Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/196

 clothing they realized that the world she had left was even more remote than appeared, that too they kept to themselves. But they accepted her. They even asked her into the dressing tent that night, and she sat on a folding chair, uncomfortable and embarrassed, while they unself-consciously bathed and dressed before her.

They watched her surreptitiously. The strong odor of scented talcum powder, cheap perfume and burning alcohol from the lamps on which they heated their curling irons, mixed with the scents from the animal tents and the stables nearby, had turned her faintly sick, but she smiled at them.

But there was one breath-taking moment that night after all. With the performance over, and only the working lights left on the lot, the cowboys rode their horses to the railroad siding. And once again she heard the slow tired movement of horses' feet in darkness, the rustle of chaps on leather, the faint jingle of bridles and buckles.

The circus world faded away. Just so had she seen the men come in from the pastures on the range, sitting their saddles easily, swaying to the motion of their horses. They would go back, she and Tom, and pick up their lives where they had left them. This was an interlude; it was not life.

She plodded along behind them. Now and then she stumbled on the uneven ground; the high heels of her slippers turned. Once she stepped into a coil of wire and almost fell. Tom had arranged an escort for her, but she had wanted to be alone.

It did not occur to her that there was anything symbolical in that stumbling progress of hers, that blind following.

The men ahead began to sing softly. The day's work was over. Soon the horses would be in the cars. .A voice would call out.

"Jerry next."

"Jerry coming."

A shadowy horse would sniff at the runway, eye the oil flare with suspicion, and then with a thunder of hoofs dash up and into the car. The loading would go on, and when it had been finished there was the privilege car, and craps, or a poker game.