He replaced the statement in the envelope thoughtfully and put it away in his pocket. He was trying to banish the look of dark introspection from his eyes when Sylvia came in from the kitchen and gave a little cry of joy at sight of him. She was happy at the sight of him—Harboro knew it. Yet the cloud did not lift from his brow as he drew her to him and kissed her slowly. She was keeping a secret from him. The conclusion was inescapable.
His impulse was to face the thing frankly, affectionately. He had only to ask her to explain and the thing would be cleared up. But for the first time he found it difficult to be frank with her. If the thing he felt was not a sense of injury, it was at least a sense of mystery: of resentment, too. He could not deny that he felt resentful. At the foundation of his consciousness there was, perhaps, the belief and the hope that she would explain voluntarily. He felt that something precious would be saved to him if she confided in him without prompting, without urging. If he waited, perhaps she would do so. His sense of delicacy forbade him to inquire needlessly into her personal affairs. Surely she was being actuated by some good reason. That she was committed to an evil course was a suspicion which he would have rejected as monstrous. Such a suspicion did not occur to him.
It did not occur to him until the next day, when a bolt fell.
He received another communication from the stable. It was an apology for an error that had been made. The stableman found that he had no account against Mr. Harboro, but that one which should have been made out against Mr. Runyon had been sent to him by mistake.
Quite illogically, perhaps, Harboro jumped to the conclusion that the service had really been rendered to Sylvia, as the original statement had said, and that for some obscure reason it was to be charged against Runyon. But even now it was not a light that he saw. Rather, he was enveloped in darkness. He heard the envelope crackle in his clinched hand. He turned and climbed the stairs heavily, so that he need not encounter Sylvia until he had had time to think, until he could understand.
Sylvia was taking rides, and Runyon was paying for them. That was to say, Runyon was the moving factor in the arrangement. Therefore, Runyon was deriving a pleasure from these rides of Sylvia’s. How? Why, he must be riding with her. They must be meeting by secret appointment.
Harboro shook his head fiercely, like a bull that is being tortured and bewildered by the matadors. No, no! That wasn’t the way the matter was to be explained. That could indicate only one thing—a thing that was impossible.
He began at the beginning again. The whole thing had been an error. Sylvia had been rendered no services at all. Runyon had engaged a horse for his own use, and the bill had simply been sent to the wrong place. That was the rational explanation. It was a clear and sufficient explanation.
Harboro held his head high, as if his problem had been solved. He held himself erect, as if a burden had been removed. He had been almost at the point of making a fool of himself, he reflected. Reason asserted itself victoriously. But something which speaks in a softer, more insistent voice than reason kept whispering to him: “Runyon and Sylvia! Runyon and Sylvia!”
He faced her almost gayly at supper. He had resolved to play the rôle of a happy man with whom all is well. But old Antonia looked at him darkly. Her old woman’s sense told her that he was acting a part, and that he was overacting it. From the depths of the kitchen she regarded him as he sat at the table. She lifted her eyes like one who hears a signal-cry when he said casually: