Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/193

 The sunlight laid purple shadows; the sun glinted on scarlet and yellow and umber boughs as woods flashed by undershot with the flame hues of the fiery sumach. Brown meadows intervened, bounded by gray rail fences; wire fences, now, and a rutted road. The train darted across a white streak of cement; a crimson copse of sycamore approached, half hiding a white house, and white wood smoke rose in the clear, sharp air.

Here was a pile of pumpkins; next a brush-heap burning! A work-team waited at a jangling crossing, and the breath of the horses fogged. On the left, now, a glimpse of blue water gleaming.

Calvin awaited a dune which he well remembered, and when it appeared, he felt the satisfaction of recognizing the familiar. When Lake Michigan was gone and he knew he would not see it again, he settled back to read, but soon he was watching the wonder of dusk drawn over the fields. He was aware of a mood of reluctance in this journey.

"I ought to have stayed in Chicago," he said to himself; but he knew that no obligation bound him. His cases on call were cleared and his vacation was due him. He meant, then, that he wished he had remained in Chicago. Why? Because of whom?

As the darkness deepened without, and the glow of lighted windows flickered between the trees, Calvin sent his mind upon an expedition of evasion of a fact which he would not accept. He thought of Arthur and Emily Todd and other friends in the suburbs and in the city, he thought of Ellison and associates in the office and he argued, "I've come to like them better this year. We're friends now." But he knew that none of them roused this reluctance at leaving.

He was wearing the coat, into the pocket of which the Royle girl had dropped her three dollars and a half with