Chapter 31

When an extremely energetic person has spent eighteen months making connections with a family, he does not find it easy to sever them in a day. Quin’s announcement that he was going to leave the Martels met with a storm of protest. He had the excellent excuse that when Cass married in June there would be no room for him, but it took all his diplomacy to effect the change without giving offense. Rose was tearful, and Cass furious, and a cloud of gloom enveloped the little brown house.

With the Bartletts it was no easier. On his return from New York he had found three notes from them, each of which requested an immediate interview. Madam’s stated that she had heard of his dismissal from the factory and that she was ready to do battle for him to the death. “Geoffrey Bangs got rid of Ranny,” she wrote, “and now he thinks he can ship you. But I guess I’ll show him who is the head of the firm.”

The second note was from Miss Isobel and was marked “Confidential.” In incoherent sentences it told of a letter just received from Eleanor, in which she announced that she was planning to make her professional début in July, and that as Mr. Phipps was connected with the play in which she was to appear, she felt that she could accept no further favors from her grandmother. Miss Isobel implored Quin to come at once and advise her what to do about telling Madam, especially as they were leaving for Maine within the next ten days.

The third delicately penned epistle was a gentle effusion from Miss Enid, who was home on a visit and eager to see “dear Quin, who had been the innocent means of reuniting her and the dearest man in all the world.”

It was these letters that put Quin’s desire for flight into instant action. He must go where he would not be questioned or asked for advice. The mere mention of Eleanor’s name was agony to him. It contracted his throat and sent the blood pounding through his veins. His hurt was so intolerable that he shrank from even a touch of sympathy. Perhaps later on he would be able to face the situation, but just now his one desire was to get away from everything connected with his unhappiness.

In beating about in his mind for a temporary refuge, he remembered a downtown rooming-house to which he had once gone with Dirks, the foreman at Bartlett “ Bangs. Here he transferred his few possessions, and persuaded Rose to tell the Bartletts that he had left town for an indefinite stay. This he hoped would account for his absence until they left for their summer vacation.

The ten weeks that followed are not pleasant ones to dwell upon. The picture of Quin tramping the streets by day in a half-hearted search for work, and tramping them again at night when he could not sleep, of him lying face downward on a cot in a small damp room, with all his confidence and bravado gone, and only his racking cough for company, are better left unchronicled.