t in any case they were not of the kind he could pick up.

The tall girl of the ash-blond hair seemed to be named Olive, being
quite unolive in tint, while her livelier companion was apparently
christened Ruth. Carl wearied of Olive's changeless beauty as quickly
as he did of her silver-handled umbrella. She merely knew how to
listen. But the less spectacular, less beautiful, less languorous,
dark-haired Ruth was born a good comrade. Her laughter marked her as
one of the women whom earth-quake and flood and child-bearing cannot
rob of a sense of humor; she would have the inside view, the
sophisticated understanding of everything.

The car was at last free of the traffic. It turned a corner and
started northward. Carl studied the girls.

Ruth was twenty-four, perhaps, or twenty-five. Not tall, slight enough
to nestle, but strong and self-reliant. She had quantities of
dark-brown hair, crisp and glinty, though not sleek, with eyebrows
noticeably dark and heavy. Her smile was made irresistible by her
splendidly shining teeth, fairly large but close-set and white; and
not only the corners of her eyes joined in her smile, but even her
nose, her delicate yet piquant nose, which could quiver like a
deer's. When she laughed, Carl noted, Ruth had a trick of lifting her
heavy lids quickly, and surprising one with a glint of blue eyes where
brown were expected. Her smooth, healthy, cream-colored skin was rosy
with winter, and looked as though in summer it would tan evenly,
without freckles. Her chin was soft, but without a dimple, and her
jaws had a clean, boyish leanness. Her smooth neck and delicious
shoulders were curved, not fatly, but with youth and happiness. They
were square, capable shoulders, with no mid-Victorian droop about
them. Her waist was slender naturally, not from stays. Her short but
not fat fingers were the ideal instruments for the piano. Slim were
her crossed feet, and her unwrinkled pumps (foolish footgear for a
snowy evening) seemed eager to dance.

There was no hint of the coquette about her. Physical appeal this Ruth
had, but it was the allure of sunlight and meadows, of tennis and a
boat with bright, canted sails, not of boudoir nor garden
dizzy-scented with jasmine. She was young and clean, sweet without
being sprinkled with pink sugar; too young to know much about the
world's furious struggle; too happy to have realized its inevitable
sordidness; yet born a woman who would not always wish to be
"p