Thirty dollars’ worth of dahlias—that was what the stranger had said. Theron hardly brought himself to credit the statement; but all the same it was apparent to even his uninformed eye that these huge, imbricated, flowering masses, with their extraordinary half-colors, must be unusual. He remembered that the boy in Gorringe’s office had spoken of just one lot of plants costing thirty-one dollars and sixty cents, and there had been two other lots as well. The figures remained surprisingly distinct in his memory. It was no good deceiving himself any longer: of course these were the plants that Gorringe had spent his money upon, here all about him.
As he surveyed them with a sour regard, a cool breeze stirred across the garden. The tall, overladen flower-spikes of gladioli bent and nodded at him; the hollyhocks and flaming alvias, the clustered blossoms on the standard roses, the delicately painted lilies on their stilt-like stems, fluttered in the wind, and seemed all bowing satirically to him. “Yes, Levi Gorringe paid for us!” He almost heard their mocking declaration.
Out in the backyard, where a longer day of sunshine dwelt, there were many other flowers, and notably a bed of geraniums which literally made the eye ache. Standing at this rear corner of the house, he caught the droning sound of Alice’s voice, humming a hymn to herself as she went about her kitchen work. He saw her through the open window. She was sweeping, and had a sort of cap on her head which did not add to the graces of her appearance. He looked at her with a hard glance, recalling as a fresh grievance the ten days of intolerable boredom he had spent cooped up in a ridiculous little tent with her, at the camp-meeting. She must have realized at the time how odious the enforced companionship was to him. Yes, beyond doubt she did. It came back to him now that they had spoken but rarely to each other. She had not even praised his sermon upon the Sabbath-question, which everyone else had been in raptures over. For that matter she no longer praised anything he did, and took obvious pains to preserve toward him a distant demeanor. So much the better, he felt himself thinking. If she chose to behave in that offish and unwifely fashion, she could blame no one but herself for its results.
She had seen him, and came now to the window, watering-pot and broom in hand. She put her head out, to breathe a breath of dustless air, and began as if she would smile on him. Then her face chilled and stiffened, as she caught his look.
“Shall you be home for supper?” she asked, in her iciest tone.
He had not thought of going out before. The question, and the manner of it, gave immediate urgency to the idea of going somewhere. “I may or I may not,” he replied. “It is quite impossible for me to say.” He turned on his heel with this, and walked briskly out of the yard and down the street.
It was the most natural thing that presently he should be strolling past the Madden house, and letting a covert glance stray over its front and the grounds about it, as he loitered along. Every day since his return from the woods he had given the fates this chance of bringing Celia to meet him, without avail. He had hung about in the vicinity of the Catholic church on several evenings as well, but to no purpose. The organ inside was dumb, and he could detect no signs of Celia’s presence on the curtains of the pastorate next door. This day, too, there was no one visible at the home of the Maddens, and he walked on, a little sadly. It was weary work waiting for the signal that never came.
But there were compensations. His mind reverted doggedly to the flowers in his garden, and to Alice’s behavior toward him. They insisted upon connecting themselves in his thoughts. Why should Levi Gorringe, a moneylender, and therefore the last man in the world to incur reckless expenditure, go and buy perhaps a hundred dollars’ worth of flowers for his wife’s garden? It was time—high time—to face this question. And his experiencing religion afterward, just when Alice did, and marching down to the rail to kneel beside her—that was a thing to be thought of, too.
Meditation, it is true, hardly threw fresh light upon the matter. It was incredible, of course, that there should be anything wrong. To even shape a thought of Alice in connection with gallantry would be wholly impossible. Nor could it be said that Gorringe, in his new capacity as a professing church-member, had disclosed any sign of ulterior motives, or of insincerity. Yet there the facts were. While Theron pondered them, their mystery, if they involved a mystery, baffled him altogether. But when he had finished, he found himself all the same convinced that neither Alice nor Gorringe would be free to blame him for anything he might do. He had grounds for complaint against them. If he did not himself know just what these grounds were, it was certain enough that they knew. Very well, then, let them take the responsibility for what happened.
It was indeed awkward that at the moment, as Theron chanced to emerge temporarily from his brown-study, his eyes fell full upon the spare, well-knit form of Levi Gorringe himself, standing only a few feet away, in the staircase entrance to his law office. His lean face, browned by the summer’s exposure, had a more Arabian aspect than ever. His hands were in his pockets, and he held an unlighted cigar between his teeth. He looked the Rev. Mr. Ware over calmly, and nodded recognition.
Theron had halted instinctively.
