"Oh, but you are. I've heard all about you. We're very proud of you, my dear. Very. You've been doing so well--oh, I've heard--and your striking out into business quite alone was about the most courageous thing I know of. Why, the mere thought of such a thing takes my breath away."

"But I'm not doing it any more. And there's nothing courageous in that," smiled Mary Louise.

Mrs. Mosby looked puzzled.

"It's a fact. I've given it all up. Just got home to-day. And I'm going to settle down again with you all and be just folks."

The mask again slipped over Mrs. Mosby's countenance. "Quite as courageous a thing to do as the other," she went on evenly. "Just to give up your splendid opportunity to come back and accept your duties here--well, I think it highly commendable." She was not to be robbed of her chance to be agreeable. "Your aunt Susan is, I trust, not unwell?"

"Oh, about the same, thank you, Mrs. Mosby." She wanted to ask about Joe, something in the rapprochement giving rise to thoughts of him, but she realized that Mrs. Mosby was doubtless entirely out of touch with her graceless nephew and would invent some mere plausibility. So she inquired instead after Mr. Fawcette.

"Brother is not so well. Poor soul, he suffers terribly with his rheumatism." Mrs. Mosby lapsed into thoughtfulness and Mary Louise murmured her sympathy.

A moment of this and Mrs. Mosby recovered herself and held out her hand again.

"You must come and see me now--real often. I'm so much alone. Such a lot you must have to tell me and I want to hear it all." She took her prim, precise departure conscious of her graciousness.

On her way, in the opposite direction, Mary Louise suffered another qualm, a feeling of insincerity. She was gathering credit that really was undeserved. Her return would doubtless be labelled in Bloomfield as a bit of pretty sacrifice. And the place was a very refuge. The sun dipped as she walked along, so that the tip of it reddened the ridge poles of the houses and the sky was as blue as indigo. She pa.s.sed an open lot where weeds abounded and in the weeds the blackbirds were chattering noisily. At her approach they flew up in a black swarm to refuge in an old apple tree in the rear of the lot. On the ground near the sidewalk was an old wagon bed that had been there for years--she tried to remember how long. There were decided compensations in coming home.

She found Zeke sitting on his doorstep, his chin on his hands, busily strengthening his restful philosophy. She quickly bargained with him and he hurried away to get out his old carry-all. When he found that she followed him, and found in addition that she intended accompanying him, his pleasure was quite evident.

"Wait, Mis' Ma'y, ontil I gits a rag and wipes off de seat," he said at the door of the shed.

She could not help feeling a bit self-conscious as she sat by Zeke's side and went rattling along the street, down into the square, into the very centre of Bloomfield life. But she held her head jauntily aloft and wondered if she were being noticed and being talked about.

They met no one. They took the open road and the afternoon settled down upon her like a blessing. On either side of the road great patches of red and yellow streaked the hills, and the fields were taking on a soft golden brown, and soft purple mists gathered in the valleys blending in subtle fashion with the foreground. In spite of the riot of colour, the land was wrapped in a calm dignity. It wore its glories well. In the bits of woodland, through which the road occasionally digressed, there was a strong odour of beech and buckeye and there was a fragrant dampness rising.

The thought of Claybrook came into her mind. She could not quite make up her mind about Claybrook. She felt momentarily sorry for him, regretted that their friendship had come to its abrupt close. And yet there was no reason why she should feel sorry for him, he had so much of everything. But he and his world were woven out of different fabric from this world about her. She could not keep one and still have the other. Anyway, she had made up her mind. She had escaped; her feeling was one of definite escape. She banished the thought of him.

She got her trunk and Zeke loaded it upon the car where it threatened to crush its way through bottom, springs, frame, and all. She observed it skeptically but Zeke was quite brisk and cheerful about it. She bought a "Courier" from the station agent and with it in her hand climbed back into her seat and felt content, now that she had her goods about her and was about to go home again.

Zeke started to crank the car when he took one rea.s.suring look about to see if everything was all right. Not being quite satisfied with the way the trunk was riding, he departed to look for a bit of rope with which to lash it into place. While she waited, she opened up the paper in her lap and looked idly at the first page.

