Haward rose to take his leave. Evelyn yielded him her hand; it was cold
against his lips. She was nonchalant and smiling; he was easy, unoffended,
admirably the fine gentleman. For one moment their eyes met. "I had been
wiser," thought the man, "I had been wiser to have myself told her of
that brown witch, that innocent sorceress! Why something held my tongue I
know not. Now she hath read my idyl, but all darkened, all awry." The
woman thought: "Cruel and base! You knew that my heart was yours to break,
cast aside, and forget!"
Out of the house the sunlight beat and blinded. Houses of red brick,
houses of white wood; the long, wide, dusty Duke of Gloucester Street;
gnarled mulberry-trees broad-leafed against a September sky, deeply,
passionately blue; glimpses of wood and field,--all seemed remote without
distance, still without stillness, the semblance of a dream, and yet keen
and near to oppression. It was a town of stores, of ordinaries and public
places; from open door and window all along Duke of Gloucester Street came
laughter, round oaths, now and then a scrap of drinking song. To Haward,
giddy, ill at ease, sickening of a fever, the sounds were now as a cry in
his ear, now as the noise of a distant sea. The minister of James City
parish and the minister of Ware Creek were walking before him, arm in arm,
set full sail for dinner after a stormy morning. "For lo! the wicked
prospereth!" said one, and "Fair View parish bound over to the devil
again!" plained the other. "He's firm in the saddle; he'll ride easy to
the day he drinks himself to death, thanks to this sudden complaisance of
Governor and Commissary!"
"Thanks to"--cried the other sourly, and gave the thanks where they were
due.
Haward heard the words, but even in the act of quickening his pace to lay
a heavy hand upon the speaker's shoulder a listlessness came upon him, and
he forbore. The memory of the slurring speech went from him; his thoughts
were thistledown blown hither and yon by every vagrant air. Coming to
Marot's ordinary he called for wine; then went up the stair to his room,
and sitting down at the table presently fell asleep, with his head upon
his arms.
After a while the sounds from the public room below, where men were
carousing, disturbed his slumber. He stirred, and awoke refreshed. It was
afternoon, but he felt no hunger, only thirst, which he quenched with the
wine at hand. His windows gave upon the Capitol and a green wood beyond;
the waving trees enticed, while the room was dull and the noises of the
house distasteful. He said to himself that he would walk abroad, would go
out under the beckoning trees and be rid of the town. He remembered that
the Council was to meet that afternoon. Well, it might sit without him! He
was for the woods, where dwelt the cool winds and the shadows deep and
silent.