CHAPTER II

WHAT MEN LIVE BY

Ishmael Ruan, like the rest of his world that day, had been planning ahead in his mind.  His first conceptions were blown away from him with his breath at sight of Vassie glowing on the dingy railway platform; she was far the more self-possessed of the two, which was mortifying to a young man who, all the way down in the train, had been telling himself with what tact and kindliness he was going to behave.  John-James had seemed so unaltered that his grip of the hand, as casual as though Ishmael were any acquaintance just back from a day’s excursion, had been a relief.  Remained his mother, for Tom, contrary to what John-James and Vassie had expected, did not look in at Penzance Station to greet Ishmael on his transit, and as to the Parson, he was letting Ishmael alone to find his feet with his family, holding himself as a person to be come to if occasion or affection prompted it later.

The drive was a silent one, as even Vassie felt shy, though she hid it under an affectation of calmness.  Ishmael had plenty of time to readjust himself and think of his mother, the determining factor, now Archelaus was away, in his happiness—­or so he thought, ignorant in his masculinity of the force and will sheathed in Vassie’s velvet sleekness.  His mother ... he had no sentiment at the name; but then neither would he have had if the relation between them had been a happy one.  He would then have felt love, but he would always have been of too deadly a clarity for sentiment.  He was sorry for his mother with a degree of sympathy rare in one so young, for he had as little of the hardness of youth as might be, and what he had was not of judgment, but feeling.  He was at the moment nothing but sorry for his mother, but though that pity would not change to condemnation it might turn to dislike.  He too, as Annie was doing in the parlour as she awaited the sound of the wheels that were bearing him nearer her, tried to clutch at memories.  He could find a few of fierce kindnesses, but not one of an embrace unqualified by some queer feeling other than simple love, which he had always felt in her.  She did not, of course, care twopence for him, he decided.  Well, he would not be a hypocrite—­he would not bother or embarrass her with the expression of a tenderness neither of them felt; he would be gentle, he would kiss her if she seemed to expect it, but he would talk brightly and naturally of trivial things, he would make the occasion seem as little weighted with portent as possible.  There should be nothing of the return of the master, nothing of the odious briskness of the new broom about him at his entry.  Time enough after to talk over things....  He could spend the next day with John-James on the farm discussing improvements, alterations.  They were very behind the times down here; he had seen farming in Somerset and Devon in his holidays that would make them open