But everything was awry: Boston was a failure; Claude was a weakling and a
flirt; her turquoise ring was lying on the river-bank; Stephen did not love
her any longer; her flower-beds were ploughed up and planted in corn; and the
cottage that Stephen had built and she had furnished, that beloved cottage,
was to let.
She was in Boston; but what did that amount to, after all? What was the State
House to a bleeding heart, or the Old South Church to a pride wounded like
hers?
At last she fell asleep, but it was only by stopping her ears to the noises of
the city streets and making herself imagine the sound of the river rippling
under her bedroom windows at home. The backyards of Boston faded, and in their
place came the banks of the Saco, strewn with pine-needles, fragrant with wild
flowers. Then there was the bit of sunny beach, where Stephen moored his boat.
She could hear the sound of his paddle. Boston lovers came a-courting in the
horse-cars, but hers had floated downstream to her just at dusk in a birch-
bark canoe, or sometimes, in the moonlight, on a couple of logs rafted
together.
But it was all over now, and she could see only Stephen's stern face as he
flung the despised turquoise ring down the river-bank.
Pages:
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123