How poor and forlorn it looked in this glare of light! During these last weeks his thoughts had turned often to that stately house where he had lived for nineteen years—its green, close-clipped lawn glistening under a perpetual play of water, its great beds of white and green and cardinal foliage plants, its shut-in porches, its awnings, its flowering shrubs, its vines, its heavy iron fence. He looked with bitter attentiveness at the dingy frame cottage he was approaching, noticing each homely detail—the dish-towels spread on the bushes in the back yard, the mop hanging by the door, the kerosene can under the step, the lean hen scuttling away under the currant bushes, the vegetable garden lying parched and dry along the fence. There was a small artificial mound of stones at one side of the house, with a somewhat scanty growth of portulaca springing from its top. The last occupant of the house was responsible for that adornment. Allison wondered how they had happened to leave it there so long. That mound of stones—all his hopes might have been buried under it and he could not have hated it more. It stood, somehow, for all that chafed and irritated him here—the moral, mental, and physical stuntedness of the people—their petty ambitions, petty jealousies, petty quarrels, petty virtues.
Allison was seized with a sudden vague fear as he saw on the kitchen window-sill, just where he had left it at seven this morning, the package which Gertrude had promised to take to Mr. Fulton as soon as she had finished the breakfast dishes. He noticed almost at the same instant that the kitchen door was open; countless flies were sailing in and out; and there on the cellar door, in the blazing sunlight, was the morning's milk, thick and sour by this time. He quickened his steps—made his way hurriedly through the kitchen and dining-room, noticing, as he went, various signs of disorder. The kitchen fire was out—the floor unswept; the coffee he had knocked over when he had built the fire this morning lay where it had fallen: the room was full of its pungent odor. On the dining-room table were the remnants of breakfast, the oatmeal dry and stiff, the butter melted down to a thin oil. In the front room he found Gertrude, bending a flushed face over something she was writing. She gave a start of fright as he came in—then got very red.
"I sat down to write a little of that play I was telling you about last night"—she was picking up her papers with frantic haste as she spoke—"and I had no idea it was getting so late." She cast an appalled glance around the room, and hurried out to begin clearing off the table, making a great clatter with the dishes in her excitement and haste.
"THIS DREARY, GAUNT BLACK FIGURE, WAITING ALWAYS FOR HIM AT THE TOP OF THE HILL"
Allison stood for a minute looking after her wearily. Her manner hurt him. More than once, in days gone by, he had told her fondly that when she married him she should do nothing but what she liked to do—if she chose, she might work on her little dialogues and fairy stories from morning till night. The air of frightened apology which she wore—this servile haste—pained and irritated him. He threw himself into a chair and began mechanically to look over the mail which the postmaster had handed him. A week ago he had written to an Eastern firm asking for a catalogue of the
refrigerators they made. Here it was—bulky, imposing, abounding in alluring pictures of tile-lined refrigerators filled with game, fish, fruit, wine. He found he could buy their smallest and most inexpensive refrigerator, "built especially to supply a demand for low-priced goods,"—so the advertisement ran—for forty-five dollars. He dropped the book, and turned to his other letter. It was from a great retail dry-goods house, and was in answer to a request he had made for samples of dotted swiss—he had thought he would like to get Gertrude a dress such as she had worn when he first knew her. The samples were sent, and along with them a letter expressing pleasure at being able to serve him, and a desire further to accommodate him whenever possible; its extreme deference and respect was like a calculated sarcasm. He pushed it away from him and leaned back in his chair, looking about the room with a curious stare, as a convict, who has just heard that his sentence is for life, might gaze at the walls of his cell. It was a low-ceiled room, with an uneven floor, cheap woodwork, painted in an unsuccessful imitation of natural wood, and walls hung with faded paper of an indeterminate pattern and even more indeterminate color. To-day it was in greater confusion than usual, with white dust thick on table and chair, a window-shade askew, the music-rack disarranged, and a plate of grape-skins which Allison had left last night on the piano still standing there. But it was not the disorder which irritated Allison most, nor the signs of poverty, but the fact that the poverty was so genteel, so self-respecting, so determined to make the best of things and present a brave front to the world. The kerosene lamp had a shade of red, crinkled tissue-paper—the cheap net curtains were arranged with the utmost elaboration—a rug was artfully laid down in such a way as almost to cover the square of zinc on which the stove stood in the winter time, and all of Gertrude's photographs were placed with a view to concealing various defects and deficiencies. His loathing for all this was intensified by a memory of vast rooms stretching out one after the other, hushed and cool, with gracious shadows lending their mystery and romance to everything. With sudden restlessness he rose, and walked over to the window; but the smell of dust and dry, dead vegetation smothered him. Gertrude had raked the long, sparse brown grass all in one direction; it had a grotesque look of having been combed.
He seized his hat, and went to get Mr. Fulton's package from the window-sill. He had barely turned toward the gate, however, when his wife hurried out, remonstrating, apologizing, with an urgent hand on his arm. "It is important that Mr. Fulton should get these papers to-day," he said stiffly. It did not really matter whether Mr. Fulton got the roll of agricultural papers to-day, to-morrow, or next week; but Allison felt the necessity for doing something, it did not much matter what, to crush down his growing despair; and this was the only thing which suggested itself. Gertrude was persistent, however, in her entreaties that he come back; it was frightfully hot, and he already looked tired; she would take the papers to Mr. Fulton right after luncheon. He yielded at last, from sheer languidness, and came silently into the house. Gertrude's moist face, her loud, anxious voice, her warm, clinging hand, were exceedingly disagreeable to him—so much so that finally the desire to escape them became more importunate than any other.
He was again standing by the window, gazing out, when his wife came into the dining-room to set the table. He did not turn—gave no sign of seeing her.