The sense of the past was strong upon him this evening—perhaps, he thought wryly, more strong than was proper for an executive vice-president of the Ninth National Bank. As he scaled the slope of Park Street on Beacon Hill he felt like a man born out of his proper time.
Life and color and revolt had been strong in the little city of two centuries ago. Men had thought and dreamed—and then had talked and acted. Unlike their descendants, who seemed to have relapsed into an everlasting featherbed of trustfundism.
Passing the gold-domed balustraded beauty of Bullfinch's classic New State House, he wondered how the crest of the hill had looked when John Hancock had lived there, in his magnificent Georgian mansion, with its landscaped gardens and carriage house containing the merchant-governor's gilded English coach.
Old Boston held Justin tightly in its grip even after he turned the key in his own lock and entered his house on Louisburg Square. For the house, if not quite Federalist, dated back to the early era of Clipper Ship affluence. Fine white paneling, graceful mahogany banisters, blue-and-gold silk wall covering of heavy Chinese silk, Sheraton furniture, Revere silverware—all combined to retain illusion of a past still alive.
Not until he walked upstairs was the illusion shattered. And again it was not the room that shattered it—for graceful mantel above gently roaring fire, fine old furniture and a pair of glowing Copley portraits on the west wall maintained the dream.
It was the two persons awaiting him there that spoiled Justin's vision of time past relived. Jack Fellowes joggled cubed ice in a broad-beamed highball glass in front of the fire—as modern in his midnight-blue dinner jacket and soft white shirt as the post-Freudian psychiatry he practiced.
He said, "Ah, there, Charley, have a drink on you." Then, with a rueful half-smile at Justin's wife, Marie, "You seem to have married the only banker in history who works overtime."
In an ice-blue satin dinner gown Marie Chandler Justin was as brilliant as a candle's white flame—and even less warm. She stirred faintly in greeting to her husband, said, "You're late, Charles—you'll barely have time to dress."
Justin reached for a drink that stood ready atop the red-lacquer Chinese cabinet some ancestor of his wife's had brought from Canton. He said, "Sorry, I forgot about the Iveson party. I don't think I'm up to it tonight. You two will have more fun without me."
Marie pouted prettily, said, "But, darling, I'll have to explain to everybody—and they'll all think the most horrible things."