The Shoulders of Atlas: A Novel

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

Henry laughed a little. “That's a compliment to me.”

“I ain't saying anything against you. I've been happy enough, and I suppose I've been better off than if I'd stayed single; but Rose has got enough to live on, and what any girl that's got enough to live on wants to get married for beats me.”

Henry laughed again, a little bitterly this time. “Then you wouldn't have married me if you had had enough to live on?” he said.

Sylvia looked at him, and an odd, shamed tenderness came into her elderly face. “There's no use talking about what wasn't, anyway,” said she, and Henry understood.

After a little while Sylvia again brought up the subject of Horace and Rose. She was evidently very uneasy about it. “I don't see why you think because a young man and girl are in the same house anything like that is bound to happen,” said she.

“Well, perhaps not; maybe it won't,” said Henry, soothingly. He saw that it troubled Sylvia, and it had always been an unwritten maxim with him that Sylvia should not be troubled if it could be helped. He knew that he himself was about to trouble her, and why should she be vexed, in addition, about an uncertainty, as possibly this incipient love-affair might be. After all, why should it follow that because a young man and a girl lived in the same house they should immediately fall in love? And why should it not be entirely possible that they might have a little love-making without any serious consequences? Horace had presumably paid a little attention to girls before, and it was very probable that Rose had received attention. Why bother about such a thing as this when poor Sylvia would really be worried over his, Henry's, return to his old, humble vocation?

For Henry, as he sat beside the window that pleasant afternoon, was becoming more and more convinced it must happen. It seemed to him that his longing was gradually strengthening into a purpose which he could not overcome. It seemed to him that every flutelike note of a bird in the pleasance outside served to make this purpose more unassailable, as if every sweet flower-breath and every bee-hum, every drawing of his wife's shining needle through the white garment which she was mending, all served to render his purpose so settled a thing that any change in it was as impossible as growth in a granite ledge. That very day Henry had been approached by the superintendent of Lawson & Fisher's, where he had worked, and told that his place, which had been temporarily filled, was vacant and ready for him. He had said that he must consider the matter, but he had known in his heart that the matter admitted of no consideration. He looked gloomy as he sat there with his unread book in his hand, yet gradually an eager, happy light crept into his eyes.

After supper he told Sylvia he was going down to the store. He did go, but on his way he stopped at the superintendent's house and told that he would report for work in the morning.

Rose had not come down to supper. Henry had wondered why, and sympathized in part with Sylvia's anxiety. Still, he had a vague feeling that a young girl's not coming down to supper need not be taken very seriously, that young girls had whims and fancies which signified nothing, and that it was better to let them alone until they got over them. He knew that Sylvia, however, would take the greatest comfort in coddling the girl, and he welcomed the fact as conducing to his making his arrangements for the next day. He thought that Sylvia would not have the matter in mind at all, since she had the girl to fuss over, and that she would not ask him any questions. On his way home he stopped at Sidney Meeks's. He found the lawyer in a demoralized dining-room, which had, nevertheless, an air of homely comfort, with its chairs worn into hollows to fit human anatomies, and its sideboard set out with dusty dishes and a noble ham. Meeks was a very good cook, although one could not confidently assert that dust and dirt did not form a part of his ingredients. One of his triumphs was ham cooked in a manner which he claimed to have invented. After having been boiled, it was baked, and frequently basted in a way which Meeks kept as secret as the bouquet of his grape wine. Sidney sat at the table eating bread and ham spread with mustard, and there were also a mysterious pie in reserve and a bottle of wine. “Draw up, Henry,” said Sidney.

“I've had supper.”