Mr. Lambert looked curiously at his nephew’s face, and saw that the contrition in it was sincere. He did not for a moment waver in his decision, but after a moment he held out his hand.
“I hope you do not harbor any hard feelings against me?”
Paul slowly and wonderingly took the proffered hand. His uncle’s cold, immovable justice was something that he had never been able to understand. Not for a moment did he dream of asking for pardon, but he could not “harbor any hard feelings” against the austere old man, who judged everything according to an inflexible standard of right and wrong—who saw all conduct as either black or white, and to whom the crime of disobedience was equally unpardonable whether it affected the routine of a little household or the affairs of a nation.
[CHAPTER XIV—THE CROSSROADS]
Along the dusty road, Paul trudged alone, his head bent. He did not look up until the little town lay behind him. There was very little feeling of exultation in his heart as he made his way along the shady road, under the apple trees, from which the yellow fruit was already falling. For the first time in his life, this young citizen of the world knew what homesickness was—and he could not bring himself to look back to the town to which he had come so unwillingly ten months before. Well, he was free—he was his own master. That was what his uncle had said. The whole world lay before him—but where should he go? There was no one out there who knew that he was coming, or who cared whether he came or stayed. There was the city—“lots of people, lots of streets, lots of houses.” But what was Paul Winkler to the city? And even if at some time in that future to which he looked forward with dogged hope, he should make fame and fortune, would the city care any more about Paul Winkler? Would he not have been wiser—and happier—to have fitted himself to the ways of his own people, to have gone on growing up among them, learning to know them, to honor them for their simple virtues, and to forgive them their weaknesses? He shook his head impatiently; it was too late to think about the might-have-beens.
He had just reached a bend in the road, when he heard a voice calling him.
“Paul! Oh, Paul, wait a minute!”
He stopped, and looked around slowly. Janey was running toward him, stumbling over the stones in the road, panting, her round little face puckered with distress.
“Janey!” He dropped his bundle in the dust, and held out both hands to her. But she ignored his hands, and flinging both arms around him, clung to him tightly.
“What is it, Janey darling?”