Hester was dead. Elim involuntarily walked to a window, gazing with unseeing eyes at the familiar pleasant prospect. A realization flashed unbidden through his mind, a realization like a stab of lightning—he was free. He overbore it immediately, but it left within him a strange tingling sensation. He directed his mind upon Hester and the profitable contemplation of death; but rebellion sprang up within him, thoughts beyond control whirled in his brain.
Free! A hundred impulses, desires, of which—suppressed by his rigid adherence to a code of duty—he had not been conscious, leaped into vitality. His vision of life swung from its focus upon outward and invisible things to a new surprising regard of his own tangible self. He grew aware of himself as an entity, of the world as a broad and various field of exploit and discovery.
There was, his father had bluntly indicated, no place for him at home; and suddenly he realized that his duties at college had been a tedious grind for inconsiderable return. This admission brought to him the realization that he detested the whole thing—the hours in class; the droning negligent recitations of the men; the professor of philosophy and letters' pedantic display; the cramped academic spirit of the institution. The vague resentment he had felt at the half-concealed disdain of his fellows gave place to a fiery contempt for their majority; the covert humility he had been forced to assume—by the thought of Hester and the few miserable dollars of an inferior position—turned to a bitter freedom of opinion.
The hour for supper approached and passed, but Elim did not leave his room. He walked from wall to wall, by turns arrogant and lost in his new situation. Of one thing he was certain—he would give up his occupation here. It might do for some sniveling sycophant of learning and money, but he was going forth to—what?
He heard footfalls in the bare hall below, and a sudden easy desire for companionship seized him; he drew on the sturdy Meikeljohn coat and descended the stairs to the lower floor. Harry Kaperton's door was open and Elim saw the other moving within. He advanced, leaning in the doorway.
“Back early,” Elim remarked. “What's new at Parker's?”
Kaperton was unsuccessful in hiding his surprise at the other's unexpected appearance and direct question. “Why—why, nothing when I left;” then more cordially: “Come in, find a chair. Bottle on the table—oh, I didn't think.” He offered an implied apology to Elim's scruples.
But Elim advanced to the table, where, selecting a decanter at random, he poured out a considerable drink of pale spirits. Harry Kaperton looked at him in foolish surprise.
“Had no idea you indulged!” he ejaculated. “Always took you to be a severe Puritan duck.”
“Scotch,” Elim corrected him, “Presbyterian.”