He went to a desk in the corner of the room and opened a secret drawer that had not been opened for a long time. He took out a photograph, wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, and went back to the table. He unwrapped it, his blunt white fingers trembling ever so slightly, and sat down.
A face of surpassing loveliness looked back at him. It was Evelina, at the noon of her girlish beauty, her face alight with love. Anthony Dexter looked long at the perfect features, the warm, sweet, tempting mouth, the great, trusting eyes, and the brown hair that waved so softly back from her face; the all-pervading and abiding womanliness. There was strength as well as beauty; tenderness, courage, charm.
"Mate for a man," said Dexter, aloud. For such women as Evelina, the knights of old did battle, and men of other centuries fought with their own temptations and weaknesses. It was such as she who led men to the heights, and pointed them to heights yet farther on.
Insensibly, he compared Ralph's mother with Evelina. The two women stood as far apart as a little, meaningless song stands from a great symphony. One would fire a man with high ambition, exalt him with noble striving—ah, but had she? Was it Evelina's fault that Anthony Dexter was a coward and a shirk? Cravenly, he began to blame the woman, to lay the burden of his own shortcomings at Evelina's door.
Yet still the face stirred him. There was life in those walled fastnesses of his nature which long ago he had denied. Self-knowledge at last confronted him, and would not be put away.
"And so, Evelina," he said aloud, "you have come back. And what do you want? What can I do for you?"
The bell rang sharply, as if answering his question. He started from his chair, having heard no approaching footsteps. He covered the photograph of Evelina with Ralph's letters, but the sweet face of the boy's mother still looked out at him from its gilt frame.
The old housekeeper went to the door with the utmost leisure. It seemed to him an eternity before the door was opened. He stood there, waiting, summoning his faculties of calmness and his powers of control, to meet Evelina—to have out, at last, all the shame of the years.
But it was not Evelina. The Reverend Austin Thorpe was wiping his feet carefully upon the door-mat, and asking in deep, vibrant tones: "Is the Doctor in?"
Anthony Dexter could have cried out from relief. When the white-haired old man came in, floundering helplessly among the furniture, as a near-sighted person does, he greeted him with a cordiality that warmed his heart.