Nothing but the knowledge that the boy was drunk had kept him from
striking back there and then. His temper was a hot one. It came in
fierce gusts, which stormed off quickly. The quickness saved him now.
Before he was home in bed he had reconciled himself to bearing this
thing too. It was bigger to bear it, more masculine, more civilized. He
would never forget his racking remorse after the last fight.
He didn't lose his eye, but he was obliged to see an oculist. The
oculist pronounced it a close shave.
"Where in thunder did you get that?" Guy demanded, a day or two after
the occurrence.
Tom thought it an opportunity to learn whether or not the boy had been
conscious of what he did. "Ask Tad Whitelaw."
"_What?_ You don't mean to say you've had another row with him! Gee
whiz!"
"No, I haven't had another row with him; but all the same, ask him."
Guy asked him, with no information but that the mucker would get
another if he didn't keep out of the way. It was all Tom needed to
know. He had not been too drunk to strike with deliberate intention,
and to remember that he had struck.
Guy must have told Hildred, because she wrote begging Tom to come to
see her. He wasn't to mind his black eye, because she knew all about
it. She was tender, consoling.
"I don't believe he's a cad any more than I believe that of Lily," she
said, while giving him a cup of tea, "but they're both spoiled with
money and a sense of self-importance. You see, losing the other child
has made their mother foolish about them. She's lavished everything on
them, more than anyone, not a born saint, could stand. It would have
been a great deal better if they'd had to fight their way--some of
their way at any rate--like you."
"Oh, I'm another breed."
"Another figurative breed--yes. As to the breed in your blood--"
"Oh, but, Hildred, you don't believe that poppy-cock."
Her eyes were on the teapot from which she was pouring. "I don't
believe it exactly because I don't know. It only strikes me as being
very queer."
"Queer in what way?"
"Oh, in every way. They think so too."
"Then why do they seem to hate me so?"
"I shouldn't say they did that. They're afraid of you. You disturb
them. They're--what do they call it in the Bible?--kicking against the
pricks. That's all there is to it. When they'd buried the whole thing
you come along and make them dig it up again. They don't want to do
that. They feel it's too late. You can see for yourself that for Tad
and Lily it would be awkward. When you've been the only two children,
and such spoiled ones at that, to have an elder brother you didn't
know anything about suddenly hoisted over you--"
"Of course! I understand that."
"Mr. Whitelaw feels the same, only he feels it differently. _He'd_
accept him, however hard it was."
"And Mrs. Whitelaw?"
"Oh, poor dear, she's suffered so much that all she asks is not to be
made to suffer any more. I don't believe it matters to her now whether
he's found or not, so long as she isn't tortured."
"And does she think I'd torture her?"
"They haven't come to that. It isn't what you _may_ do, but what they
themselves _ought_ to do that troubles them."
"I wish if you get a chance you'd tell them that they needn't do
anything."
"They wouldn't take my word for it, or yours either. It rests with
themselves and their own consciences."
"A good deal of it rests with me."
"Yes, if you were willing to take the first step; but since you're
not--"
[Illustration: MRS. ANSLEY TOOK HIM AS AN AFFLICTION]
They dropped it at that because Mrs. Ansley lilted in, greeting Tom
with that outward welcome and inward repugnance he had had to learn to
swallow. He knew exactly where he stood with her. She took him as an
affliction. Affliction could visit the best families and ignore the
highest merits. Guy, dear boy, was extravagant, and this was the proof
of his extravagance. He was infatuated with this young man, who had
neither means, antecedents, nor connections. She had heard the Whitelaw
Baby theory, of course; but so long as the Whitelaws themselves
rejected it, she rejected it too. The best she could do was to be
philanthropic. Philip, Guy, Hildred, were all convinced that this young
man was to make his mark. Very well! It was in her tradition, it was in
the whole tradition of old Boston, to help those who were likely to get
on. It was part of what you owed to your standing in the world, a kind
of public duty. You couldn't slight it any more than royalty can slight
the opening of bazaars. An aunt of her own had helped a poor girl to
take singing lessons; and the girl became one of the great prima donnas
of the world. Whenever she sang in opera in Boston it was always a
satisfaction to the family to exhibit her as their protégée. So it
might one day be with this young man. She hoped so, she was sure. She
didn't like him; she thought the fuss made over him by Hildred and Guy,
more or less abetted by their father, an absurdity; but since she was
obliged to play up to the family standard of beneficence, up to it she
would play. She bore with Tom, therefore, wisely and patiently, never
snubbing him except when they chanced to be alone, and hurting him only
as a jellyfish hurts a swimmer, by clamminess of contact.
Clamminess of contact being in itself a weapon of offense, Tom ran away
from it, but only to fall into contact of another kind.
It was a cloudy afternoon with Christmas in the near future. All
over town there were notes of Christmas, in the shop windows, in
the Christmas trees exposed for sale, in the way people ran about
with parcels. He never approached this season without going back to
that fatal Christmas Eve when he and his mother had been caught
shop-lifting. He could still feel as he felt at the minute when he
turned his face to the angle of the police-station wall, and wept
silently. He wondered what Hildred would think of him if he were to
tell her that tale. He wondered if he ever should.
Partly for the exercise, partly to find space to breathe and to think,
he followed the Boston embankment of the Charles, making his way to
the Harvard Bridge, and so toward Cambridge. In big quietly dropping
flakes it had begun to snow. Presently it was snowing faster. The few
pedestrians fled from the esplanade. He tramped on alone, enjoying the
solitude.
The embankment lamps had been lit when he noticed, coming toward him,
two young men, their collars turned up about their ears. They were
laughing and smoking cigarettes. Drawing nearer, he recognized them as
Tad Whitelaw and the fellow who had slapped the table at the dance. It
was not hard to guess that they were on their way to see Hildred. He
hoped that under cover of the darkness and the snow he might slip by
unobserved.