Helen nodded, and they left the room without looking again at the plans. As they descended the broad flight of steps to the street, Venetia laid her hand on Helen's arm.
"Tell Jack we are all proud of him. Mamma brags of him daily. And look out for the paragraph in the paper. They'd give me a paragraph, don't you think?"
The winter twilight had descended upon the murky city, filling the long vistas of the cross streets with a veil of mystery. But the roar of the place mounted to the clouds above, which seemed to reverberate with the respirations of the Titan beneath. Here, in the heart of the city, life clamored with a more direct note than in any other spot in the world. Men were struggling fiercely for their desires, and their cries ascended to the dull heavens.
Helen walked home with the boys, soothed by the human contact of the streets. There was something exhilarating to her in the jostle of the throng,—the men and women leaving their labors, bent homeward for the night. Her heart expanded near them—those who won their daily bread by the toil of the day.
It was in part true, what the widow had said. For it was she who had willed to return to the city from the pleasant niche where she had spent her married life, desiring in the growing emptiness of her heart to get closer to the vast life of a human people, to feel once more the common lot of man. So she had taken the little house on Scott Street, and reduced their living to the simplest scale, declaring that she wanted her time for herself and her children. Her husband was so busy that as yet he hardly noticed any change in her. They went out less than they had gone in previous years, and sometimes he thought the people he found calling on his wife were "queer." Her interest in a new kind of education for the children bored him. She seemed to be going her own way without thought of him, and now and then he wondered what it meant. He did not like aggressive, faddish persons; he wanted women to be personal and sympathetic, with a touch of "style," social tact, and a little dash.
To-night he had come from his office early, and while he waited for Helen he looked about the little drawing-room disapprovingly, with a sense of aggrieved discomfort. Helen was taking to economy and simplicity altogether too seriously to please him. To be sure, she made no objection to his keeping his hunters at the Shoreham Club, or his polo-playing, or other expensive diversions.
In a vague way he was aware of the subtle separation of soul that existed between them. He looked at his wife closely when she came in with the boys. She seemed older, more severe in face than he had thought, than her photograph on his office desk said. When this school business was done with, he reflected, they must run over to Europe for a few months' vacation, get shaken up, and then live differently on their return....
"Nell," he said to her, when they were alone, "it's settled at last, you will be glad to know, everything. We let the contracts to-day."
"For the school?" she asked indifferently. "You must be relieved to have it off your mind."
Her lips, which curved so tenderly, had grown strangely firm. He put his arm over her shoulder and drew her toward him.