how hard it must be
for you. Leander realized it, too. He--"

"Shut up! Shavin's, you listen to me. I don't forget. All my
life I've never forgot. And I ain't never missed gettin' square.
I can wait, just as I waited here in the dark over an hour so's to
say this to you. I'll get square with you just as I'll get square
with Sam Hunniwell. . . . That's all. . . . That's all. . . .
DAMN YOU!"

He stamped from the room and Jed heard him stumbling through the
littered darkness of the shops on his way to the front door,
kicking at the obstacles he tripped over and swearing and sobbing
as he went. It was ridiculous enough, of course, but Jed did not
feel like smiling. The bitterness of the little man's final curse
was not humorous. Neither was the heartbreak in his tone when he
spoke of his boy. Jed felt no self-reproach; he had advised
Leander just as he might have advised his own son had his life been
like other men's lives, normal men who had married and possessed
sons. He had no sympathy for Phineas Babbitt's vindictive hatred
of all those more fortunate than he or who opposed him, or for his
silly and selfish ideas concerning the war. But he did pity him;
he pitied him profoundly.

Babbitt had left the front door open in his emotional departure and
Jed followed to close it. Before doing so he stepped out into the
yard.

It was pitch dark now and still. He could hear the footsteps of
his recent visitor pounding up the road, and the splashy grumble of
the surf on the bar was unusually audible. He stood for a moment
looking up at the black sky, with the few stars shining between the
cloud blotches. Then he turned and looked at the little house next
door.

The windows of the sitting-room were alight and the shades drawn.
At one window he saw Charles Phillips' silhouette; he was reading,
apparently. Across the other shade Ruth's dainty profile came and
went. Jed looked and looked. He saw her turn and speak to some
one. Then another shadow crossed the window, the shadow of Major
Grover. Evidently the major had not gone home at once as he had
told Jed he intended doing, plainly he had been persuaded to enter
the Armstrong house and make Charlie and his sister a short call.
This was Jed's estimate of the situation, his sole speculation
concerning it and its probabilities.

And yet Mr. Gabe Bearse, had he seen the major's shadow upon the
Armstrong window curtain, might have speculated much.