When at last they were seated side by side in the car and the train began slowly to pull out, her presence there seemed even more unreal than ever. But soon he gave himself up comfortably to the illusion. She was within arm's length of him and they were steaming through the green country. That was enough for him to know at present. She looked very trim as compared to the other women who passed in and took their places in the dusty, red-cushioned seats. She looked more alive—less a type. She gave tone to the whole car.
Up to now, she had given her attention to scanning the faces of the multitude they had passed in the faint hope that by some chance her brother might be among them, but once the train started she surrendered herself fully to the new hope which lay ahead of her in the bungalow. This gave her an opportunity to study more closely this man who so suddenly had become her chief reliance in this intimate detail of her life. His kindly good nature furnished her a sharp contrast to the sober seriousness of the older man with whom so much of her youth had been lived. He had thrown open the doors and windows of the gloomy house in which she had so long been pent up. And yet as he rambled on in an evident attempt to lighten her burden, she caught a note that piqued her curiosity. It was as though below the surface he was fretted by some problem which lent a touch of sadness to his hearty courageous outlook. She felt it, when once on the journey he broke out,
"Don't ever look below the surface of anything I say. Don't ever try to look beyond the next step I take. I'm here to-day; gone to-morrow."
"Like the grass of the field?" she asked with a smile at his earnestness, which was so at odds with his light eager comments upon the bits of color which shot by them.
"Worse—because the grass is helpless."
"And we? We boast a little more, but are n't we at the mercy of chance?"
"Not if we are worthy of our souls."
She frowned.
"There is Ben, surely he is not altogether to blame," she objected.
"Less to blame than some others, perhaps."