like an element. This may have been conspicuous in Shady Hill because the Thomases were the only family that lacked a piece; all the other marriages were intact and productive. Clayton was in his second or third year of college, and he and his mother lived alone in a large house, which she hoped to sell. Clayton had once made some trouble. Years ago, he had stolen some money and run away; he had got to California before they caught up with him. He was tall and homely, wore horn-rimmed glasses, and spoke in a deep voice.
“When do you go back to college, Clayton?” Francis asked.
“I’m not going back,” Clayton said. “Mother doesn’t have the money, and there’s no sense in all this pretense. I’m going to get a job, and if we sell the house, we’ll take an apartment in New York.”
“Won’t you miss Shady Hill?” Julia asked.
“No,” Clayton said. “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?” Francis asked.
“Well, there’s a lot here I don’t approve of,” Clayton said gravely. “Things like the club dances. Last Saturday night, I looked in toward the end and saw Mr. Granner trying to put Mrs. Minot into the trophy case. They were both drunk. I disapprove of so much drinking.”
“It was Saturday night,” Francis said.
“And all the dovecotes are phony,” Clayton said. “And the way people clutter up their lives. I’ve thought about it a lot, and what seems to me to be really wrong with Shady Hill is that it doesn’t have any future. So much energy is spent in perpetuating the place?in keeping out undesirables, and so forth?that the only idea of the future anyone has is just more and more commuting trains and more parties. I don’t think that’s healthy. I think people ought to be able to dream big dreams about the future. I think people ought to be able to dream great dreams.”
“It’s too bad you couldn’t continue with college,” Julia said.
“I wanted to go to divinity school,” Clayton said.
“What’s your church?” Francis asked. “Unitarian, Theosophist, Transcendentalist, Humanist,” Clayton said.
“Wasn’t Emerson a transcendentalist?” Julia asked.
“I mean the English transcendentalists,” Clayton said. “All the American transcendentalists were goops.”
“What kind of job do you expect to get?” Francis asked.
“Well, I’d like to work for a publisher,” Clayton said, but everyone tells me there’s nothing doing. But it’s the kind of thing I’m interested in. I’m writing a long verse play about good and evil. Uncle Charlie might get me into a bank, and that would be good for me. I need the discipline. I have a long way to go in forming my character. I have some terrible habits. I talk too much. I think I ought to take vows of silence. I ought to try not to speak for a week, and discipline myself. I’ve thought of making a retreat at one of the Episcopalian monasteries, but I don’t like Trinitarianism.”
“Do you have any girl friends?” Francis asked.
“I’m engaged to be married,” Clayton said. “Of course, I’m not old enough or rich enough to have my engagement observed or respected or anything, but I bought a simulated emerald for Anne Murchison with the money I made cutting lawns this summer. We’re going to be married as soon as she finishes school.”
Francis recoiled at the mention of the girl’s name. Then a dingy light seemed to emanate from his spirit, showing everything?Julia, the boy, the chairs?in their true colorlessness. It was like a bitter turn of the weather.
“We’re going to have a large family,” Clayton said. “Her father’s a terrible rummy, and I’ve had my hard times, and we want to have lots of children. Oh, she’s wonderful, Mr. and Mrs. Weed, and we have so much in common. We like all the same things. We sent out the same Christmas card last year without planning it, and we both have an allergy to tomatoes, and our eyebrows grow together in the middle. Well, goodnight.”
Julia went to the door with him. When she returned, Francis said that Clayton was lazy, irresponsible, affected, and smelly. Julia said that Francis seemed to be getting intolerant; the Thomas boy was young and should be given a chance. Julia had noticed other cases where Francis had been short-tempered. “Mrs. Wrightson has asked everyone in Shady Hill to her anniversary party but us,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Julia.”
“Do you know why they didn’t ask us?”
“Why?”
