By William Dean Howells

PART FIFTH

I.

Superficially, the affairs of ‘Every Other Week’ settled into their wonted form again, and for Fulkerson they seemed thoroughly reinstated.  But March had a feeling of impermanency from what had happened, mixed with a fantastic sense of shame toward Lindau.  He did not sympathize with Lindau’s opinions; he thought his remedy for existing evils as wildly impracticable as Colonel Woodburn’s.  But while he thought this, and while he could justly blame Fulkerson for Lindau’s presence at Dryfoos’s dinner, which his zeal had brought about in spite of March’s protests, still he could not rid himself of the reproach of uncandor with Lindau.  He ought to have told him frankly about the ownership of the magazine, and what manner of man the man was whose money he was taking.  But he said that he never could have imagined that he was serious in his preposterous attitude in regard to a class of men who embody half the prosperity of the country; and he had moments of revolt against his own humiliation before Lindau, in which he found it monstrous that he should return Dryfoos’s money as if it had been the spoil of a robber.  His wife agreed with him in these moments, and said it was a great relief not to have that tiresome old German coming about.  They had to account for his absence evasively to the children, whom they could not very well tell that their father was living on money that Lindau disdained to take, even though Lindau was wrong and their father was right.  This heightened Mrs. March’s resentment toward both Lindau and Dryfoos, who between them had placed her husband in a false position.  If anything, she resented Dryfoos’s conduct more than Lindau’s.  He had never spoken to March about the affair since Lindau had renounced his work, or added to the apologetic messages he had sent by Fulkerson.  So far as March knew, Dryfoos had been left to suppose that Lindau had simply stopped for some reason that did not personally affect him.  They never spoke of him, and March was too proud to ask either Fulkerson or Conrad whether the old man knew that Lindau had returned his money.  He avoided talking to Conrad, from a feeling that if he did he should involuntarily lead him on to speak of his differences with his father.  Between himself and Fulkerson, even, he was uneasily aware of a want of their old perfect friendliness.  Fulkerson had finally behaved with honor and courage; but his provisional reluctance had given March the measure of Fulkerson’s character in one direction, and he could not ignore the fact that it was smaller than he could have wished.

He could not make out whether Fulkerson shared his discomfort or not.  It certainly wore away, even with March, as time passed, and with Fulkerson, in the bliss of his fortunate love, it was probably far more transient, if it existed at all.  He advanced into the winter as radiantly as if to meet the spring, and he said that if there were any pleasanter month of the year than November, it was December, especially when the weather was good and wet and muddy most of the time, so that you had to keep indoors a long while after you called anywhere.