t.

That, more than anything else, brought before him the undeniable passage
of time, the fact that he was rapidly accomplishing middle age--the
total extinguishing of an emotion which he had felt must outlast life.
It had gone, and with it his youth. Of course, he had recognized that he
was no longer thirty; he had been well aware of his years, but only
during the last few weeks had there been the slight, perceptible
dragging down.... On the black walnut dressing stand past the window lay
a letter he had received from Essie that morning; it contained her usual
appeal for an additional sum of money--he gave her, formally, six
thousand dollars a year; and the manner of the demand, for the
necessities of their daughter, showed his sharpened perceptions that she
had never really experienced the blindness of a generous emotion.
Eunice, the child, was incontrovertible proof of that--no more than an
additional lever for her to swing.

His face darkened, and he moved his shoulder impatiently, as if to throw
off a burden grown unendurable. But it was fastened immovably--his
responsibility was as baldly apparent as the February noon, its greyness
now blotted by a wind-driven, metallic shift of snow.

He had been criminally negligent of Eunice. This realization was
accompanied by no corresponding warmth of parenthood; there was no
quickening of blood at the thought of his daughter, but only a newborn
condemnation of his neglected, proper pride. He had, thoughtlessly,
descended to a singularly low level of conduct. And it must abruptly
terminate. Jasper Penny had not seen Eunice for seven, nine, months; he
would remedy this at once, supervise advantages, a proper place, for
her. Afterward Essie and himself could make a mutually satisfactory
agreement.

XI

Throughout an excellent dinner, terrapin and bass, wild turkey with
oysters and fruit preserved in white brandy, he maintained a sombre
silence. His mother, on the right, her sister opposite--Phebe's place
seemed scarcely emptier than when she had actually occupied it--held an
intermittent verbal exchange patently keyed to Jasper Penny's mood. They
were women with yellow-white, lace-capped hair, blanched eyebrows and
lashes, and small, quick eyes on hardy, reddened faces. Gilda Penny was
slightly the larger, more definite; Amity Merken had a timid, almost
furtive, expression in the opulence of the Penny establishment, while
Gilda was complacent; but otherwise the t