Only Llewellyn was sure. When he was reminded that he was only twenty-one, he kept silent, knowing that, whatever his years, he would never again be twenty-one at heart. Life had betrayed him. He had squandered himself on a worthless girl and the world had punished him for it, as ruthlessly as though he had spent spiritual coin other than his own. Meeting Lucy on the street again, he passed her without a flicker of his eye—and returned to his room, his day spoiled by the sight of that young distant face, the insincere reproach of those dark haunting eyes.
A week or so later arrived a letter from New York informing him that from four hundred plans submitted the judges of the competition had chosen his for the prize. Llewellyn walked into Mr. Garnett’s office without excitement, but with a strong sense of elation, and laid the letter on his employer’s desk.
“I’m especially glad,” he said, “because before I go away I wanted to do something to justify your belief in me.”
Mr. Garnett’s face assumed an expression of concern.
“It’s this business of Lucy Wharton, isn’t it?” he demanded. “It’s still on your mind?”
“I can’t stand meeting her,” said Llewellyn. “It always makes me feel—like the devil.”
“But you ought to stay till they put up your house for you.”
“I’ll come back for that, perhaps. I want to leave tonight.”
Garnett looked at him thoughtfully.
“I don’t like to see you go away,” he said. “I’m going to tell you something I didn’t intend to tell you. Lucy needn’t worry you a bit any more—your responsibility is absolutely over.”
“Why’s that?” Llewellyn felt his heart quicken.
“She’s going to marry another man.”
“Going to marry another man!” repeated Llewellyn mechanically.
“She’s going to marry George Hemmick, who represents her father’s business in Chicago. They’re going out there to live.”
“I see.”
“The Whartons are delighted,” continued Garnett. “I think they’ve felt this thing pretty deeply—perhaps more deeply than it deserves. And I’ve been sorry all along that the brunt of it fell on you. But you’ll find the girl you really want one of these days, Llewellyn, and meanwhile the sensible thing for everyone concerned is to forget that it happened at all.”
“But I can’t forget,” said Llewellyn in strained voice. “I don’t understand what you mean by all that—you people—you and Lucy and her father and mother. First it was such a tragedy, and now it’s something to forget! First I was this vicious young man and now I’m to go ahead and find the girl I want. Lucy’s going to marry somebody and live in Chicago. Her father and mother feel fine because our elopement didn’t get in the newspapers and hurt their social position. It came out ‘all right’!”
Llewellyn stood there speechless, aghast and defeated by this manifestation of the world’s indifference. It was all about nothing—his very self-reproaches had been pointless and in vain.
“So that’s that,” he said finally in a new, hard voice. “I realize now that from beginning to end I was the only one who had any conscience in this affair after all.”
IV.
The little house, fragile yet arresting, all aglitter like a toy in its fresh coat of robin’s-egg blue, stood out delicately against the clear sky. Set upon new-laid sod between two other bungalows, it swung the eye sharply toward itself, held your glance for a moment, then turned up the corners of your lips with the sort of smile reserved for children. Something went on in it, you imagined; something charming and not quite real. Perhaps the whole front opened up like the front of a doll’s house; you were tempted to hunt for the catch because you felt an irresistible inclination to peer inside.
Long before the arrival of Llewellyn Clark and Mr. Garnett a small crowd had gathered—the constant efforts of two policemen were required to keep people from breaking through the strong fence and trampling the tiny garden. When Llewellyn’s eye first fell upon it, as their car rounded a corner, a lump rose in his throat. That was his own—something that had come alive out of his mind. Suddenly he realized that it was not for sale, that he wanted it more than anything in the world. It could mean to him what love might have meant, something always bright and warm where he could rest from whatever disappointments life might have in store. And unlike love, it would set no traps for him. His career opened up before him in a shining path and for the first time in months he was radiantly happy.
The speeches, the congratulations, passed in a daze. When he got up to make a stumbling but grateful acknowledgment, even the sight of Lucy standing close to another man on the edge of the crowd failed to send a pang through him, as it would have a month before. That was the past, and only the future counted. He hoped with all his heart, without reservations now, or bitterness, that she would be happy.
Afterward, when the crowd melted away, he felt the necessity of being alone. Still in a sort of trance, he went inside the house again and wandered from room to room, touching the walls, the furniture, the window casements, with almost a caress. He pulled aside curtains and gazed out; he stood for a while in the kitchen and seemed to see the fresh bread and butter on the white boards of the table, and hear the kettle, murmurous on the stove. Then back through the dining room—he remembered planning that the evening light should fall through the window just so—and into the bedroom, where he watched a breeze ruffle the edge of a curtain faintly, as if someone already lived here. He would sleep in this room tonight, he thought. He would buy things for a cold supper from a corner store. He was sorry for everyone who was not an architect, who could not make their own houses; he wished he could have set up every stick and stone with his own hands.
The September dusk fell. Returning from the store, he set out his purchases on the dining-room table—cold roast chicken, bread and jam, and a bottle of milk. He ate lingeringly, then he sat back in his chair and smoked a cigarette, his eyes wandering about the walls. This was home. Llewellyn, brought up by a series of aunts, scarcely remembered ever having had a home before—except, of course, where he had lived with Lucy. Those barren rooms in which they were so miserable together had been, nevertheless, a sort of home. Poor children—he looked back on them both, himself as well as her, from a great distance. Little wonder their love had made a faint, frail effort, a gesture, and then, unprepared for the oppression of those stifling walls, starved quickly to death.
Half an hour passed. Outside, the silence was heavy except for the complaint of some indignant dog far down the street. Llewellyn’s mind, detached by the unfamiliar, almost mystical surroundings, drifted away from the immediate past; he was thinking of the day when he had first met Lucy, a year before. Little Lucy Wharton—how touched he had been by her trust in him, by her confidence that, at twenty, he was experienced in the ways of the world.
He got to his feet and began to walk slowly up and down the room—starting suddenly as the front doorbell pealed through the house for the first time. He opened the door and Mr. Garnett stepped inside.
“Good evening, Llewellyn,” he said. “I came back to see if the king was happy in his castle.”
“Sit down,” said Llewellyn tensely. “I’ve got to ask you something. Why is Lucy marrying this man? I want to know.”
“Why, I think I told you that he’s a good deal older,” answered Garnett quietly. “She feels that he understands.”
“I want to see her!” Llewellyn cried. He leaned miserably against the mantelpiece.