“Is that so?” asked the other. “When did it come out?”
“I don’t know whether it’s announced yet,” was the reply, “but one of the fellows at the bank told me, and I suppose he got it from Marge: he knows him very well.”
Phil’s appetite departed at once: it seemed to him his life would accompany it. His mind was in a daze; his heart was like lead. His feelings reached his face, and, abstracted and stupid though he felt, he could not help seeing that he was attracting attention, so he paid his bill, went out, and hurried along the street. The first distinct impression of which he was conscious was that there need no longer be any doubt about how to say good-by to Lucia; a formal courteous note would suffice: he would not trust himself to meet her. Could he blame her? No: he certainly had no claim upon her heart, nor any reason to really believe she had regarded him as more than a pleasant acquaintance. She had let him kiss her hand; but had not she herself taught him that this was merely an old-time form of salutation? She had the right to marry whom she would; yet Marge—— The thought of that man—that lazy, listless, cold, dry stick—being bound for life to a merry, sensitive soul like Lucia drove him almost mad.
Well, the blow was a blessing in one way: now he could go back to the farm without any fears or hesitation. Go back?—yes, he would hasten back: he could not too soon put behind him the city and all its memories. After all, it was not the city he had dreaded to leave; it was Lucia, and whatever through her seemed necessary. Now that she must be forgotten, all else might go. He would go back to the hotel, pack his clothes,—how he longed for the money they had cost him!—write a line to Lucia, and take the first train for home. Home! How shamefully he had forgotten it in the past fortnight! Perhaps this disappointment was his punishment: if so, although severe, it was no more than just. Home! Why, he would rejoice to be once more inside his dirty oil-skin fishing-clothes,—to obliterate the city man he had been aping for a fortnight. Heaven had evidently intended him to be a drudge: well, heaven’s will should be done.
Thus reasoned the spirit; but the flesh did not rapidly conform to its leader’s will. Phil’s teeth and lips were twitching; he felt it was so; he noticed that people stared at him, just as they did while he was in the restaurant. This at least he could escape, and he would: so he turned into the first side-street, to avoid the throng. Within a moment he feared he was losing his reason, for it seemed to him that people were pursuing him. There certainly was an unusual clatter of hurrying feet behind him, but—pshaw!—it was probably a crowd running to a fire or a fight. The noise increased; several wild yells arose, and some one shouted, “Stop thief!” Then Phil’s heart stopped beating, for a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. He started violently aside, but there was no shaking off the grasp of that heavy hand: he looked wildly around, and into the eyes of his father.
“Bless you, old boy, how—how fast you do walk!” panted the old man. “I was ’way up—on the other side of the road when—when I saw you turnin’ down here. Sol Mantring said I wouldn’t know you—if I saw you. Why—I knowed you at first sight.”
“Wot’s he done?” bleated a small boy in front, for the crowd had already surrounded the couple.
“What’s who done?” asked the old man, angrily, after he had looked around and seen the crowd. “Why, you tarnal loafers, can’t a man run down the road to catch up with his own son without you thinkin’ there’s somethin’ wrong? I’ve heerd that in New York ev’ry man suspects ev’ry other man of bein’ a thief. Git out! go about your business, if you’ve got any.”
The crowd, looking sadly disappointed and disgusted, slowly dispersed, one very red-faced man remarking that the entire proceeding had been “a durned skin.”
The father and son walked along until comparatively alone; then the father said,—