He went back to the rooms for luncheon, dragging his steps. A street piano tried to cheer him; he saw the perspiration on the face of the lean Italian woman who strained at the crank.
II
He received a letter from Margaret that afternoon, and he read it standing in the portico of the General Post Office, where the traffic of Park Row meets the traffic of Broadway, in a brawling of cross-currents over worn paving stones, at the bottom of a canyon of high buildings; and with that noise in his ears, pressing upon him the sense of the struggle in which he was engaged, he read her accusations, her defence and her apology blankly, word after word, feeling that it was all an old matter of which he had lost the emotion. He took, with relief, the news that she was going abroad for the summer, with her mother; it would give him time to "find his feet" in New York. He missed a hint that Mrs. Richardson's investments had been ill-advised and unprofitable, and that the cheaper living in Germany—where the study of music might be continued—would be welcome to her. He put the letter in an outer pocket, with his newspaper, and tore open an envelope from his father.
Mr. Gregg informed him, briefly, that his action had been a cause of great grief to his mother; that it was unreasonable, without excuse, and rash; that
