He sat with his back to the entrance of the saloon, and the table directly behind him was now taken possession of by three or four new arrivals—all gentlemen, and apparently on familiar terms with one another. They called for a bountiful lunch, including wine, and plunged into a lively, rather noisy talk. Lewis closed his ears, and applied himself in earnest to his paper. He started presently at a word he could have declared was his name. Restraining the impulse to look around and see who of the group was known to him, he yet could not help trying to determine this point by their voices. One, a thin falsetto, he fancied belonged to George Bond, who was no more of a favorite with him than was his better half with Sarah. Lewis regarded him as a conceited rattlepate, whose sole talent lay in the art of making money—whose glory was his purse. "Why should he be talking about me here? Nonsense; I was mistaken!" and another page of the newspaper was turned.
"When I leave my wife at Newport, or anywhere else, in the particular and brotherly care of one of her former flames, publish me as a crazy fool!" said the wiry voice again, almost in the reader's ear.
"He doesn't know old stories as well as you do, perhaps," remarked some one.
"I should think not! When my wife pulls the wool over my eyes in that style, horsewhip me around town, and I won't cry 'Quarter!' Sister's husband or not, I'll be hanged if I would have him in my house for two weeks, and he is such a good-looking dog, too!"
He stopped, as if his neighbor had jogged him, as Lewis looked over his shoulder in the direction of the gossip. A dead and awkward silence ensued, ended at last by the pertinent observation that the "waiter was a long time bringing their lunch."
In a maze of angry doubt and incredulity as to the evidence of his senses and suspicions, Lewis finished his meal, and stalked out past the subdued and now voracious quartette, favoring them with a searching look as he went by, which they sustained with great meekness. All the afternoon a heavy load lay upon his heart, an indefinable dread he dared not analyze; a foreboding he would not face, yet could not dismiss.
"You are blue, Lewis," said Mr. Marlow, kindly, as they started uptown together. "This is the worst of having a wife and children; you miss them so terribly when they are away. But you will get used to it. Make up your mind at the eleventh hour to cross the water, and stay abroad three months. You will be surprised to find how easy your mind will become after a couple of weeks."
"I am satisfied, sir, without making personal trial of the matter, that men become inured to misery, which seemed in the beginning to be insupportable."
Mr. Marlow laughed, and they separated.
Lewis sighed as he looked up at the blinds of his house, shut fast and grim, and still more deeply as he admitted himself to the front hall, that echoed dismally the sound of the closing door. His next movement was to walk into the parlor, throw open a shutter, and let in the evening light upon the portraits of the dear absent ones. There he stood, scanning their faces—eyes and soul full of love and longing—until the mellow glow passed away and left them in darkness.