"
Clara accepted the new attitude of her uncle and aunt without comment. In
the afternoon she did not come home from the University but went to Kate's
apartment. The brother came home and after dinner played on the piano. At
ten o'clock Clara started home afoot and Kate accompanied her. The two
women went out of their way to sit on a bench in a park. They talked of
a thousand hidden phases of life Clara had hardly dared think of before.
During all the rest of her life she thought of those last weeks in Columbus
as the most deeply satisfactory time she ever lived through. In the
Woodburn house she was uncomfortable because of the silence and the hurt,
offended look on her aunt's face, but she did not spend much time there.
In the morning Henderson Woodburn ate his breakfast alone at seven, and
clutching his ever present portfolio of papers, was driven off to the plow
factory. Clara and her aunt had a silent breakfast at eight, and then
Clara also hurried away. "I'll be out for lunch and will go to Kate's for
dinner," she said as she went out of her aunt's presence, and she said it,
not with the air of one asking permission as had been her custom before the
Frank Metcalf incident, but as one having the right to dispose of her own
time. Only once did her aunt break the frigid air of offended dignity she
had assumed. One morning she followed Clara to the front door, and as she
watched her go down the steps from the front porch to the walk that led to
the street, called to her.
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