"No, of course not. Since when have I been that I couldn't be left alone?" But she smiled and Mary Louise, rushing to her, kissed her again, rapturously upon the cheek, turned and whirled toward the door where she paused for a wave of the hand before plunging forth on her errand.
The sound of the door closing behind her sobered her for a moment. Here she was, gone again. Would she never be content to settle down? But the wine of the autumnal weather came mounting to her head and as she opened the front gate and struck out up the street she raised her face, drinking it in.
The rows of maples had been touched by the frost and were flaming scarlet and crimson. Over beyond, across the street, between the houses where a pasture land stretched down to the creek, the beeches were golden and rustling and shimmering in the mellow sunlight. There was a delicious tang in the air one moment and a soft mellow touch of indolent fruition the next. An automobile went scuttling across Main Street at the intersection, seeking its way westward, leaving a cloud of dust that hung lazily golden ere it settled. Even the dust was fragrant. The old tavern was quite deserted; the same green shutter hung by one hinge, and as she passed the town hall or meeting house she could hear the click of a typewriter through an open window, an incongruous touch of modernity in an otherwise immaculate antique setting. The sun was warm and came filtering through the shade to splotch the uneven brick pavement, bringing out its homely roughness in minute detail. She felt as if she recognized each upturned brick, and the worn patch of yellow earth where a grass plot was meant to be, up to the edge of the gnarled root of the oak stump that had been struck by lightning, was just as it had always been. She and Joe Hooper had played marbles there until he had grown too big to be playing marbles with girls. Queer little ecstatic sensations they were.
She crossed the square. A solitary man was walking on the other side of the street, away from her. He was carrying three long poles over his shoulder and he walked stiffly and with a slight limp. He wore a suit of dusty blue "unionalls" and a battered felt hat. Curious that she should notice such things. A "Ford" backed away from the curbing, wheeled and went rattling around the corner down the road toward Guests. And then the street and the square and the whole town were quiet again, as deserted as a street or a town on canvas.
She walked swiftly, but not too swiftly to catch up every sign of home. Her mind was aflood with impressions. What a narrow escape she had had. An exultant thought like a song arose in her. She had ventured forth, had had her taste, and it had cost her nothing. The city had not caught her even though it had reached forth strong, prehensile fingers. She knew now what she wanted, had the strength, the zest. And it was October and fair, and smiling.
Suddenly she ran almost headlong into Mrs. Mosby. That good lady came precipitately out of Orpell's Drug Store, and she was wearing her white ruching and her bangles and a trim little widow's bonnet with a semi-circle of black veil hanging down behind and accentuating the prim whiteness of her face.
Mrs. Mosby's was not a face to betray emotion; it was a well-behaved, studiously composed face. And her voice was level as she took Mary Louise by both hands.
"Well, my dear," she said. "What brings you here? I've heard you're an awfully busy woman. Hope there's nothing wrong at home."
"No," replied Mary Louise. Somehow she could never get it out of her head whenever she spoke to Mrs. Mosby that it was not still as a little girl to a personage—a personage to whom restraint and deference were due. "I'm not so busy as all that."
"Oh, but you are. I've heard all about you. We're very proud of you, my dear. Very. You've been doing so well—oh, I've heard—and your striking out into business quite alone was about the most courageous thing I know of. Why, the mere thought of such a thing takes my breath away."