Here the wind
and rain revived him; the bank and its curt refusal were forgotten; he
walked onward with only a smiling memory of his partner as in the old
days. He remembered how Stacy had burned down their old cabin rather
than have it fall into sordid or unworthy hands--this Stacy who was now
condemned to sink his impulses and become a mere machine. He had never
known Stacy's real motive for that act,--both Demorest and Stacy
had kept their knowledge of the attempted robbery from their younger
partner,--it always seemed to him to be a precious revelation of Stacy's
inner nature. Facing the wind and rain, he recalled how Stacy, though
never so enthusiastic about his marriage as Demorest, had taken up Van
Loo sharply for some foolish sneer about his own youthfulness. He was
affectionately tolerant of even Stacy's dislike to his wife's relations,
for Stacy did not know them as he did. Indeed, Barker, whose own father
and mother had died in his infancy, had accepted his wife's relations
with a loving trust and confidence that was supreme, from the fact that
he had never known any other.
At last he reached his hotel. It was a new one, the latest creation of a
feverish progress in hotel-building which had covered five years and as
many squares with large showy erections, utterly beyond the needs of the
community, yet each superior in size and adornment to its predecessor.
Pages:
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76