I.

After his return to London Sherman for a time kept to himself, going straight home from his office, moody and self-absorbed, trying not to consider his problem—her life, his life. He often repeated to himself, “I must do what people expect of me. It does not rest with me now—my choosing time is over.” He felt that whatever way he turned he would do a great evil to himself and others. To his nature all sudden decisions were difficult, and so he kept to the groove he had entered upon. It did not even occur to him to do otherwise. He never thought of breaking this engagement off and letting people say what they would. He was bound in hopelessly by a chain of congratulations.

A week passed slowly as a month. The wheels of the cabs and carriages seemed to be rolling through his mind. He often remembered the quiet river at the end of his garden in the town of Ballah. How the weeds swayed there, and the salmon leaped! At the week’s end came a note from Miss Leland, complaining of his neglecting her so many days. He sent a rather formal answer, promising to call soon. To add to his other troubles a cold east wind arose and made him shiver continually.

One evening he and his mother were sitting silent, the one knitting, the other half-asleep. He had been writing letters and was now in a reverie. Round the walls were one or two drawings, done by him at school. His mother had got them framed. His eyes were fixed on a drawing of a stream and some astonishing cows.

A few days ago he had found an old sketch-book for children among some forgotten papers, which taught how to draw a horse by making three ovals for the basis of his body, one lying down in the middle, two standing up at each end for flank and chest, and how to draw a cow by basing its body on a square. He kept trying to fit squares into the cows. He was half inclined to take them out of their frames and retouch on this new principle. Then he began somehow to remember the child with the swollen face who threw a stone at the dog the day he resolved to leave home first. Then some other image came. His problem moved before him in a disjointed way. He was dropping asleep. Through his reverie came the click, click of his mother’s needles. She had found some London children to knit for. He was at that marchland between waking and dreaming where our thoughts begin to have a life of their own—the region where art is nurtured and inspiration born.

He started, hearing something sliding and rustling, and looked up to see a piece of cardboard fall from one end of the mantlepiece, and, driven by a slight gust of air, circle into the ashes under the grate.

“Oh,” said his mother, “that is the portrait of the locum tenens.” She still spoke of the Rev. William Howard by the name she had first known him by. “He is always being photographed. They are all over the house, and I, an old woman, have not had one taken all my life. Take it out with the tongs.” Her son after some poking in the ashes, for it had fallen far back, brought out a somewhat dusty photograph. “That,” she continued, “is one he sent us two or three months ago. It has been lying in the letter-rack since.”

“He is not so spick and span looking as usual,” said Sherman, rubbing the ashes off the photograph with his sleeve.

“By the by,” his mother replied, “he has lost his parish, I hear. He is very mediæval, you know, and he lately preached a sermon to prove that children who die unbaptized are lost. He had been reading up the subject and was full of it. The mothers turned against him, not being so familiar with St. Augustine as he was. There were other reasons in plenty too. I wonder that any one can stand that monkeyish fantastic family.”

As the way is with so many country-bred people, the world for her was divided up into families rather than individuals.

While she was talking, Sherman, who had returned to his chair, leant over the table and began to write hurriedly. She was continuing her denunciation when he interrupted with—“Mother, I have just written this letter to him:—

“‘My dear Howard:

“‘Will you come and spend the autumn with us? I hear you are unoccupied just now. I am engaged to be married, as you know; it will be a long engagement. You will like my betrothed. I hope you will be great friends.

“‘Yours expectantly,

“‘John Sherman.’”

“You rather take me aback,” she said.

“I really like him,” he answered. “You were always prejudiced against the Howards. Forgive me, but I really want very much to have him here.”

“Well, if you like him, I suppose I have no objection.”

“I do like him. He is very clever,” said her son, “and knows a great deal. I wonder he does not marry. Do you not think he would make a good husband?—for you must admit he is sympathetic.”

“It is not difficult to sympathize with every one if you have no true principles and convictions.”

Principles and convictions were her names for that strenuous consistency attained without trouble by men and women of few ideas.

“I am sure you will like him better,” said the other, “when you see more of him.”

“Is that photograph quite spoilt?” she answered.

“No; there was nothing on it but ashes.”

“That is a pity, for one less would be something.”

After this they both became silent, she knitting, he gazing at the cows browsing at the edge of their stream, and trying to fit squares into their bodies; but now a smile played about his lips.

Mrs. Sherman looked a little troubled. She would not object to any visitor of her son’s, but quite made up her mind in no manner to put herself out to entertain the Rev. William Howard. She was puzzled as well. She did not understand the suddenness of this invitation. They usually talked over things for weeks.