He found Mariana and James Polder sitting on a bank by the Furnace. "Peter Provost's here with Kingsfrere," he told them quietly. "They want to see.... James, about some nonsense bantered around town." Polder rose quickly, instantly antagonistic. "At the house?" he demanded, already moving away. Mariana stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Don't pay any attention to what they may say, Jimmy," she commanded. "It isn't Peter Provost's affair, and Kingsfrere in a fatherly pose is a scream." They moved forward together. "I'll see them," she added cuttingly.
"I will attend to this," James Polder told her. "I don't want any woman explaining my actions. They haven't a whisper on me. I'm glad enough of an opportunity to talk to a man."
"If you lose your temper—" Howat commenced, but Mariana impatiently interrupted him. "Why shouldn't Jim lose his temper?" she demanded. "I would. Personally, I'd be glad if he did, although it mightn't be fortunate for Kingsfrere. He's a good deal of a dumpling. But I will be furious if you look guilty. Tell them we're mad about each other and that I am waiting for the smallest encouragement to go with you."
Howat Penny left Mariana at the door, and went in with Polder. Provost was seated, with an open paper; Kingsfrere studying the photograph of Scalchi. "This," said Howat generally, "is my guest, James Polder." Peter Provost extended his square, powerful hand; but the other, Jannan, made no movement. "Well?" Polder demanded aggressively. Howat Penny proceeded through the room to the porch, where he met Mariana. They walked to the further end and found chairs. "What makes me sick," Mariana proceeded, "is the way men calmly take everything into their own hands; as if women were still tied up, naughty bundles. Jim will have all the fun, and he has only said 'no' in horrified tones."
Again he could think of no adequate reply. He listened in vain for the sound of raised voices within. "What, in heaven's name, brought them?" Howat told her what he had heard. "I'm glad I did break up that mess they called a home," she asserted. "It was rotten with stale beer and half pounds of liver for that disgusting animal!"
The heat increased in waves; a wagon passing on the road below was enveloped in a cloud of dust. "I wish they'd hurry," Mariana said sharply. Howat Penny thought he heard Kingsfrere speaking in abrupt periods. Then a chair scraped, and Peter Provost's deliberate voice became audible. It was, however, impossible to distinguish his words; but suddenly Polder exclaimed, "Say something I can pound into you." Mariana rose, her hands clenched. "Go back to your mouldy little life!" James Polder continued. "I'm not surprised Miss Jannan wants to get out of it. I am sorry I hesitated. It seemed to me I couldn't offer her anything good enough; but that was before I'd listened to you.... And if you in particular come worming about me again I'll smash your flat face." The screen door was wrenched violently open, and James Polder strode up to Mariana. "Suppose we get out of this slag pit," he said, his chest labouring; "I can't breathe here."
"I am ready, Jimmy," she replied quietly; "perhaps Howat will look up a train and let Honduras drive us to the station." She laid her hand on his arm. "Now we can forget them," she said. They turned, and, together, vanished into the house. Howat Penny followed them slowly. He found Peter Provost apparently undisturbed. "Nothing to be done," the latter commented. "I saw that immediately he turned up. Kingsfrere made a short effort, but it wasn't conspicuously successful; I imagine it rather worse than failed. God knows what's getting into these young women, Howat—Eliza and the rest of 'em—it's a gamble they don't. All right, Kingsfrere." Jannan lingered with a dark mutter, but the other unceremoniously drove him into the waiting car.
Mariana soon descended, with Polder carrying two bags. "One seven," Howat told them. In the extraordinary situation he found nothing adequate to say. Mariana might have been going unremarkably to Charlotte and her home; she was absolutely contained. James Polder had a dazed expression; without his companion, Howat thought, he would blunder into the walls. He stood, holding the bags until told to put them down. Honduras was soon at the door. Mariana moved forward, and mechanically Howat Penny made his customary pretence of avoiding her kiss. The warm fragrance of her lips remained long after she had gone.
A pervasive stillness settled upon Shadrach; outside the sunlight lay on the hills in a thick, yellow veil; the cool interior held only the familiar crepitation of the old clock above. Now, he told himself, he could read the papers peacefully; but he sat with empty hands. Mariana had gone. "Outrageous conduct," he said aloud, without conviction. His voice sounded thin, unfamiliar. His dreams of her continued superiority to the commonplace, of her fine aloofness like the elevation of the strains of Orfeo, had been utterly destroyed. He could not imagine a greater descent than the one which had overtaken her. As he rehearsed its details they seemed increasingly disgraceful. He could not forgive James Polder for his relapse, his shocking failure to maintain the standards, the obligations, bred into himself, Howat Penny, by so many years, and by blood. It was that miserable old business of Jasper's once more, blighting the present, betraying Mariana.
This wheeled in his brain throughout summer. He had, as he expected, no word from her. Charlotte, too, sent no line; he was isolated in the increasing and waning heat, in a sea of greenery growing heavy and grey with dust, then swept by rain, and touched with the scarlet finality of frost. Rudolph lit again the hickory fires in the middle hearth; the days shortened rapidly; sitting before the glow of the logs he could see, through a western window, the afternoon expiring in a sullen red flame. The leaves streamed sibilantly by the eaves and accumulated in dry, russet heaps in angles and hollows; they burned in crackling fires, filling the air with a drifting haze rich with suggestion and memories. He saw the first snow on a leaden morning when the flexible and bald white covering, devoid of charm, held the significance of barrenness, death. All day this chilling similitude lingered in his mind. He walked about the house slowly, unpleasantly conscious of the striking of his feet on the wood floors.