“I must leave,” he announced.  Howat Penny expressed no regret, and the other hesitated awkwardly.  “It’s no use!” he finally exclaimed.  “I can’t reach you; as if one of us spoke Patagonian.  Hellish, it seems to me.”  He turned and disappeared, as violently as he had come, over the obscurity of the lawn.  A reddish, misshapen moon hung low in the sky, and gave the aging man an extraordinarily vivid impression of dead planets, unthinkable wastes of time, illimitable systems and spaces.  James Polder’s passionate resentment, his own emotion, were no more articulate than the thin whirring of the locusts.  He went quickly into the house, to the warm glow of his lamp, the memories of his pictures, the figurine in baked clay with Hermes’ wand of victory.

XXVIII

The heat dragged through the remainder of August and filled September with steaming days and heavy nights, followed by driving grey storms and premonitory, chill dawns.  A period of sunny tranquillity succeeded, but crimson blots of sumach, the warmer tone of maples, made it evident that summer had lapsed.  Honduras mulched the strawberries, and set new teeth in his lawn rakes.  The days passed without feature, or word from Mariana, and Howat Penny fell into an almost slumberous monotony of existence.  It was not unpleasant; occupied with small duties, intent on his papers, or wandering in a past that seemed to grow clearer, rather than fade, as time multiplied, he maintained his erect, carefully ordered existence.  Then, among his mail, he found a large, formal-appearing envelope which he opened with a mild curiosity.  His attitude of detachment was soon dispelled.

Mrs. Corinne de Barry desired the pleasure of his attendance at the wedding of her daughter, Harriet, to James Polder.  Details, a church and hour, were appended.  The headlong young man, he thought, with a smile, Mariana was well out of that.  He had been wise in saying nothing to Charlotte; the thing had expired naturally.  But, irrationally, he thought of Polder with a trace of contempt—­a man who had, unquestionably, possessed Mariana Jannan’s regard marrying the pink-faced understudy to a second-rate emotional actress!  In a way it made him cross; the fellow should have shown a—­a greater appreciation, delicacy.  “Commonplace,” he said decisively, aloud.  The following day Mariana herself appeared, with a touch of sable and a small, wickedly becoming hat.

He was at lunch; and, without delay, she took the place smilingly laid for her by Rudolph.  It was characteristic that she made no pretence of concealing the reason that had brought her to Shadrach.  “Jim’s going to marry that Harriet de Barry,” she said at once, nicely casual.  “I had a card,” he informed her.  “It’s to be on the thirtieth,” Mariana proceeded, “at eight o’clock and in church.  Of course you are going.”

“Not at all of course,” he replied energetically.  “And you’ll stay away for the plainest decency.”