Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/186

170 They had brought him home, the day before—she and her father, in the motor—to the house on Astor Street. He had insisted on returning there, refusing the room in their house which they had offered; but the doctor had enjoined outdoors and moderate exercise for him, and she had made him promise to come and walk with her. He went to the Sherrill house about ten o'clock, and they walked northward toward the park.

It was a mild, sunny morning with warm wind from the south, which sucked up the last patches of snow from the lawns and dried the tiny trickles of water across the walks. Looking to the land, one might say that spring soon would be on the way; but, looking to the lake, midwinter held. The counterscrap of concrete, beyond the withered sod that edged the Drive, was sheathed in ice; the frozen spray-hummocks beyond steamed in the sun; and out as far as one could see, floes floated close together, exposing only here and there a bit of blue. Wind, cold and chilling, wafted off this ice field, taking the warm south breeze upon its flanks.

Glancing up at her companion from time to time, Constance saw the color coming to his face, and he strode beside her quite steadily. Whatever was his inheritance, his certainly were stamina and vitality; a little less—or a little dissipation of them—and he might not have recovered at all, much less have leaped back to strength as he had done. For since yesterday, the languor which had held him was gone.

They halted a minute near the south entrance of the park at the St. Gaudens' "Lincoln," which he had not previously seen. The gaunt, sad figure of the "rail-splitter" in his ill-fitting clothes, seemed to recall some-