Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/349



T was a wild ride that George Judson took, homebound from the motor works, and at the end of it he found his wife waiting for him; but not at the door; not in library or hall, but standing in the center of her own cream-and-blue room, wearing a simple housedress of pink and white stripes in some soft material—an old dress it was, that he had loved her in in the old days. She was wearing her hair in a way that he had liked it, the fine, dark locks waved about the brow and temples, and the lustrous coils doubled low upon the neck. She was the same Fay and yet a different one.

Her beauty was more striking, more ravishing than ever. The rich color contrasts of her symmetrical face were all heightened. But besides this there was upon the features a new kind of glow as from fires deep in the soul fed by some rare, spiritual experience, and even in her pose there was a new dignity as hinting some marked exaltation of character, some fresh access of purposefulness in life.

She did not advance, but smiled, and it was the old smile with a new glory added. She