The night was hot, the pavements were wet, and thunder clouds rolled across the moon. For the most part the stores were shut, and Main Street was quiet but for the groups at the doors of the large hotels. Only that people who came out jostled others going in, it looked as if they went to a theatre. The Canadians’ habit is to perambulate the hotels in the evening, and the rotunda is the citizen’s free club.
At the cheap hotels rows of men occupied the window chairs and rested their boots on the radiator pipes. Some smoked and ruminated; some frankly slept, and on the whole Kit thought them a dreary lot. He followed Main Street to Portage Avenue and noted the new ambitious office buildings. A Deer Park car was starting, and Alison stopped for a few moments to watch the passengers get on board. They were obviously going home and she envied them.
She touched Kit, and they went along a side street to the river. Lights burned in the small frame houses, and the reflections from the windows touched the trees in the narrow garden-lots. Wooden pillars and sawn scrolls ornamented the shiplap fronts, and although the verandas were enclosed like meat-safes by mosquito mesh, Alison thought the houses picturesque.
Sometimes she heard cheerful voices and sometimes a gramophone. By and by she stopped opposite a window behind which a woman sang. Heavy drops splashed from the trees and the sidewalk was muddy; her boots were wet and a mosquito bit her neck.
“Oh,” she said, savagely brushing off the insect, “that’s the second! I hope I killed the brute! Perhaps I’m revengeful, but it looks as if the mosquitoes knew we were strangers. Haven’t you got bitten?”
“If it would be some comfort, we’ll stop until I do get bitten,” Kit replied.
“You are rather noble,” Alison remarked with a laugh. “You see, I felt the mosquitoes were not just; but I’d really sooner they left you alone, and we won’t stop.” She indicated the little houses and the cheerful domestic lights. “Don’t you feel as if we were shut out?”
“To control your imagination is a useful plan. When the Canadians know you, they won’t want to shut you out. So far, they have not had much chance to cultivate us.”
“You are some comfort,” said Alison in a quiet voice. “Let’s see the river, and then I think we’ll go back to the station. I feel the noise is bracing.”
They went to the river. The moon was on the water, and the current revolved in muddy eddies along the high bank. Vague trees marked the top, and in the distance pale lightning flickered across the sky. For a minute or two big drops splashed the pools and Alison felt the moisture warm on her skin. Then the rain stopped and a motor boat forged noisily up-stream and vanished in the dark.