XI
“IT WAS just adorable of you to come.”
Ruth was getting out of the car. They kissed.
“Why, Phyllis! How sweet you look! Gracious: I thought this was a Picnic, and here you are in a dance frock. For Heaven’s sake lead me to hot water. Those awful Pullmans; I’m simply speckled with cinders. I feel gritty all over.”
That, of course, must be Miss Clyde, on the front seat.
“How do you do! After all these years! I don’t suppose we’d have known each other. But we ought to, George admires your work so much.”
They shook hands. It was a hard, capable little hand, calloused like a boy’s. Phyllis knew now that she remembered the grey-green eyes: agates, gold-flecked, with light behind them. Eyes softly shadowed underneath, as though from too much eagerness to understand; eyes dipped in darkness. The small shy child of long ago, who stood apart from games. How many strange moments had both been through since last they met?
George was getting out the suitcases. He was afraid to watch Phyllis and Joyce greet. When a finely adjusted balance hovers in equilibrium you don’t breathe on the scales.
“We were on the same train,” cried Ruth, “and never recognized each other.”
Ben felt the twinge of anxiety common to the husband who hears his wife tell an unnecessary fib. Ruth had said this once before already, in the car, so perhaps it was important. Her allusion to Pullmans, also, was based (he suspected) on the erroneous notion that Miss Clyde had ridden in a day coach. But he liked to back Ruth up, if he knew what she was heading for.