willing to rent furnished, just as it stands, cheap, until his lease is up in October. It is a bully little place up on the Drive and the stuff he has there is all a fellow would want to keep a bachelor hall. Why don’t you take it off his hands and close up the house out there? Jim will take his man with him, but you can get another, and New York is the best little old summer resort in the world. Take my advice and get out of that place for a while anyway. I told Jim I’d write you, but you’ve got to speak quick if you want to take him up on it. Think it over.
Yours,
George
Storm folded the letter slowly. He knew Potter, knew the comfortable, even luxurious sort of place his ease-loving soul would have demanded, yet he had wished to go farther afield. The first thought of escape had entailed a vague dream of other countries—South America, perhaps, or the Far East—but now he forced himself sternly back to the realities of the situation.
Such an adventure would mean money, more ready cash than he could command at the moment. It would mean waiting until the house was sold, and burning his bridges as far as the Trust Company was concerned. Moreover, the few thousands the house would bring would not last long, and unless he connected with new business wherever he went, he had nothing to fall back upon but the beggarly three thousand a year which was left from his share of his father’s estate. He must convert the capital into cash, and Foulkes had warned him that that would take time. Could he wait there, within those four walls which had witnessed what he had done?
He dined in a meditative silence, oblivious of the anxious ministrations of Agnes. The empty place opposite, the chair in its new, unaccustomed position against the wall, the silence and shadows all worked upon his mood. Potter’s quarters in town would at least bear no reminders to mock and accuse him at every turn, and drag his treacherous thoughts back to a past which must be buried. He would be free, too, from Brewster and Millard and the rest of them; but on the other hand George would be constantly thrusting his society upon him.