e got up and
locked the door against intrusion before he should be able to master
the outward signs of his emotion. Then he returned to his chair and
looked about, thinking confusedly. There was something pitiless in the
glaring light of noon that disclosed every crack and stain on the ugly
brown walls. It was like the relentless light of his new revelation
turned upon the stains and patches of his soul, dreary and terrible.
Had the hour been twilight, some glamour of lost romance and self-pity
might have fallen upon him like a violet veil, hiding the sordid truth;
but he lacked the imagination with which artistic natures may shield
themselves, and he saw things as they were. He even wandered momently
from his own misery to reflect that he would have this room refitted
and painted a more cheerful hue, whether for himself or for his
successor. The office was beneath the dignity of a city like Warwick.

He picked up the paper and spread it out before him once more,
quivering sensitively at the flippant and vulgar tone of the
announcement. That "pretty maid" was just Lena to him, whom he had
loved in secret, now haled before the tribunal of public opinion. His
sensations could scarcely have been more keen, had he also been billed
before the gaping crowd. The fact that he was not so billed made him
realise what a small part of any secret ever readies the general ear.
The plant is pulled up for inspection, but the deeper roots remain
behind, hidden in the earth.

There was the elder Pyle, a dignified man, with a war record, who had
been one of the committee that thrust the mayor of Warwick aside as
unworthy to welcome the President. Here was a strange, unmeditated
revenge! Emmet, through Lena, had done much to wreck the happiness of
that household. His deed had gotten away from him, and was working on
and on, beyond his power to recall, passing from one social class into
another as through a familiar medium. The mayor's straight lines of
demarcation between classes became blurred; he saw them shift and waver
and disappear, till the whole seemed a confused mass of humanity,
confluent and interchangeable.

His only desire now was to make reparation, and reparation was denied
him. His success had been so steadily progressive, his growing
appreciation of his own power so intoxicating, that he had somehow felt
he could control this situation also. Even Felicity had not been
beyond him, had he chosen to assert him