nyons between sombre, artificial cliffs of masonry. To the west a
small patch of open sky glowed sulphurously through a smoke pall. A
city _was_ a poor place to spend time in--really live in, he thought.
And Mary Louise--he wondered if she thought so, too, she who had been
raised in the greenest of all green country, in the widest and
cleanest of spaces. Probably not. At least, it didn't look like it. A
city was a good place to work in. One could work anywhere--if the work
was all right. She had seemed keen about her work. She probably had
had a lot to do, getting things started. She'd probably not had much
time. He might have missed her during her leisure hours. It was
possible she was as desirous of some outdoors, of some clean air, some
blue sky, as he was.

Almost with the force of a decision he turned and walked back to the
square and sat down. He looked at the clock. It said five minutes
after seven. There was still an hour.

He sat and deliberately waited.

The time eventually passed, and before he had really gathered together
his thoughts into orderly array she was meeting him at the door of her
apartment, a little flushed, a little hurried, quite brisk and
apparently eager to be at the business at hand. There was also an air
of preoccupation as if she were revolving over in her mind some
previous matters of which the threads still remained untangled. In
this respect there was change. The old Mary Louise had been as open as
a wild rose, as freshly and sweetly receptive to whatever wind came
along. She had gathered complexity, was more serious, laughed less,
frowned more.

They walked along the street in the gathering darkness soberly, he
returning monosyllabic answers to the perfunctory questions which she
fired at him, brightly crisp. Like the questionnaire of a superior
officer he felt. Then for nearly a block they said nothing. Glancing
sidewise at her he caught the straight, almost grim line of her mouth
and the little pucker between her brows. As if realizing she was being
observed she suddenly asked:

"What are you doing out at the Works?"

Joe paused a moment before replying. "When I was in Texas," he began,
"out in the sticks, we had a flood, and the road from headquarters was
in danger of being washed away. Culverts too small. Had one nigger
standing on the bank of one stream by the head of a culvert catching
the sticks and brush and dragging them up on the bank so they wouldn't
clog up the hole