He made sure that she blamed him for having defended his own gas and sidewalk rights with successful vigor, but permitted the sacrifice of her poor little inoffensive roses without a protest.In this view of the matter, indeed, he blamed himself.Was it too late to make the error good? He ventured a hint on this Sunday evening, when he returned to the parsonage and found her reading an old weekly newspaper by the light of the kitchen lamp, to the effect that he fancied there would be no great danger in putting those roses back into her bonnet.
Without lifting her eyes from the paper, she answered that she had no earthly desire to wear roses in her bonnet, and went on with her reading.
At breakfast the next morning Theron found himself in command of an unusual fund of humorous good spirits, and was at pains to make the most of it, passing whimsical comments on subjects which the opening day suggested, recalling quaint and comical memories of the past, and striving his best to force Alice into a laugh.
Formerly her merry temper had always ignited at the merest spark of gayety.Now she gave his jokes only a dutiful half-smile, and uttered scarcely a word in response to his running fire of talk.When the meal was finished, she went silently to work to clear away the dishes.
Theron turned over in his mind the project of offering to help her, as he had done so often in those dear old days when they laughingly began life together.
Something decided this project in the negative for him, and after lingering moments he put on his hat and went out for a walk.
Not even the most doleful and trying hour of his bitter experience in Tyre had depressed him like this.
Looking back upon these past troubles, he persuaded himself that he had borne them all with a light and cheerful heart, simply because Alice had been one with him in every thought and emotion.How perfect, how ideally complete, their sympathy had always been! With what absolute unity of mind and soul they had trod that difficult path together! And now--henceforth--was it to be different?
The mere suggestion of such a thing chilled his veins.
He said aloud to himself as he walked that life would be an intolerable curse if Alice were to cease sharing it with him in every conceivable phase.
He had made his way out of town, and tramped along the country hill-road for a considerable distance, before a merciful light began to lessen the shadows in the picture of gloom with which his mind tortured itself.All at once he stopped short, lifted his head, and looked about him.
The broad valley lay warm and tranquil in the May sunshine at his feet.In the thicket up the side-hill above him a gray squirrel was chattering shrilly, and the birds sang in a tireless choral confusion.Theron smiled, and drew a long breath.The gay clamor of the woodland songsters, the placid radiance of the landscape, were suddenly taken in and made a part of his new mood.He listened, smiled once more, and then started in a leisurely way back toward Octavius.
How could he have been so ridiculous as to fancy that Alice--his Alice--had been changed into someone else? He marvelled now at his own perverse folly.She was overworked--tired out--that was all.The task of moving in, of setting the new household to rights, had been too much for her.
She must have a rest.They must get in a hired girl.
Once this decision about a servant fixed itself in the young minister's mind, it drove out the last vestage of discomfort.
He strode along now in great content, revolving idly a dozen different plans for gilding and beautifying this new life of leisure into which his sanguine thoughts projected Alice.One of these particularly pleased him, and waxed in definiteness as he turned it over and over.
He would get another piano for her, in place of that which had been sacrificed in Tyre.That beneficient modern invention, the instalment plan, made this quite feasible--so easy, in fact, that it almost seemed as if he should find his wife playing on the new instrument when he got home.
He would stop in at the music store and see about it that very day.
Of course, now that these important resolutions had been taken, it would be a good thing if he could do something to bring in some extra money.This was by no means a new notion.
He had mused over the possibility in a formless way ever since that memorable discovery of indebtedness in Tyre, and had long ago recognized the hopelessness of endeavor in every channel save that of literature.Latterly his fancy had been stimulated by reading an account of the profits which Canon Farrar had derived from his "Life of Christ."If such a book could command such a bewildering multitude of readers, Theron felt there ought to be a chance for him.
So clear did constant rumination render this assumption that the young pastor in time had come to regard this prospective book of his as a substantial asset, which could be realized without trouble whenever he got around to it.
He had not, it is true, gone to the length of seriously considering what should be the subject of his book.
That had not seemed to him to matter much, so long as it was scriptural.Familiarity with the process of extracting a fixed amount of spiritual and intellectual meat from any casual text, week after week, had given him an idea that any one of many subjects would do, when the time came for him to make a choice.He realized now that the time for a selection had arrived, and almost simultaneously found himself with a ready-made decision in his mind.
The book should be about Abraham!
Theron Ware was extremely interested in the mechanism of his own brain, and followed its workings with a lively curiosity.Nothing could be more remarkable, he thought, than to thus discover that, on the instant of his formulating a desire to know what he should write upon, lo, and behold! there his mind, quite on its own initiative, had the answer waiting for him!
