"Oh!" she said, and he saw her hands clasp in her lap; "I wonder if his grandfather knows?"
The color was hot in her face, and William said to himself that the cub ought to be thrashed! "Maybe he's got some sense by this journey in search of a publisher," he announced comfortingly.
In her consciousness of old Mr. Wright's dismay, she hardly heard what the doctor said; but she asked vaguely if Sam had found a publisher.
"Perhaps; I don't know. There are fools in every profession—except medicine, of course! But I believe he has not imparted any information on that point. His father merely told me he had come back." In spite of himself, William's face fell into its own kind lines. "His father is hard on him," he said; and then he began to tell her stories of the three generations of Wrights; ending with the statement that, in a dumb sort of fashion, Samuel loved his son like the apple of his eye. "But he has always taken hold of him the wrong way," William said.
Certainly the doctor's opinion was borne out by the way in which Sam senior took hold of his son on his return. Reproaches were perhaps to be expected, but, alas, the poor, sore-hearted father tried sneers as well. A sneer is like a flame; it may occasionally be curative because it cauterizes, but it leaves a bitter scar. Of his dreadful anxiety in these seven or eight weeks of absence, of his sleepless nights, of his self-accusings, of his anguished affection, the senior warden could find nothing to say; but for anger and disappointment and contempt he had fluent and searing words. Such words were only the recoil from anxiety; but Sam could not know that; he only knew that he was a disgrace to his family. The information left him apparently unmoved. He did not betray—very likely he really did not recognize in himself—the moral let-down that is almost always the result of such upbraiding. He was silent under his father's reproaches, and patient under his mother's embraces. He vouchsafed no information beyond, "I had to come back," which was really no information at all. Mr. Wright sneered at it, but Mrs. Wright was moved, she said, her mild eyes swimming in tears, "Of course, Sammy, dear. Mother understands. I knew you couldn't stay away from us."
Sam sighed, submitting to be kissed, and turned to go up-stairs; but something made him hesitate,—perhaps his mother's worn face. He came back, and bending down kissed her cheek. Mrs. Wright caught her breath with astonishment, but the boy made no explanation. He went on up to his own room and standing listlessly at the window, said again to himself, "I had to come back." After a while he added "But I won't bother her." He had already forgotten the two sore hearts down-stairs.
The next morning he hurried to church; but Mrs. Richie was not there, and in his disappointment he was as blind to Old Chester's curious glances as he was deaf to Dr. Lavendar's sermon.
The long morning loitered past. After dinner the Wright family dispersed for its customary Sunday afternoon nap. The senior warden, with The Episcopalian, as large as a small blanket, spread over his face, slept heavily in the library; Mrs. Wright dozed in her bedroom with one finger marking her place in a closed volume of sermons; the little girls wandered stealthily about the garden, memorizing by their father's orders their weekly hymn. The house was still, and very hot. All the afternoon young Sam lay upon his bed turning the pages of The Wealth of Nations, and brooding over his failures: he could not make Mrs. Richie love him; he could not write a great drama; he could not add up a column of figures; he could not understand his father's rages at unimportant things; "and nobody cares a continental whether I am dead or alive!—except mother," he ended; and his face softened. At five o'clock he reminded himself that he must go up to The Top for supper. But it was nearly six before he had energy enough to rise. The fact was, he shrank from telling his grandfather that the drama was no longer in existence. He had been somewhat rudely rebuffed by the only person who had looked at his manuscript, and had promptly torn the play up and scattered the fragments out of the window of his boarding-house. That was two days ago. The curious lassitude which followed this acces of passion was probably increased by the senior warden's reproaches. But Sam believed himself entirely indifferent both to his literary failure, and to his father's scolding. Neither was in his mind as he climbed the hill, and halted for a wistful moment at the green gate in the hedge; but he had no glimpse of Mrs. Richie.
He found his grandfather sitting on the veranda behind the big white columns, reading aloud, and gesticulating with one hand:
"'But if proud Mortimer do wear this crown,
Heaven turn it to a blaze of quenchless fire
Or like the snaky wreath of Sisiphon—'"