"Yes," said the Youngish Man quite simply. "It is my wife's room. My wife is in Europe getting her winter clothes. All people do not happen—to—like—the—same—things."
The Girl put out her hand to him with bright-faced friendliness.
"In Europe?" she repeated. "Indeed, I shall not be so local when I think of her. Wherever she is—all the time—I shall always think of your wife as being—most of anything else—in luck."
She drew back her hand and chirruped to the White Pony, but the Youngish Man detained her.
"Wait a second," he begged. "Here's a copy of Matthew Arnold for you to take home as a token, though there's only one thing in it for us, and you won't care for that until you are forty. You can play it's about the mountains that you pass going home. Here it is:
"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
THESE demand not that the things about them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy."
"Rather cracked-ice comfort, isn't it?" the Girl laughed as she tucked the little book into her blouse.
"Rather," said the Youngish Man, "but cracked ice is good for fevers, and Youth is the most raging fever that I know about."
Then he stood back from the White Pony, and smiled quizzically, and the Girl turned the White Pony's head, and started down the Road.
Just before the first curve in the alders, she whirled in her saddle and looked back. The Youngish Man was still standing there watching her, and she held up her hand as a final signal. Then the Road curved her out of sight.