When Willy Cameron left the pharmacy that day it was almost noon.
He went to the house of mourning first, and found Mr. Davis in a
chair in a closed room, a tired little man in a new black necktie
around a not over-clean collar, his occupation of years gone,
confronting a new and terrible leisure that he did not know how to
use.
"You know how it is, Willy," he said, blinking his reddened eyelids.
"You kind of wish sometimes that you had somebody to help you bear
your burden, and then it's taken away, but you're kind of bent over
and used to it. And you'd give your neck and all to have it back."
Willy Cameron pondered that on his way up the street.
There was one great longing in him, to see Lily again. In a few
hours now he would have taken a wife, and whatever travesty of
marriage resulted, he would have to keep away from Lily. He meant
to play square with Edith.
He wondered if it would hurt Lily to see him, remind her of things
she must be trying to forget. He decided in the end that it would
hurt her, so he did not go. But he walked, on his way to see Pink
Denslow at the temporary bank, through a corner of the park near
the house, and took a sort of formal and heart-breaking farewell of
her.
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