It surprised him that life should be going on
in the old way when his own reactions to it had so
completely changed. It was Newport that had first
brought home to him the extent of the change. In New
York, during the previous winter, after he and May
had settled down in the new greenish-yellow house
with the bow-window and the Pompeian vestibule, he
had dropped back with relief into the old routine of the
office, and the renewal of this daily activity had served
as a link with his former self. Then there had been the
pleasurable excitement of choosing a showy grey stepper
for May's brougham (the Wellands had given the
carriage), and the abiding occupation and interest of
arranging his new library, which, in spite of family
doubts and disapprovals, had been carried out as he
had dreamed, with a dark embossed paper, Eastlake
book-cases and "sincere" arm-chairs and tables. At the
Century he had found Winsett again, and at the Knickerbocker
the fashionable young men of his own set;
and what with the hours dedicated to the law and
those given to dining out or entertaining friends at
home, with an occasional evening at the Opera or the
play, the life he was living had still seemed a fairly real
and inevitable sort of business.
But Newport represented the escape from duty into
an atmosphere of unmitigated holiday-making. Archer
had tried to persuade May to spend the summer on a
remote island off the coast of Maine (called, appropriately
enough, Mount Desert), where a few hardy Bostonians
and Philadelphians were camping in "native"
cottages, and whence came reports of enchanting
scenery and a wild, almost trapper-like existence amid
woods and waters.
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