issed the things this
represented. His constant, off-hand questionings about things--about the
growth of the town, whether so and so was making good, who was running
this or that, showed how he was missing the things he had turned away
from, of which he had once been so promising a part. Here tonight, among
the things they had left, something made him more sorry for Ruth and
Stuart than he had ever been before. And he kept thinking of the
strangeness of things; of how, if there had not been that one thing, so
many things would have been different. For their whole family, for the
Williams' family, yes, for Deane Franklin, too, it would have been all
different if Ruth had just fallen in love with some one else. Somehow
that seemed disloyalty to Ruth. He told himself she couldn't help it. He
guessed _she_ got it the worst; everything would have been different,
easier, for her, certainly, if she, like the other girls of her crowd,
had fallen in love with one of the fellows she could have married. Then
she would be there with Edith Lawrence tonight; probably they would be
in a box together.

It was hard, even when the lights were up, to keep his eyes from that
box where Ruth's old friend sat with Mrs. Williams. He would seem to be
looking the house over, and then for a minute his eyes would rest there
and it would be an effort to let go. Once he found Mrs. Williams looking
his way; he thought she saw him and was furious at himself for the quick
reddening. He could not tell whether she was looking at him or not. She
had that cool, composed manner she always had. Always when he met her so
directly that they had to speak she would seem quite unperturbed, as if
he stirred in her no more feeling than any other slight acquaintance
would stir. She was perfectly poised; it would not seem that he, what he
must suggest, had any power to disturb her.

Looking across at her in the house darkened for the last act, covertly
watching her as she sat there in perfect command of herself, apparently
quite without disturbing feeling, he had a rough desire to know what she
actually _did_ feel. A light from the stage surprised her face and he
saw that it showed it more tired than serene. She looked bored; and she
did not look content. Seeing her in that disclosing little shaft of
light--she had drawn back from it--the thought broke into the boy's
mind--What's _she_ getting out of it!

He had never really considered it purely in the light of wha