Five minutes later Orde emerged from Newmark's house, softly rubbing the
palm of one hand over the knuckles of the other. At the front gate he
paused to look up at the stars. Then he shut it decisively behind him.
Up through the maple shaded streets he walked at a brisk pace, breathing
deep, unconsciously squaring back his shoulders. The incident was
behind him. In his characteristic decisive manner he had wiped the whole
disagreeable affair off the slate. The copartnership with its gains and
losses, its struggles and easy sailing was a thing of the past. Only
there remained, as after a flood the sediment, a final result of it all,
the balance between successes and failures, a ground beneath the feet
of new aspirations. Orde had the Northern Peninsula timber; the Boom
Company; and the carrying trade. They were all burdened with debt, it
is true, but the riverman felt surging within him the reawakened and
powerful energy for which optimism is another name. He saw stretching
before him a long life of endeavour, the sort of endeavour he enjoyed,
exulted in; and in it he would be untrammelled and alone. The idea
appealed to him. Suddenly he was impatient for the morrow that he might
begin.
He turned out of the side street. His own house lay before him, dark
save for the gas jet in the hallway and the single lamp in the library.
A harmony of softly touched chords breathed out through the open window.
He stopped; then stole forward softly until he stood looking in through
the doorway.
Carroll sat leaning against the golden harp, her shining head with the
soft shadows bent until it almost touched the strings. Her hands were
straying idly over accustomed chords and rich modulations, the plaintive
half-music of reverie. A soft light fell on her slender figure; half
revealed the oval of her cheek and the sweep of her lashes.
Orde crept to her unheard. Gently he clasped her from behind.
Unsurprised she relinquished the harp strings and sank back against his
breast with a happy little sigh.
“Kind of fun being married, isn't it, sweetheart?” he repeated their
quaint formula.
“Kind of,” she replied; and raised her face to his.