Thomas bowed, fumbling for the knob. “Thank you, sir,” he said.
A next morning’s train carried Austin Knowles out of the city and toward the line of brown-grey California foothills midway of which was the Thorburn country-place. He watched the towns, fields, gulches and roadways slip swiftly by. The towns grew smaller and farther apart as the metropolis receded, the roadways roughened, the fields contracted, the gulches deepened, and the line of foothills took on a browner tinge. He raised a window, and a breeze swept him, tugging at his hair and bringing to his nostrils the scent of curing grass. He took a deep breath. He had not had a good smell of the country in, yes, in over seven years. The last time, he and Barbara——
The old pain gripped him, stinging his eyes and paining his throat. His hand slipped into a vest pocket and drew forth a small, round, closed locket, on one side of which, chased delicately, was a lily, upheld between two leaves; on the opposite, an A and a B, intertwined. He opened it, held it close in a palm, and looked tenderly upon the pictured face.
“Ar-roy-o!”
The trainman’s cry brought him to his feet. He put the locket away, took up a hand-satchel and hurried out and down. A trap was waiting, in charge of a man in a smart covert livery. He handed satchel and checks to a second man, who came forward from the little depot, climbed to a seat in the trap and was whirled away.
When the trap pulled up, only Mrs. Thorburn greeted him. “The others are at the tennis-court,” she explained, “Dorothy and Hal, Miss Scott—you remember her—the Lamberts, babies and all——”
“Good!” exclaimed Austin.
“And Ned Heaton.” Mrs. Thorburn rather snapped this out.
“Oh, yes,—Ned,” said Austin, wondering at her asperity.