An arm linked within Anthony's, and swung him aside. “Unavoidably detained by merest 'quaintance,” Thomas Meredith explained with ponderous exactitude. Unobserved, they found a place at the table they had occupied earlier in the evening. The latter ordered a fresh bottle, but was persuaded by Anthony to surrender the check which accompanied it.
A sudden hatred for the money that had come too late possessed him: if he had had the whole forty-seven thousand dollars there he would have torn it up, trampled upon it, flung it to the noisome corners of the saloon. It seemed to have become his for the express purpose of mocking at his sorrow, his loss. His hatred spread to include that purity, that virtue, which he had conceived of as something material, an actual possession.... That, at any rate, he might trample under foot, destroy, when and as it pleased him. Eliza was gone and all that was left was valueless. It had been, all unconsciously, dedicated to her; and now he desired to cast it into the mold that held her.
He fingered with a new care the sum in his pocket, an admirably comprehensive plan had occurred to him—he would bury them both, the money and purity, beneath the same indignity. Tom Meredith, he was certain, could direct his purpose to its fulfillment. Nor was he mistaken. The conversation almost immediately swung to the subject of girls, girls gracious, prodigal of their charms. They would sally forth presently and “see the town.” Tom loudly asseverated his knowledge of all the inmates of all the complacent quarters under the gas light. Before a cab was summoned Anthony stumbled mysteriously to the bar, returning with a square, paper-wrapped parcel.
“Port wine,” he ejaculated, “must have it... for a good time.”
LV
A SEEMINGLY interminable ride followed, they rattled over rough stones, rolled with a clacking tire over asphalt. A smell unnamable, fulsome, corrupt, hung in Anthony's nostrils; the driver objurgated his horse in a desperate whisper; Tom's head fell from side to side on his breast. The mists surged about Anthony, veiling, obscuring all but the sullen purpose compressing his heart, throbbing in his brain.
There was a halt, a rocking pavement and unctuous tones. Then a hall, a room, and the tinny racket of a piano, feminine voices that, at the same time, were hoarsely sexless, empty, like harsh echoes flung from a rocky void. A form in red silk took possession of Anthony's hand, sat by his side; a hot breath, a whisper, flattened against his ear. At times he could distinguish Tom's accents; he seemed to be arguing masterfully, but a shrill, voluble stream kept pace with him, silenced him in the end.
Anthony strove against great, inimical forces to maintain his sanity of action, ensure his purpose: he sat with a grim, haggard face as rigid as wood, as tense as metal. The cloudy darkness swept over him, impenetrable, appalling; through it he seemed to drop for miles, for years, for centuries; it lightened, and he found himself clutching the sides of his chair, shuddering over the space which, he had felt, gaped beneath him.