6
They had planned a vacation together, but Phyllis and Clive had quarrelled once more, and Felix and Rose-Ann set out disappointedly by themselves on the appointed day, through Gary and beyond to “the Dunes.” But, after a little having pitched their tent and wandered out over the great wastes of sand by the Lake, they were conscious, both of them, of a sense of release. In this wilderness of sandhills, they seemed to be a million miles distant from all the world they had lived in.
“It’s good to be away from people,” said Rose-Ann.
“Even from Clive and Phyllis,” said Felix.
Rose-Ann’s lips pouted mutinously. “Especially from Clive and Phyllis!” she said.
“Yes....” Felix said hesitatingly. “But—why?”
“They’re family all over again,” said Rose-Ann. “I thought I had escaped from families.... But one never does.”
They cooked and ate and slept and kissed and bathed in the lake, and lay idly on the sand. They did not discuss anything all week long. And when the end came, and it was time to begin the miles-long walk back to the nearest street-car line, they stood looking back lingeringly at the peace they were leaving behind.
“It would be nice to have a house here,” said Rose-Ann.
“Yes,...” said Felix.
“Only—the lake and the sand are sort of wasted, without children to enjoy them.”
A burning flash of memory lighted Felix’s mind, and he saw himself and Rose-Ann, the summer before, walking in a park under great trees that lifted their shivering glooms to the sky.... “Everything is all right now,” she had said—now that they were to have no child....
He felt, again, forces that he did not understand hurling themselves on his heart, crushing and stunning it.... He looked at her, questioning her with his eyes.
“I hope,” she was saying, “that Clive and Phyllis make up again—soon. We are rather dull without them, aren’t we?”