each other,
so quickly could either of them break love's alliance, if bored. Carl
himself, being anything but bored, was as faithfully devoted as the
least enterprising of moral young men, He forgot Gertie, did not write
to Istra Nash the artist, and when the VanZile office got a new
telephone-girl, a tall, languorous brunette with shadowy eyes and fine
cheeks, he did not even smile at her.

But--was Ruth so bound? She still refused to admit even that she could
fall in love. He knew that Ruth and he were not romantic characters,
but every-day people with a tendency to quarrel and demand and be
slack. He knew that even if the rose dream came true, there would be
drab spots in it. And now that she was away, with Lenox and polo to
absorb her, could the gauche, ignorant Carl Ericson, that he privately
knew himself to be, retain her interest?

Late in July he received an invitation to spend a week-end, Friday to
Tuesday, with Ruth at the Patton Kerrs'.

CHAPTER XXXIX

The brief trip to the Berkshires was longer than any he had taken
these nine months. He looked forward animatedly to the journey,
remembering details of travel--such trivial touches as the oval brass
wash-bowls of a Pullman sleeper, and how, when the water is running
out, the inside of the bowl is covered with a whitish film of water,
which swiftly peels off. He recalled the cracked white paint of a
steamer's ventilator; the abruptly stopping zhhhhh of a fog-horn; the
vast smoky roof of a Philadelphia train-shed, clamorous with the
train-bells of a strange town, giving a sense of mystery to the
traveler stepping from the car for a moment to stretch his legs; an
ugly junction station platform, with resin oozing from the heavy
planks in the spring sun; the polished binnacle of the S.S. _Panama_.

He expected keen joy in new fields and hills. Yet all the way north he
was trying to hold the train back. In a few minutes, now, he would see
Ruth. And at this hour he did not even know definitely that he liked
her.

He could not visualize her. He could see the sleeve of her blue
corduroy jacket; her eyes he could not see. She was a stranger. Had he
idealized her? He was apologetic for his unflattering doubt, but of
what sort _was_ she?

The train was stopping at her station with rattling windows and a
despairing grind of the wheels. Carl seized his overnight bag and
suit-case with fictitious enthusiasm. He was in a panic. Emerging
from the safe, impers