He slept heavily toward morning and was at last awakened by the persistent ringing of the doorbell. It was a special delivery letter from Ruth. She said she hoped it would catch him before he started West. She wanted him to stop in Denver and see if he could get one of those "Jap" men of all work. She said: "Maggie Gordon's mother has 'heard' and came and took her home. I turn to the Japanese—or Chinese, if it's a Chinaman you can get to come,—as perhaps having less fear of moral contamination. Do the best you can, Ted; I need someone badly."
He was to leave at five o'clock that afternoon. The people whom he saw thought he was feeling broken up about leaving; he had to hold back all feeling, they thought; it was that made his face so set and queer and his manner so abrupt and grim.
He had lunch with Harriett. She too thought the breaking up, the going away, had been almost too much for him. She hated to have him go, and yet, for his sake, she would be glad to have it over.
At two o'clock he had finished the things he had to do. He had promised to look in on a few of his friends and say good-by. But when he waited on the corner for the car that would take him down town he knew in his heart that he was not going to take that car. He knew, though up to the very last he tried not to know, that he was going to walk along that street a block and a half farther and turn in at the house Stuart Williams had built. He knew he was not going to leave Freeport without doing that. And when he stood there and let the car go by he faced what he had in his heart known he was going to do ever since reading Ruth's letter, turned and started toward Mrs. Williams', walking very fast, as if to get there before he could turn back. He fairly ran up the steps and pushed the bell in great haste—having to get it pushed before he could refuse to push it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
When he could not get away, after the maid had let him in and he had given his name and was waiting in the formal little reception room, he was not only more frightened than he had ever been in his life, but frightened in a way he had never known anything about before. He sat far forward on the stiff little French chair, fairly afraid to let his feet press on the rug. He did not look around him; he did not believe he would be able to move when he had to move; he knew he would not be able to speak. He was appalled at the consciousness of what he had done, of where he was. He would joyfully have given anything he had in the world just to be out doors, just not to have been there at all. There was what seemed a long wait and the only way he got through it was by telling himself that Mrs. Williams would not see him. Of course she wouldn't see him!
There was a step on the stairs; he told himself that it was the maid, coming to say Mrs. Williams could not see him. But when he knew there was someone in the doorway he looked up and then, miraculously, he was on his feet and standing there bowing to Mrs. Williams.
He thought she looked startled upon actually seeing him, as if she had not believed it was really he. There was a hesitating moment when she stood in the doorway, a moment of looking a little as if trying to overcome a feeling of being suddenly sick. Then she stepped forward and, though pale, had her usual manner of complete self-possession. "You wished to see me?" she asked in an even tone faintly tinged with polite incredulity.
"Yes," he said, and was so relieved at his voice sounding pretty much all right that he drew a longer breath.