All the way back to Boston Grover was hurt and shocked and unhappy. This morning he had been so thrillingly on the scent of something that "made way for the Thanets,"—and now, like everything else in life that had fired his hopes and desires, it seemed to be jeopardized for some impenetrable reason. If this happiness too were going to elude him "for no reason at all," as Rhoda would have put it, it would be a sort of death-blow to his self-confidence; it would mean that he had flunked his examination for manhood. So keen was the dread of it that he sat back rigid and silent, his feet pressing hard against the floor of the car. He wondered whether Sophie was regretting what had happened this morning, whether she expected him to go back to the house with her, whether it was his cue to ask her to drop him in Cambridge. If he suggested it out of politeness, would she mistake his motive and believe that he didn't want to accompany her? If he only knew whether she did or not! If he only knew how to let her know how much he did want to! What a hellish maze of unnecessary wonderings! By what magic had old John Scantleberry brought it off! . . . Why couldn't they be frank? How had this abyss opened between them—or was it pure imagination on his part? Above all, why couldn't he reach out and take Sophie's hand in his? Was she paralyzed too? Was this the catastrophe whose shadow had been creeping up on him for weeks! Sophie was tapping on the window.
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