Harry surprised himself by the patience with which he listened to her. In him, as in his cousin—his pattern—ran a vein of tact when the crisis demanded, through and between the stratum of bold sensuousness and selfishness which made up the basis of his character.
And so as he listened, in the meanness and meagerness of his soul, he kept thinking, “I will let her down easy—no need for a scene.”
It was narrow and little, but it was all that could come into the soul of his narrowness.
For we cannot think beyond our fountain head, nor can we even dream beyond the souls of the two things who gave us birth. There are men born in this age of ripeness, born with an alphabet in their mouths and reared in the regal ways of learning, who can neither read nor write. And yet had Shakespeare been born without a language, he would have carved his thoughts as pictures on the trees.
Harry Travis was born as so many others are—not only without a language, but without a soul within him upon which a picture might be drawn.
And so it kept running in his mind, quietly, cold-bloodedly, tactfully down the narrow, crooked, slum-alleys of his mind: “I will—I will drop her—now!” She ceased—there were tears in her eyes and her face was blanched whiter even than the cloud.
He arose quickly and glanced at the setting sun: “Oh, say, but I must get the Gov'nor's mare back. Jim will miss her at feeding time.”
There was a laugh on his lips and his foot was already in the stirrup. “Sorry to be in such a hurry just now, too—because there is so much I want to say to you on that subject—awful sorry—but the Gov'nor will raise Cain if he knows what I've done. I'll just write you a long letter to-night—and I'll be over, maybe, soon—ta—ta—but this mare, confound her—see how she cuts up—so sorry I can't stay longer—but I'll write—to-night.”
He threw her a kiss as he rode off.
She sat dazed, numbed, with the shallowness of it all—the shale of sham which did not even conceal the base sub-stratum of deceit below.