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Mariana, too, had been drawn into the wide implications of this mingled past and present. But now, clearly, he recognized in her the meeting of spirit and flesh that had been denied to him. That was life, he thought, that was happiness. In the absence of such consummation he had come to nothing. In Jasper, in Susan Brundon who had married him over late, the two had warred.
He tried to recall if there was another, more private, ingress, through which Susan might be taken; but his thoughts evaded every discipline; they whirled in a feverish course about the sole fact of the public degradation he had brought on Susan Brundon. They passed the doors of civic departments, he saw their signs Water, City Treasurer, and then entered the Mayor's chamber.
Steeped in Susan's spirit he thought of it as a reparation, to Eunice, perhaps to Essie, but more certainly to an essence within himself. But immediately he saw the futility of such a course; the inexorable logic of existence could not be so easily placated, its rhyming of cause and effect defeated. All that he had told Susan Brundon recurred strengthened to an immovable conviction.
"I now propose to show your honour," he finished, "that, between the hours in which Daniel Culser is said to have been shot to death, my client was peacefully in the company of Miss Brundon, strolling in an opposite quarter of the city." "Hoffernan," the Mayor pronounced, waving toward the seated woman.
"If such a thing were known it would ruin Susan Brundon over night. Haven't you a conception of how this is regarded? She would be stripped of pupils as if the place reeked of malignant fever. A most beastly egotistical and selfish act." "Never thought of that," Jasper Penny admitted.
The last was an afterthought bred by the realization that he could not permit her to depart absolutely from his life. There was a great deal that he, a rich and influential man of practical affairs, might do for her. He was certain that Susan Brundon needed exactly the assistance he could give; probably people robbed her, traded callously on her unsuspicious nature.
Graham and his wife had arranged to sleigh back to Shadrach Furnace that evening; but Susan Brundon was to stay at Myrtle Forge, and take the train from Jaffa to-morrow. The Jannans, finally, departed; and Jasper Penny, showing Susan through the chambers of the lower floor, succeeded in delaying her, seated, in the smoking room.
"I understand, oh, completely," Susan Brundon interrupted him warmly. "You don't wish your charity exposed; and not only on your own account, but from consideration for the susceptibilities of the parents, parent a mother, I gather." It had been, he thought, leaving, ridiculously simple. His meeting with Miss Brundon was a fortunate chance.
His mother, with Amity Merken like a timid and reduced replica at her back, greeted the Jannans and Miss Brundon at the door. Jasper Penny came forward from the smoking room, to the right of the main entrance; where the men retired for an appetizer of gin and bitters. The older man was garbed with exact care.
Jasper Penny's will was produced, a codicil projected, appended, and witnesses recalled. "I wanted to inquire about Miss Brundon," Jasper said finally, the business despatched. "She seems to me very fragile for the conducting of an Academy. Is there no family, men, to support her? And her institution does it continue to progress well?" "Very." Jannan replied to the last question first.
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