The Defeat of the City (1917)

Robert Walmsley, at the end of six years in the city, has won fortune, fame, and Alice Van Der Pool, a "daughter of the old burghers, high and cool and white and inaccessible." So Robert feels that he has achieved the ultimate end of success and happiness. Alice finds a letter written to Robert by his mother, a letter straight from home, full of farm lore and gossip. She prevails upon Robert to take her for a visit to the farm. Robert is dismayed at the prospect, fearing Alicia will be shocked at the crudeness of his rural atavism. There his wife sits silent and immovable while Robert cuts ridiculous capers. Alicia presently ascends to her room. Robert, suddenly feeling that he is disgraced in her eves, and that he has been unmasked by his own actions and that "all the polish, the poise, the form that the city has given him has fallen from him like an ill-fitting mantle at the first breath of a country breeze," grows quiet. Presently he follows Alicia upstairs, prepared to meet his fate. He knew the rigid lines that a Van Der Pool would draw She is standing at the window, in the twilight. Robert silently takes his place beside her. "Robert," said the cool, calm voice of his judge, "I thought I married a gentleman," Alicia steps closer to Robert. "But," she continues, "I find that I have married something better, a man. Bob, dear, kiss me, won't you?"