Clara walked away across two or three vacant lots and got into a street of
workingmen's houses, the man following at her heels. Night had come and the
people in the street facing the factory had already disposed of the evening
meal. Children and dogs played in the road and a strong smell of food hung
in the air. To the west across the fields, a passenger train ran past going
toward the city. Its light made wavering yellow patches against the bluish
black sky. Clara wondered why she had come to the out of the way place with
Frank Metcalf. She did not like him, but there was a restlessness in him
that was like the restless thing in herself. He did not want stupidly to
accept life, and that fact made him brother to herself. Although he was but
twenty-two years old, he had already achieved an evil reputation. A servant
in his father's house had given birth to a child by him, and it had cost a
good deal of money to get her to take the child and go away without making
an open scandal. During the year before he had been expelled from the
University for throwing another young man down a flight of stairs, and it
was whispered about among the girl students that he often got violently
drunk. For a year he had been trying to ingratiate himself with Clara, had
written her letters, sent flowers to her house, and when he met her on the
street had stopped to urge that she accept his friendship.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189