James Polder had a part in
this. Here, under the ringing walls of the steel mills, he got a fresh
comprehension of the bitter, restless virility of the younger man.
Out of the station Mariana furnished the driver of a public motor with
James Polder's address, and they twisted through congested streets, past
the domed Capitol, rising from intense green sod, flanked by involved
groups of sculpture, to a quieter reach lying parallel with the river.
They discovered Polder's house occupying a corner, one of a short row of
yellow brick with a scrap of lawn bound by a low wall, and a porch
continuous across the face of the dwellings.
The door opened after a long interval, and a woman with bare arms and a
spotted kitchen apron admitted them to an interior faintly permeated
with the odours of cooking. There were redly varnished chairs, upright
piano, a heavily framed saccharine print of loves and a flushed,
sleeping divinity; a table scarred by burning cigarettes, holding cerise
knitting on needles one of which was broken, glasses with dregs of beer,
a photograph in a tarnished silver frame of Harriet de Barry Polder
with undraped shoulders and an exploited dimple, and a copy of a
technical journal. A fretful, shrill barking rose at their heels; and
Howat Penny swung his stick at a diminutive, silky white dog with
matted, pinkish eyes, obsessed by an impotent fury.
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