One evening Thane and John were sitting together in one of their friendly silences, after supper, in the hotel lobby. Thane cleared his throat. “We’ve got a house, Agnes ’n me,” he said. As there was no immediate comment he added: “I suppose you won’t be lonesome here alone. We don’t seem to visit much anyhow.”
John said it was very nice that they had a house;—he hoped they would be comfortable;—had they got everything they needed? He did not ask where the house was nor when they should move; and that was all they said about it.
No. John would not be lonesome. There was another word for it and he couldn’t remember what it was. Although he saw her very seldom and then only at a distance, or when he passed her by chance in the hotel and they exchanged remote greetings, still, just living under the same roof with her had become a fact that deeply pertained to his existence. How much he had made of it unconsciously he did not realize until they were gone. Thereafter as he turned in at the door he had always the desolate thought, “She is not here.” The place was empty. The rooms in which he had settled them were open to transients. He thought[235] of taking them for himself. On coming to do it he couldn’t. So he went elsewhere to live; he moved about; all places were empty.
From time to time Thane hinted they would like to see him at the house. For some reason it seemed hard for him to come out with a direct invitation. However, he did at last.
“Mrs. Thane wants you up to supper,” he said, abruptly.
“Thanks,” said John. “I’m ashamed of myself, tell her. I’ll stop in some evening.”
“You don’t know where it is,” said Thane.
“That’s so. Tell me how to find it.”
He wrote the directions down. Still, it was most indefinite. Some evening meant nothing at all. Thane took him by the shoulders and regarded him with an expression that John avoided.
“And I want you to come,” he said, with slow emphasis on the first pronoun. “To-morrow.”
“All right,” said John. “Meet me here at the office and I’ll go with you.”
It was a small house in a poor street, saved only by some large old trees. This surprised John, because Thane’s income was enough to enable them to live in a very nice way, in moderate luxury even. He was still more surprised at the indecorative simplicity of its furnishings. Thane’s nature was not parsimonious. He would not have stinted her. Then why had they set up a household more in keeping with the status of a first rate puddler than with that of the vice-president of a flourishing nail trust, receiving in salary and dividends[236] more than twenty thousand a year? Yet simple, even commonplace as everything was there was evidence of taste beyond Thane’s. It must have been Agnes who did it.
The first thing Thane did on entering was to remove his collar and place it conspicuously on a table in the hallway by the foot of the staircase. “I forget that if I don’t see it going out,” he said. He unbuttoned the neck of his shirt, breathed and looked around with an air of satisfaction. “Beats living at a hotel,” he said, opening the door into a little front sitting room for John to see. “The only thing I picked out,” he said, “was that big chair,” referring to an enormous structure of hickory and rush that filled all one corner of the room. “I’ll show you upstairs,” he added. Coming to his own room he said: “This ain’t much to look at but that ain’t what it’s for. Nobody sees it.” It was furnished with a simple cot, another hickory chair and a plain pine table. On the table was a brass lamp ready to be lighted; also, tobacco jar, matches, some technical books, mechanical drawings, pencils and paper.
At the other end of the hall Thane stopped before a closed door. “She’s downstairs,” he said, at the same time knocking. He opened it softly, saying: “This is hers.” John got a glimpse of a little white bed, a white dressing table, some white chairs and two tiny pictures on the wall. A nun’s chamber could hardly have been more austere. He turned away. At the head of the staircase he looked back. Thane had momentarily forgotten him and was still standing on the threshold of the little white room gazing into it. Suddenly............