Trade,
property, business, respectability, good form; these were the
shibboleth they worshipped. It was just because she did not want
to believe this of James Farnum that she had taken him with her to
call on Marchant. It was in a sense a test, and he was answering
it by showing himself complacently callous and hidebound.
Surely he had not always been like this, a smug and well-clad
Pharisee, afraid to look at the truth. In those early days, when
they had been friends, with the possibility of being a good deal
more, there had been an impetuous touch of ardor she could no
longer find. Her cool glance ran down his figure. The man was
taking on flesh, the plump well-fed look of one who has escaped
moral conduct by giving up the fight. Fat cushioned the square jaw
and detracted from its strength. For the first time she observed a
hardening of the eye. The visible deterioration of an inner
collapse was being writ on him.
Alice sighed. After all she might have spared herself the trouble.
He had chosen his path and he must follow it.
At the corner of Powers Avenue and Van Ault Street James left
them. It was natural that the talk should revert to Marchant.
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