“But it’s not the same, and they’re all jealous of me ... all those women ... jealous because I’m more important because I’ve been a missionary, and jealous because Reverend Castor shows me favors. Oh, I know. I don’t belong here, and they don’t want me here. Oh, I don’t know what’s to become of me!”
There was a long silence, in which they sat there, dumbly trying to find some way out of the hopeless muddle, trying to patch together something which was now in tatters, if it had ever existed at all. Philip’s thin jaw was set in that hard, stubborn line that made even his mother afraid.
“Naomi,” he said presently, “I’ll get you a place to live. It won’t be much, for I haven’t much money, but you’ll be free ... to do what you please. Only ... only, Naomi ... I ... I....” Suddenly, his head fell forward, and he buried his face in his hands. In a voice that was hardly audible he said, “I don’t want to live with you any longer. It’s ... it’s all over.”
For a long time there was no sound in the room, save the ticking of the great onyx clock beneath the picture of Jason Downes. Naomi didn’t even sob; but presently she said, in a voice like the voice of a deaf person, “Philip, you mean you’re going to leave me?”
“No,” he said slowly. “No ... it’s not that exactly. I shan’t leave you. I’ll come and see you every day and the children—only I won’t sleep in the house. I’m going to sleep where I work.”
In the same dead voice she asked, “You’re not going back to the Mills?”
“No, I’m not going back to the Mills ... they wouldn’t have me now. I’m going to paint....”
“Pictures?”
“Yes ... pictures. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do and now ... now, nothing can stop me.” There was in his voice a sudden cold rasp, as of steel, which must have terrified her. He thought, “I’ve got to do it, if I’m to live. I’ve got to do it.”
She said, “But you could have a good congregation. You could preach.”