Martin rose to his feet with a puzzled frown on his face and picked up a sheet of music from the piano.
“Thank you,” said Westbrook, when the song was finished. Then he turned to Ethel with extended hand. “I hope you will have a pleasant summer,” he said in stilted politeness.
“You are very kind. Shall I wish you the same?”
Her voice and her fingers were icy. Her pride was touched, and she expressed no hope as to their future meeting, and certainly Westbrook dared not. He left the house with a heart that was bitterly rebellious, and the blackness outside seemed to him symbolical of his own despair.
That night, and for long nights afterward, he rode over the hills outside the city. Little by little his life dropped back into the old rut. All the new warmth and brightness faded with the going of Miss Barrington, and he threw himself into business with a zeal that quickly brought “Westbrook & Company” into the front rank and filled his purse with yet greater wealth—wealth which he had come to hate, and for which he had no use.
XIV
One morning, long after sunrise, Westbrook entered the outskirts of the city and allowed his tired beast to slow to a walk. In one of the poorest streets of the tenement district he saw a white-faced woman, a group of half a dozen puny children and a forlorn heap of clothing and furniture. He was off his horse in a moment, and a few kindly questions brought out the information that they had been evicted for arrears in rent amounting to thirty dollars because the woman had been too ill to work. He straightway paid the sleek little agent not only the amount due, but also a year’s rent in advance and rode away, followed by a volley of thanks and blessings from the woman. He did not know that Martin was the landlord and that he came out of the tenement in time to hear the details of the incident fresh from his agent.
As Westbrook turned the corner of the dingy street a curious elation took possession of him. How the sun shone—how exhilarating the air was! How his heart beat in tune with it all! What was this new joy that seemed almost to choke and suffocate him? Was this the shadow of peace at last?
He threw the reins to the groom with so beaming a smile that the man scratched his head meditatively for a full half-minute.
“Faith, an’ what’s got into the master?” he muttered as he led the horse to the stable.