Instantly something caught her eye; she started and then felt suddenly weak. She read on for a moment and then closed the paper and let it fall into her lap and stared off at the blue hills that rimmed the horizon. The station at Guests was about a half mile from the town and the road was quite deserted, with only the sound of someone moving a trunk around in the baggage room behind her. A flock of birds went winging across the sky and dipped down into a patch of red-and-gold woodland. She picked up the paper again and read some more.

The "Courier" made no specialty of scare headlines or red type. Its most sensational news rarely ever rated more than single-column type, or at most two columns. The article that caught her attention was the usual one concerning misappropriation of public funds, malfeasance of office, bribery, and the like--a drab sort of story. The public had been "bilked" again. It sounded quite matter of fact. Involved were the city engineer and one J. K. Thompson, Contractor, and J. F.

Claybrook, lumber man and dealer, all in collusion. All this was in the headlines--in neat, modest type. Below came the bald facts stating the amounts of money involved which somehow she did not notice and a somewhat cynically weary paragraph at the end remarking that the people were having quite too much of this sort of thing and that the courts should recognize their full duty.

So that was where the new car and the trip to California was to come from. Perhaps that was where the fifteen hundred dollars had come from, too. But she had paid it back. She had just barely shaken the bird-catcher's lime from her wings. She shivered and closed the paper again.

When Zeke returned with the rope she smiled at him.

"Let's hurry back," she said.

On the way back to Bloomfield she had no eyes for the beauties of the fast-falling October evening. But in a little while she began to feel warmer inside. At least she had shaken the dust of the city from her feet, the city where everyone wore a mask--of honesty and sobriety and right living--and lived otherwise. No wonder they called it a melting pot. She would be content from henceforth to live where the air and the living were cleaner and purer.

So absorbed was she that she did not realize that Zeke had taken another route home. When she noticed, she remarked on it.

"Hit's a shoht cut," explained Zeke. "You said you wanted to get home quick."

She smiled at his responsiveness.

They came suddenly around a bend in the road upon a gang of men, road mending. There was a huge concrete mixer and she wondered at the sight of it, a new sign of progress for Bloomfield. There was a stretch of loose rock and a wooden bar blocking the road. Zeke muttered his dismay but did not stop. They rolled right up to the barrier. A man in khaki breeches and flannel shirt and high lace boots came and waved them back.

"You'll have to turn around," he called out cheerily, and she saw that it was Joe Hooper. As though in answer to the obvious question he added, as he in turn recognized her, "Like a bad penny--I'm turning up again."

She looked at him and stared. His face was very red and somehow he looked quite natural, more so than in his city clothes.

"What in the world?" she said.

He had come quite close and she could see he was smiling. That baffling, uncertain look had left his face and there was something open about it.

"Got a man's job again," he said, still smiling.

"And you're going to be in this part of the country?"

"Till the job's finished," he replied. "And there's quite a lot of it, too. County's got a prosperous streak on. Means to have some real roads. It's about time."

Zeke was slowly backing the car preparatory to turning around.

"I'm back home now, myself," she called and reddened at once at her unnecessary confidence. What did he care where she was? But as they turned slowly in the narrow road she added, "Come and see me," and waved to him and wondered if he would.

It was growing dusk as they came again to Bloomfield and a chill was settling down. The lights in the windows glowed cheerily against the purple twilight and in one kitchen someone was frying potato cakes.

The odour was symbolical of hot suppers, and summer's pa.s.sing, and home, and warmth, and cheer.

She tipped Zeke a quarter even before he lugged her trunk through the kitchen door, and then she went briskly in.

"Supper ready, Zenie?" she called.

Zenie turned slowly around and looked at her from the biscuit board.

She smiled wearily. "No'm. Not jes' yet it ain'. Terectly."

Mary Louise looked at her watch. It was a quarter past six. She came to a sudden decision.

"Zenie," she said.

Zenie looked up hopefully.

"I guess we'll not be needing you any more after this week."

A slow, incredulous look met her. "Yas'm?"

"You can go back and look after that husband of yours."

"Yas'm? He gettin' erlong all right."

"I don't know, Zenie. You never can tell," Mary Louise went on, maliciously enjoying the havoc she was spreading. "I'll pay you for the week. You can leave whenever you want to. But let's have supper right away." And she walked resolutely through the kitchen into a darkened house, burning her bridges behind her.