t from
practically the whole of the world that he knew. Working with old things
cast him back to it all. He brooded over it there in the desolate place
of things left behind; the resentful feeling toward the town, together
with that miserable, helpless feeling of passionate pity for Ruth
settled down upon him and he could not throw it off.

He saw Deane that night; he saw him at the Club where he went to play a
game of pool, because he had to get away from the house for awhile.
Deane was sitting apart from the various groups, reading a magazine. Ted
stood in the door of that room looking at him a minute before Deane
looked up from the page. He saw that his face was thinner; it made him
look older; indeed he looked a good deal older than when, just the
spring before, Ted used to see him working around that place that was
all shut up now. And in that moment of scrutiny he saw something more
than just looking older. If you didn't know Deane you'd think--well,
you'd think you didn't want to know him. And he looked as if he didn't
care about your knowing him, either; he looked as if he'd thank people
to let him alone. Then he glanced up and saw Ted and it seemed there
were a few people he didn't want to have let him alone.

But though he brightened on seeing him, looked like himself as he came
quickly up to shake hands, he was not like himself in the talk that
followed. It was as if he wanted to be, tried to be, but he was
constrained in asking about the West, "the folks." He seemed to want to
hear, yet he wasn't like himself, though Ted could scarcely have defined
the difference. He was short in what he said, cut things off sharply,
and in little pauses his face would quickly settle to that moroseness.
Ted told of his own plans and Deane was enthusiastic about that. Then he
fell silent a moment and after that said with intensity: "I wish _I_ was
going to pull out from here!"

"Well, why don't you?" laughed Ted, a little diffidently.

"Haven't got the gumption, I guess," said Deane more lightly, and as he
smiled gave Ted the impression of trying to pull himself out from
something.

Later in the evening a couple of men were talking of someone who was
ill. "They have Franklin, don't they?" was asked, and the answer came,
"Not any more. They've switched."

Walking home, he thought it had been said as if there was more to it, as
if there had been previous talk about other people who had "switched."
Why, surely it couldn't