"How is Letty?" she asked, "I think of her so often."
"She is very well, but she misses you. Will you walk a little way? We can talk better in the street."
"Yes, the house will soon be full of boarders." Weariness had left her. She felt strong, gay, instinct with energy. As she moved up the deserted street, through the autumn dust, laughter rippled on her lips, and the old buoyant grace flowed in her walk. It was only friendship, she told herself, and yet she asked nothing more. She had been born again; she had come to life in a moment.
And everything at which she looked appeared to have come to life also. The heavy clouds; the long, ugly street, with the monotonous footsteps of the few passers-by; the wind blowing the dried leaves in swirls and eddies over the brick pavement; the smell of autumn which lingered in the air and the dust—all these things seemed not dead, but as living as spring. The inner radiance had streamed forth to brighten the outward greyness; the April bloom of her spirit was spreading over the earth.
"This is my hour," her heart told her. "Out of the whole of life I have this single short hour of happiness. I must pour into it everything that is mine, every memory of joy I shall ever have in the future. I must make it so perfect that it will shed a glow over all the drab years ahead. It is only friendship. He has never thought of me except as a friend—but I must make the memory of friendship more beautiful than the memory of love."
He looked at her in the twilight, and she felt that peace enveloped her with his glance.
"Tell me about yourself," he said gently. "What has life done to you?"
"Everything, and nothing." Her voice was light and cheerful. "I have worked hard all summer, and I am hoping to go to France if the war lasts——"
"All of us hope that. It is amazing the way the war has gripped us to the soul. Everything else becomes meaningless. The hold it has taken on me is so strong that I feel as if I were there already in part, as if only the shell of my body were left over here out of danger." He paused and looked at her closely. "I can talk to you of the things I think—impersonal things. The rest you must understand—you will understand?"
Her heart rose on wings like a bird. "Talk to me of anything," she answered, "I shall understand."