There is a special quality about a December sunset. The ruffles of red gold gradually untightening, the congested mauve islands on a transparent sea of green, the ultimate luminous primrose dissolving into violet powder and then the cold biting night lit up by strange patches of colour that have somehow been forgotten in the sky.
Eve was walking home, her quick, defiant movements challenging the evening, her head bent slightly forward, her chin almost touching her muff, while her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed and her lithe figure seemed almost to be cutting through the icy air.
"This is happiness," she thought exultantly, "this bitter winter stimulus—I feel so light—as if my heart and mind were empty—only my body is quivering with life—the pure life of physical fitness. Why think, or feel, or look forward?" She doubled her pace until her feet seemed to be skimming the road. "I feel like a duck and drake," she laughed to herself. "Nothing matters, nothing, while there is still frost in the world."
And then she saw a little motor waiting on the other side of the road. She stopped dead and her heart stopped with her.
"There is no reason why it should be his. Hundreds of people have motors like that."
Resolutely she took a step forward. "I can't see from here, and I won't go and look," she added as she crossed over.
And then, shutting her eyes:
"Jerry," she said to herself, trying to kill his ghost with his name.
The evening air had become damp and penetrating. It made her throat feel sore and she choked a little as she breathed it.
Gingerly she approached the motor to make sure. What an absurd phrase! Why, a leap of her heart would have announced its presence, even had her eyes been shut.