Later, at the piano, she played for him. And she, glancing at him across her shoulder, saw something in his face.
“The greatest time of my life, you see. . . It’s all new to me, and I like it.”
“I hope you’ll visit us again,” she said, as he was saying good night to her brothers.
He pulled on his cap, and was gone.
“Well, what do you think of him?” Arthur demanded.
“He is interesting,” she answered. “How old is he?”
“Twenty – almost twenty-one. I asked him this afternoon. I didn’t think he was that young.”
And I am three years older, was the thought in her mind as she kissed her brothers goodnight.
Martin Eden took out a brown rice paper and a pinch of Mexican tobacco. “By God!” he said aloud, in a voice of awe and wonder. “By God!” he repeated. And yet again he murmured, “By God!”
He had met the Woman. He had sat next to her at table. He had felt her hand in his, he had looked into her eyes. This feeling of the divine startled him. He had never believed in the divine. He had always been irreligious. There was no life beyond; it was here and now, then darkness everlasting. But what he had seen in her eyes was soul – immortal soul that never dies. Nobody had given him the message of immortality. But she had. She had whispered it to him the first moment she looked at him. He did not deserve such fortune. He was like a drunken man, murmuring aloud: “By God! By God!”
He caught a car that was going to Berkeley. It was crowded with young men who were singing songs. He studied them curiously. They were university boys. They went to the same university that she did, they could know her, could see her every day if they wanted to.
The car came to the two-story building with the proud sign, HIGGINBOTHAM’S CASH STORE. Bernard Higginbotham had married his sister, and he knew him well. He climbed the stairs to the second floor. Here lived his brother-in-law.
He entered a room, where sat his sister and Bernard Higginbotham. Martin Eden never looked at him without repulsion. What his sister had found in that man was a mystery.
“Good night,” said Martin. “Good night, Gertrude.”
“Don’t bang the door,” Mr. Higginbotham cautioned him.
Martin controlled himself and closed the door softly behind him.
Mr. Higginbotham looked at his wife exultantly.