Chronicles of Avonlea | Page 6

worn the paint off that particular place. Ludovic knew of no reason why
he should paste himself up against the church door. Theodora would
come out as usual, and he would join her as she went past the corner.
This was what happened, Theodora came down the steps, her stately
figure outlined in its darkness against the gush of lamplight from the
porch. Arnold Sherman asked her if he might see her home. Theodora
took his arm calmly, and together they swept past the stupefied
Ludovic, who stood helplessly gazing after them as if unable to believe
his eyes.
For a few moments he stood there limply; then he started down the
road after his fickle lady and her new admirer. The boys and
irresponsible young men crowded after, expecting some excitement,
but they were disappointed. Ludovic strode on until he overtook
Theodora and Arnold Sherman, and then fell meekly in behind them.
Theodora hardly enjoyed her walk home, although Arnold Sherman
laid himself out to be especially entertaining. Her heart yearned after
Ludovic, whose shuffling footsteps she heard behind her. She feared
that she had been very cruel, but she was in for it now. She steeled
herself by the reflection that it was all for his own good, and she talked
to Arnold Sherman as if he were the one man in the world. Poor,
deserted Ludovic, following humbly behind, heard her, and if Theodora

had known how bitter the cup she was holding to his lips really was,
she would never have been resolute enough to present it, no matter for
what ultimate good.
When she and Arnold turned in at her gate, Ludovic had to stop.
Theodora looked over her shoulder and saw him standing still on the
road. His forlorn figure haunted her thoughts all night. If Anne had not
run over the next day and bolstered up her convictions, she might have
spoiled everything by prematurely relenting.
Ludovic, meanwhile, stood still on the road, quite oblivious to the hoots
and comments of the vastly amused small boy contingent, until
Theodora and his rival disappeared from his view under the firs in the
hollow of her lane. Then he turned about and went home, not with his
usual leisurely amble, but with a perturbed stride which proclaimed his
inward disquiet.
He felt bewildered. If the world had come suddenly to an end or if the
lazy, meandering Grafton River had turned about and flowed up hill,
Ludovic could not have been more astonished. For fifteen years he had
walked home from meetings with Theodora; and now this elderly
stranger, with all the glamour of "the States" hanging about him, had
coolly walked off with her under Ludovic's very nose. Worse--most
unkindest cut of all--Theodora had gone with him willingly; nay, she
had evidently enjoyed his company. Ludovic felt the stirring of a
righteous anger in his easy-going soul.
When he reached the end of his lane, he paused at his gate, and looked
at his house, set back from the lane in a crescent of birches. Even in the
moonlight, its weather-worn aspect was plainly visible. He thought of
the "palatial residence" rumour ascribed to Arnold Sherman in Boston,
and stroked his chin nervously with his sunburnt fingers. Then he
doubled up his fist and struck it smartly on the gate-post.
"Theodora needn't think she is going to jilt me in this fashion, after
keeping company with me for fifteen years," he said. "I'LL have
something to say to it, Arnold Sherman or no Arnold Sherman. The
impudence of the puppy!"
The next morning Ludovic drove to Carmody and engaged Joshua Pye
to come and paint his house, and that evening, although he was not due
till Saturday night, he went down to see Theodora.
Arnold Sherman was there before him, and was actually sitting in

Ludovic's own prescriptive chair. Ludovic had to deposit himself in
Theodora's new wicker rocker, where he looked and felt lamentably out
of place.
If Theodora felt the situation to be awkward, she carried it off superbly.
She had never looked handsomer, and Ludovic perceived that she wore
her second best silk dress. He wondered miserably if she had donned it
in expectation of his rival's call. She had never put on silk dresses for
him. Ludovic had always been the meekest and mildest of mortals, but
he felt quite murderous as he sat mutely there and listened to Arnold
Sherman's polished conversation.
"You should just have been here to see him glowering," Theodora told
the delighted Anne the next day. "It may be wicked of me, but I felt
real glad. I was afraid he might stay away and sulk. So long as he
comes here and sulks I don't worry. But he is feeling badly enough,
poor soul, and I'm