“No, you aren’t going out at night anymore, remember? Not before the bars close. And not after the bars close.”
“Oh. Right. I forgot.” He smiled. “I’m under house arrest. But I don’t want to leave here,” he said. “Not just yet. The way things are going, though, I suppose I might as well leave.”
“You have to remember, nothing has happened. As far as you’re concerned.”
“Yes, that is so true. Jack Boughton is in hell over nothing at all. And it serves the bastard right, I’d say.”
“I’ll take the book back tomorrow,” Glory said. “I can just slip it onto a shelf. Not that anything would ever come of it, but it’s one less thing to think about.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “All right. I was going to ask you if I could borrow it, though. I’ve never read it myself. I thought it might help me pass a night or two.”
“Well,” she said, “I’ll take it back day after tomorrow. Next week. It won’t make any difference. I might read it.”
He laughed. “Good girl. We might even be able to work up a disagreement, one of those ideological differences I read about in the news from time to time. Shouting and arm waving. In the heat of it all I might come up with a conviction or two.”
“That sounds wonderful,” she said, “except we’d better forget the shouting, for Papa’s sake. But we could still do the arm waving.”
He shook his head. “That would be so — Presbyterian, somehow.”
“There are worse things.”
“Oh yes, I’m well aware that there are.” Then he said, “I had no right to come back. It’s a terrible worry to him, having me here. He worries in his sleep.”
“He dreamed about you before you wrote to him, before he knew you were coming. You were always on his mind, all those years. It isn’t having you here that makes him worry.”
“Then it’s — what? — my existence, I suppose. My hapless, disreputable existence. And from his point of view I can’t even put an end to it. There is no end to it. I’ll always be somewhere in eternity, rotting, or writhing. The poor old devil feels responsible for my soul.”
“He never said one thing in his life about rotting or writhing!”
“True. It was always ‘perdition,’ wasn’t it. I finally looked the word up in the dictionary. ‘The utter loss of the soul, or of final happiness in a future state — semicolon — future misery or eternal death.’” He said, “This does all seem a little cruel, don’t you think? He’s a saint, and I believe he’s afraid to die because of me. To leave me behind, still unregenerate — I know that’s what he has on his mind. I can tell by the way he looks at me.”
“You told him things have been different.”
He laughed. “He thinks I’m a thief, Glory. He thinks I’m going to disgrace us all again. And that could happen, too. I mean, that I could be accused — that could happen.” He put his hands to his face.
“It won’t. Not over something so minor. No one is going to upset Papa over a robbery at the dime store. You know I’m right, Jack. We’ve worried about this way too much.”
“Yes,” he said. “Perspective. Thank you, Glory. I’d forgotten what it’s like to have anyone give a damn who my father is.”
She said, “If you feel he’s so worried about you, have you ever considered — just to ease his mind—?”
He looked at her. “Lying to the old fellow? About the state of my soul?” He laughed and rubbed his eyes. He said, “Ah, Glory, what would I be then?”
“Forgive me. It was just a thought.”
After a minute he said, “You remember that lady I mentioned, the one who had a good effect on my character. She was very pious — still is, no doubt. Very virtuous. I actually asked her father for her hand in marriage. He was aghast. Really horrified. Religion was one part of it. My not having any. I wished very much at the time that I could have been, you know, a hypocrite. But I just didn’t have it in me. My one scruple. And it has cost me dearly.” He considered. “No, if I were being honest, I’d have to say he despised me on other grounds as well. Religion first and foremost, of course. He was a man of the cloth. Is.” He laughed. “I fell a little in my own estimation. I don’t know what I could have expected his reaction to be. Something less emphatic, I suppose.” He said, “I don’t know why I told you that story, except maybe to let you know I do have one scruple. I’m not sure I should be as confident as I am that there is a difference between hypocrisy and plain old dishonesty. Though I have noticed that thieves are crucified and hypocrites seem not to be. And from time to time I have taken up my cross—” He laughed. “Not lately, you understand.” He looked at her. “Sorry. No disrespect intended. I’m not a hypocrite. That was my point.”
“I know you aren’t. I shouldn’t have suggested—”
“A fraud, perhaps. I’ll have to grant you that.” He smiled.
“I didn’t accuse you of anything. If I were in your place I might be tempted, but you’re right. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
He nodded. “If I thought I could get away with it, I might be tempted, too,” he said. “But I’ve been taking stock. These gray hairs. This battered visage. These frayed cuffs. I’ve had to admit that I’m not a very good liar, Glory. A lifetime more or less given over to dishonesty, and I have very little to show for it. It wouldn’t be a kindness for me to lie to him, because I know he wouldn’t believe me. If he still has a shred of respect for me — well, you see what I mean. I wouldn’t want him to lose it.”
“I find it hard to believe these things you say about yourself, Jack.”
He laughed. “‘All Cretans are liars.’ Feel free to doubt me, if you want to. It gives me a sort of reprieve, I guess. But you see my problem. I can never persuade anyone of anything.”
“I’m persuaded,” she said. “Not of anything in particular, I suppose. Except that you’re very hard on yourself.”
He nodded. “Yes, I am. For all the good it does me.” There was a silence.
“Well,” she said, “I wouldn’t care if you were a petty thief.”
He smiled. “That’s very subjunctive of you.”
“All right. I don’t care if you are a petty thief.”
He said, “Thanks, Glory. That’s kind.”
He did not show her the newspaper article, the mention of thirty-eight dollars, and she did not ask to see it.
GLORY WENT TO THE HARDWARE STORE TO TELL THEM they would keep the Philco, and to ask them to install an antenna. When she came back she looked for Jack around the house, then found him in the barn, oiling the blade of a scythe, of all useless and forgotten things. She said, “I went to the hardware store to ask them to put up an antenna. They kept me there for an hour. But they did tell me who it was that stole that money from the dime store. Some high school kids. Good kids, they said. That’s why there was never anything about it in the paper. It was a prank, I guess. Then one of the boys had an attack of conscience and fessed up.”
Jack laughed. “How nice of them to tell you! I wonder how they knew you would be interested.”
“Oh well. It’s one less thing to worry about.”
“True,” he said. “In a sense that’s true. For the moment.”