CHAPTER XXV.
THE SHADOW DEEPENS.
As it was Sunday morning there were not as many people as usual on the piazza of the Harbor Hotel when Jack went up the steps, and seated himself in an arm chair. As it chanced, none of the men knew him, and all glanced curiously at him, wondering who he was. He knew they were looking at him, and cursed them under his breath with a bitter sense of humiliation, remembering that he was once one with them,—their equal,—whose hand they would have grasped had they known him, and whom they would have congratulated upon his sister’s marriage. Now they passed him by with a stare, while he looked after them angrily. They were so respectable and jaunty in their fresh morning suits, telling of city tailors with whom he was once familiar. He had his wedding garments in his trunk, but the clothes he wore were travel stained and shabby with his long journey, his debauch in Chicago, and the hours he sat in the dampness upon the beach. The starch was out of his collar and cuffs; the crease was out of his trousers,—there were spots on his coat and vest and patches of sand on his shoes; seedy, those who passed him by thought him, and very seedy he looked, as the piazza began to fill with men and women who had come out for an airing before going in to their breakfast. None of the newcomers gave him more than a casual glance, although among them were some whom he had seen in Oak City before.
“Nobody knows me any more; nobody wants me,” he was thinking, when Paul Ralston came up the steps, happy and handsome and a little anxious, too, as his eyes scanned the moving crowd.
He knew Jack was in town, and had come to find him. He had spent the previous evening with Clarice, who had never been more gentle and womanly. The character of wifehood so soon to fall upon her was taking effect and making her amiably disposed towards everybody. She talked of Jack, from whom she had not heard, and said perhaps she was wrong in wishing to keep him away, and he her only brother and near male relative. She said, too, that she had neglected to send him a card and was sorry.
Paul was sorry, too. He had a feeling that Jack had not been treated quite fairly, but he could not tell Clarice so. They would make it up, he thought, when they met him West, if they did meet him. It was quite late when he said good-night to Clarice, telling her he should not see her till the next afternoon, as he had promised to sing a difficult solo in church in the morning.
“My farewell, you know, as after I am married I suppose I must sit with my wife,” he said, kissing Clarice’s blushing cheek with unwonted tenderness as he said “my wife.”
He did not tell her that Elithe had been asked to sing in the choir, that her first appearance would be on the morrow and that he would not like to miss being there to hear her. He had been greatly interested in getting her into the choir, and more interested in what she was to sing at the offertory. In the absence of the first soprano that part, at his suggestion, had been offered her, and, after a great deal of persuasion, she had accepted it. Before going to see Clarice that night he had attended the rehearsal and heard with pride Elithe’s voice rise clear and unfaltering, without a break, while the few spectators present listened wonderingly to this new bird of song.
He did not return home by way of the cottage, as he usually did, looking always for the light which, though only a light like that of many more on the ridge where Miss Hansford’s cottage stood, streamed across the green sward down towards the avenue with a softer radiance than the others, because it first shone on Elithe. If he had analyzed himself and seen what construction might have been put upon his thoughts if they were known, he would have turned from the picture with dismay, for he meant to be true as steel to Clarice, and had never loved her better than when he said good-bye to her that Saturday night and went whistling along Ocean Avenue, which took him past Harbor Hotel. A few of the guests were sitting upon the piazza, and, seeing these, Paul joined them, listened to their gay banter a few moments, and then went inside to examine the register, as he often did.
“Pretty full, arn’t you?” he said to the clerk, who replied, “Jam up. Had to turn off a lot, and among them Jack Percy. Seen him?”
“Jack Percy in town! When did he come?” Paul asked.