Indeed, when Sara Juke stepped out of the streetcar on a golden Sunday morning in October, her heart beat higher and more full of emotion than Mrs. Van Ness could find at that breakfast hour, reclining on her fine linen pillows, an electric massage and a four-dollars-an-hour masseuse forcing her sluggish blood to flow.
Eddie Blaney gently helped Sara to alight, cupping the point of her elbow in his hand; and they stood huddled for a moment by the roadway while the car whizzed past, leaving them in the yellow and ocher, saffron and crimson, countryside.
"Gee! Gee whiz!"
"See! I told you. And you not wanting to come when I called for you this morning—you trying to dodge me and the swellest Indian-summer Sunday on the calendar!"
"Looka!"
"Wait! We 'ain't started yet, if you think this is swell."
"Oh! Let's go over in them woods. Let's." Her lips were apart and pink crept into her cheeks, effacing the dark rims of pain beneath her eyes.
"Let's hurry."
"Sure; that's where we're going—right over in there, where the woods look like they're on fire; but, gee! this ain't nothing to the country places I know round here. This ain't nothing. Wait!"
The ardor of the inspired guide was his, and with each exclamation from her the joy of his task doubled itself.