Yesterday I said good-bye to Ben. I had spent part of every evening with him since Polly's marriage—silent, empty evenings—a quiet, stunned man. Confidence in himself blasted out of him, confidence in human nature, in the world. With no imagination in him to deal with the reasons of Polly's desertion—just a passive acceptance of it as a wall accepts a hole in it made by a cannon ball.
Her name was never called. A stunned, silent man. Clear, joyous steady light in his eyes gone—an uncertain look in them. Strangest of all, a reserve in his voice, hesitation. And courtesy for bluff warm confidence—courtesy as of one who stumblingly reflects that he must begin to be careful with everybody.
His active nature meantime kept on. Life swept him forward—nature did—whether he would or not. I went down late one evening. Evidently he had been working in his room all day; the things Polly must have sent him during all those years were gone. He had on new slippers, a fresh robe, taking the place of the slippers and the robe she had made for him. Often I have seen him tuck the robe in about his neck as a man might reach for the arms of a woman to draw them about his throat as she leans over him from behind.
During our talk that evening he began strangely to speak of things that had taken place years before in Kentucky, in his youth, on the farm; did I remember this in Kentucky, could I recall that? His mind had gone back to old certainties. It was like his walking away from present ruins toward things still unharmed—never to be harmed.
Early next morning he surprised me by coming up, dressed for travel, holding a grip.
"I am going to Kentucky," he said.
I went to the train with him. His reserve deepened on the way; if he had plans, he did not share them with me.
What I make out of it is that he will come back married. No engagement this time, no waiting. Swift marriage for what marriage will sadly bring him. I think she will be young—this time. But she will be, as nearly as possible, like Polly. Any other kind of woman now would leave him a desolate, empty-hearted man for life. He thinks he will be getting some one to take Polly's place. In reality it will be his second attempt to marry Polly.
I am bidding farewell the little group of us. Some one else will have to write of me. How can I write of myself? This I will say: that I think that I am a sheep whose fate it is to leave a little of his wool on every bramble.
I sail next week for England to make my visit to Mr. Blackthorne—at last. Another letter has come from him. He has thrown himself into the generous work of seeing that my visit to him shall make me known. He tells me there will be a house party, a week-end; some of the great critics will be there, some writers. "You must be found out in England widely and at once," he writes.