under the spreading boughs of the box-elders and cottonwoods. Gareth stared at the retreating figure. He was immediately aware that he hated his father more in this kindly aspect than he did when the man was his active enemy. There was something sickeningly inadequate and stupidly weak about these changes of front which always occurred after his father had been particularly unpleasant. Gareth settled back into his chair on the verandah, musing. Life was beginning to appear desperately unattractive to him. If, as he had promised, he went into business with his father that would mean the end of all his plans. On the other hand, supposing his father relented, now that his mother was so hopelessly ill, he could not go away. Whichever way he turned he seemed still imprisoned in this dull, sordid village. For the future, so it appeared, his study in the barn would be his only form of distraction, and that would only serve to remind him of the career he wanted to carve out in the world away from this narrow, provincial town. He thought of Lennie Colman and what she had meant to him, but now that he had analyzed her feeling for him he had acquired a faint distaste for Lennie Colman. Besides, he coldly considered, she had nothing more to give him. He was telling her what books to read now; he was more familiar with the theatres in New York and Chicago, the stars and their plays, than she was. He was, to put it bluntly, more important to Lennie Colman than she
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