Billy was standing near when the mayor presented Ruth to the colonel, and he heard his eulogy of her work at the Settlement. To Billy himself the mayor observed:
“That girl has a career ahead of her. There’s been nothing like her work elsewhere on the continent. The city will need to watch her, for they’re wanting her in other places.”
“They would,” Billy agreed.
“I believe some fanatic has even had the nerve to suggest that she open some kind of similar centre in the country somewhere, and bury herself out there.”
They had just a minute together before the train left.
“It’s rotten having to go like this,” he said, too perfunctorily, she thought, as though he had said it many times before. “As soon as I can I’m coming back. It’s great, the work you’re doing. Do you like it very much?”
Very casual it seemed, very different from the high tension of his leave-taking, and she assured him with more enthusiasm than she felt that she did like it very much. And he went off like that without straightening things out. It wasn’t like him.
A week later he wrote to her:
“I’ve been up here in the hills for five days trying to think things out. I have to confess that your civic reception quite knocked me out to begin
with, and I’ve been struggling to see clearly ever since. It wasn’t the ceremony of it—I’ve become quite used to standing in line through all sorts of formalities. The whole trouble was you. I didn’t miss anything, from the shine of your hair to the tips of your velvet shoes, nor the thoroughbred poise and grace of you, and the same all-seeing kindness of your eyes, and you wore a dress that looked as though it might be wonderfully soft to touch. It would make everyone happier if the women had more of such things up here. I heard all the mayor said about you, about what he called “the future ahead of you,” and how some idiot had suggested that you give up your career in town to bury yourself in the country—and everything went blurry. I had even suggested that myself.