"Yes, it is lovely," he said, "but only for a time. It is too much like the real thing!"
"Isn't it the real thing?" she asked, surprised.
He laughed, and shook himself a little. "I mean the real thing that I used to know, the drifts on the plains, sleet in the face, the numbness in your feet that tells you they're frozen—that's the real thing! Believe me!"
She looked up at him, interested. "And you have really felt that?"
"Oh, yes," he said. "I've felt it—but it's a long time ago. I'm glad it is, too. A very little of it satisfies. Nowadays my real thing is—well, what you called a while ago, New York, though that's only a manner of speaking, you know."
"Yes, I know. We've talked back in a circle! I am still wondering why you like it as you do!"
They had crossed their last hummock, and had come to the place not far from the brown house where Matt now spread rugs and cushions every morning; but no one was there to greet them. Far down the long slope of white they could see Eleanor and Tim, moving slowly over the crust; Yetta was already at home on snowshoes, and her crimson-clad figure was skimming over the snow-covered fields. Apparently she was playing a game of ball with Pendleton—something they had invented for themselves; Ogilvie, also on snowshoes, was with them.
Rosamund sent a clear Valkyrie call down to them. They all looked up, and waved. Ogilvie moved closer to Pendleton's side, and the game of ball went on.
Rosamund threw herself down on one of the blankets, and Flood took his place beside her. She still wore her snowshoes, and sat with her knees drawn up, her arms clasped about them, boy fashion. She was watching the others at their game down below, but Flood looked no farther than her face.
Suddenly she became intensely aware of the man beside her; she could not tell how the change came, or whether there were a change at all, except in her intense consciousness of him. She did not turn to look at him; she did not so much as tremble from her position; but slowly, as if the blood were retreating to her heart, her face grew white.