"Well, dear fellow, I'm glad to be with you."
Braine turns to him with the grave, sad smile that is now the only smile his face knows. He walks slowly. There is none of the energy and spring in his step that belonged to Braine the statesman. The face is still handsome—it will always be that. No expression can entirely change his features, but it is a sombre face. His figure stoops a little. Mental burdens are apt to bow the shoulders far more quickly than physical ones.
Braine has grayed at the temples; it will be but a little time before the brown of his hair will have disappeared.
Everet has got off the train just now, at the tumble-down little station, and as he and Braine walk leisurely down the country road, he covertly notes every detail of his friend's appearance.
There is still a dignity in Braine's figure and movement. No stoop, no length of time can deform that, any more than it can change the attraction of his face. These things were not the ornamentations but the substance of the man. All thought of dishonor in this man was acquired—and it was a hard thing to learn. Honesty and uprightness of mind were innate. It is his natural self that has remained by him in the crisis.
With the woman, things were different.
The two men stroll on through the mellow glow, the setting sun lending its fiery touch to the hedge-rows, turning the gray of the road to a more cheerful yellow. A bob-white calls from the wood on the left; a wood-pecker is warily at work in an apple-tree in the orchard on the right. Sweet evening odors, evening sounds, evening winds, surround the men like a benediction.
Braine stops once in the road and looks off over a yellow field—a field of grain half cut. A man still works there among the sweet-smelling sheaves. A comely woman has just passed through the bars beyond, and is crossing to the man who works. There is a leisurely vigor in his movements that only strong men know at resting time. He sees the woman and stands erect, awaiting her, his rugged, positive form outlined against the flushing sky, that seems to terminate the whole earth in the field behind him. He does not meet her. She comes to him. If there is anything save the rabbits in the grain to see, the man and woman do not know. The man must be a poet—for he does not kiss her lips. The man who binds the sheaves instinctively knows that passion and the hour are incongruous. He takes her face between his hands and looks into her eyes, and as the sun with one last peep sinks below the hill into nothing, he lends to the two the brightest ray left him, and they stand in a rosy sea for a little minute—these two! And the day is done.
Braine stands with shaded eyes. The strong hand, slightly browned, trembles a little. As they walk on, he breaks the stillness gently:
"I could be happy here." There is a wistfulness in his voice.