At first the girl treated the boy with shy defference, while toward her he assumed an air of lofty tolerance; but imperceptibly this attitude of his changed; he grew shy, she tolerant. While he liked Marian, he did not altogether approve of her family. Her mother he compared unfavourably with his aunt. He was now a tall young fellow of seventeen or eighteen, and in his last year at the high school.
When Virginia, learned as she did in time, where many of his evenings were spent, she would have discouraged his visits to the Water Street house had she known how; but she feared the effect of opposition. She was aware that he was stubborn in his quiet way. Yet undeclared as her disapproval was, he was conscious of it, and it was unpleasant to him. He thought her unfair in this particular instance; he appreciated that neither Tom Benson nor his wife were the kind of people she would care to know, but he resented that she should include Marian in this evident feeling she had for them.
Stephen was graduated from the high school, and settled down to read law in earnest, but his zeal came and went by fits and starts. Success in life was highly desirable, but it seemed no more than a vague possibility. He would have liked to try his hand at the farm, but the income it yielded forbade his doing anything there. They must live, and he was not so sure there would be anything to live on while he experimented with crops.
He felt more and more as time went on, the inconvenience of their limited income. It made it the more difficult that he believed he was wasting his time in Benson's office, and that the law offered but an uncertain and precarious means of escape from the perplexities that were already hedging him in.
But events were to shape his future for him in ways he could not know.
One April day as he sat alone in the office by the window that overlooked the square, he saw Ben Wirt suddenly appear in front of the little one story building which was occupied by the Western Union as a telegraph office. Wirt was the operator. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he carried in his hand a fluttering strip of paper.
For an instant he stood in front of his office, glancing back and forth across the square, as though he were looking for some one, but for the moment the square was deserted; then he espied Benson just issuing from the court-house half a block away, and hurried after him, calling as he ran.
Stephen closed his book, and watched them; they spoke together, and he saw the lawyer take the slip of paper and examine it. Then they were joined by one or two other men; and he saw the paper pass from hand to hand.
Now quite a crowd had collected about Wirt and the lawyer. Court, which was sitting, seemed to have adjourned for some inexplicable reason. There was the dumb show of eager questions and answers. And then Benson detached himself from the group and came hurrying across the square. When he entered the office, Stephen turned to him questioningly.
“What is it?” he asked eagerly.