Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/75

 was happier than he had been for days. He knew Kay, knew every tone and inflection of her voice, knew her honesty of speech and action.

Suddenly she got up.

"Let's take a walk. I've been sitting around all day."

They wandered down the road together, amiably and cheerfully. Now and then Kay hummed a snatch of song, and although her hands were icy cold she felt quite wonderful. Except once when she saw a white flower gleaming in the dusk and stooped to gather it; then she felt slightly dizzy.

"I've been rather hateful lately, Herbert. I'm sorry."

A truce and a new peace. How faint the stars were in the evening sky, and how still the mountains! Still and peaceful, as if they were asleep. Or dead. Perhaps they were dead. It was only in the storms of winter that they lived. Then they shot down their avalanches, froze, crushed, killed.

Curious, the very world seemed dead. No color, no movement. She and Herbert were two spirits walking in eternal shade. She felt nothing, because she was a spirit—or no; her body was walking there right enough. It was her spirit which was dead.

Herbert reached out and took her cold hand.

"Lord, it's a relief to be friends again," he said huskily.

She let him hold it, and hand in hand like two children wandering in the dark they moved on under the trees.

There was a light behind them, and Jake's car came along the road. They stepped aside to let it pass, and Jake's voice called "Good evening." It was moving on; it was going. Suddenly Kay fiercely released her hand and ran after it.

"Mr. Mallory!" she called. "Jake! Jake!"

He heard her and stopped the car, and she caught up with it, breathless.

"Are you going to town?"

"That's what I reckoned to do."

"I'm going with you."

She jerked at the door and Jake opened it, too astonished