His
father-in-law had offered to buy him a river front place and already that
meant much in Bidwell.
He wanted to see women who, like Clara, had got themselves husbands, what
they were like. "I've seen enough of men," he thought half resentfully as
he went along.
All afternoon he walked in streets, going up and down before houses in
which women lived with their men. A detached mood had possession of him.
For an hour he stood under a tree idly watching workmen engaged in building
another house. When one of the workmen spoke to him he walked away and went
into a street where men were laying a cement pavement before a completed
house.
In a furtive way he kept looking about for women, hungering to see their
faces. "What are they up to? I'd like to find out," his mind seemed to be
saying.
The women came out of the doors of the houses and passed him as he went
slowly along. Other women in carriages drove in the streets. They were
well-dressed women and seemed sure of themselves. "Things are all right
with me. For me things are settled and arranged," they seemed to say. All
the streets in which he walked seemed to be telling the story of things
settled and arranged. The houses spoke of the same things. "I am a house.
I am not built until things are settled and arranged. I mean that," they
said.
Hugh grew very tired. In the later afternoon a small bright-eyed woman--no
doubt she had been one of the guests at his wedding feast--stopped him.
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