Chapter 3

“I’m glad it’s finished,” said Priscilla. “I’ve had enough of shopping
and ‘harmonizing.’ I must say I like the result, though. Don’t you,
Father?”

“Yes,” piped Stephen, with alacrity. In his heart he was wondering if he
would ever feel like anything but a visitor in this fine new house of
his. But he would not say so to Priscilla. He was ashamed and alarmed to
find that he was longing for Roseneath—“after all my bragging,” he
reflected, sheepishly. He grew more ashamed as the winter went by. He
could not feel like anything but a stranger in the city—“like a pilgrim
and sojourner,” as he told himself. At first the bustle and excitement,
the sense of busy life and accomplishment, had interested him. He did
not like it now; he found himself remembering the quietness of the
homestead, where one could think easily.

He missed his old cronies of the store. He had been wont to laugh at
them to Priscilla, but he had in reality enjoyed his simple pre-eminence
among them. He had been looked up to as a clever, well-read man. Now he
did not like being a nobody.

Things disappointed him. Men in Redmond were doing clever things, but
were too busy in the doing of them to talk about them. The men who did
talk Stephen did not care to listen to. He was shrewd enough to see that
they were not worth it. In the scholarly circle which revolved around
Gordon he felt hopelessly behindhand. They were too far in advance of
him. In the social set where Theodore and Mrs. Theodore shone like fixed
stars he was still more out of place. He thought their amusements and
pursuits as trivial as anything in Roseneath had been.

“I don’t amount to a row of pins anywhere,” he groaned to himself,
feebly groping after his lost individuality.

He missed his old work. When he grew tired of reading there was nothing
for him to do—nowhere he cared to go. There was nothing in Redmond
answering to the corner store, where he had been wont to betake himself
and hold forth on the subjects of his reading. He had been accustomed to
complain to Priscilla that none of his listeners understood them or
could discuss them intelligently, but now he suspected that he had
really liked this and the distinction his superior knowledge conferred
on him.

In other ways he was out of joint with his surroundings. He could not
get over that irritating sense of being a stranger in his own house. He
felt afraid of the servant-girl—a dashing, energetic young person with
very modern ways of doing things. That she did them well was
indisputable, but Stephen held her in uncomfortable awe. He would never
have dared to go into her kitchen or invade her pantry in search of a
snack at odd hours. He even developed a fashion of tiptoeing about the
house as if he were a burglar or trespasser.

But no one knew of his unhappiness. He would not admit it after all his
confident anticipations. It became his great aim to hide it. He grew
very quiet and taciturn, but this was not noticed in a place where
everybody was deeply absorbed in something. Even his sons, although they
thought their father was not so chatty as he used to be, did not realize
the difference in him. They had lived away from him too long.

Not one of his skeptical Roseneath neighbors who had listened to all his
confident boasts must ever hear of his disappointment. His children, who
had done so much for him, must not know that he hated Redmond. Above
all, Priscilla must never suspect it—Priscilla, who so evidently
enjoyed the new life as fully as she had predicted.

Priscilla was now a very busy woman, brisk, alert, absorbed. Already she
was a shining light in the Mothers’ Club, which was dear to Mrs. Ted’s
heart, and in the charitable organization whereof Edith was secretary.
But it was in a purely intellectual woman’s club, which Mrs. Gordon
Winslow herself had founded, that Mrs. Winslow, senior, shone most
brilliantly. Even her children, who knew her so well, were surprised at
the ease and readiness with which she took and held her own in its
charmed circle of women, who had breathed the atmosphere of culture all
their lives. Once she read a paper before the club on an historical
subject. It was thoughtful and well-written, and was discussed
appreciatively by the foremost members of the club.

Stephen was immensely proud of his wife’s success, even though it
emphasized his own loneliness. He revelled in every word of praise he
heard about her. In this new life she was expanding like a flower in its
native air. In part it reconciled him to his exile, although it could
not dull the ache.

[Illustration: “Stephen shook hands with his former neighbor. ‘I thought
I’d come out and see how the old place was’”]

Priscilla, under Mrs. Ted’s wing, blossomed out socially also. She went
to afternoon teas and luncheons, and found herself popular among the
city matrons. Between all her children, she got to almost everything
worth hearing and seeing in the city—lectures, concerts and plays. She
enjoyed them all, too—there was no doubt of that. She read a great deal
and got through with a surprising amount of committee work. She was far
busier than she had been on the farm. There she and Stephen had had long
hours of leisure to talk to each other or sit together in happy silence.
There was nothing of this now, and Stephen missed their old
companionship bitterly. She seemed to have suddenly outstripped him in
everything.

“She belongs here, but I’m only a miserable old square peg in a round
hole,” he reflected, dolefully. “But I’ll never give in to it—never!”

When April came his home-sickness grew worse. The spring air wakened in
him a keen desire to get back to the farm and its old, homely ways. One
day it overpowered him. He had been to a scientific lecture that
afternoon with Gordon. It was on a subject he had been interested in on
the farm, but he seemed to have lost his grasp of it now. The lecturer
went beyond him. He walked home with his son and two of the other
professors. He would have liked to join in their discussion of the
lecture, but, as usual, it left him behind. He could not keep up with
their trained intellects.

He was very tired when he got home, and sat down in the parlor to rest.
He was hungry also, but he was afraid of Henrietta if he ventured to
prowl about her domain. Priscilla had gone to some of her interminable
committee meetings.

“Things’ll be wakening up in Roseneath by now,” he thought. “These
evenings the store’ll be full. Wisht’ I could drop in! S’pose Dan’ll be
getting ready to work the farm. Wonder what he’ll put in the south hill
field? ’Tought to be wheat, but like as not he’ll sow it with oats.
Wisht’ I was there! Stephen, Stephen, did ye ever think ye’d come to
this?”