Lister turned and his eyes were thoughtful. She had stopped to fasten her cloak, and the people pushing by forced her to his side. An electric lamp burned overhead and her beauty moved him. He noted the heavy coils of her dark hair, her delicate color, and the grace of her form.
"I'm not at all tired," he said. "I feel remarkably braced and keen, as if I'd waked up from sleep. In fact, I think I have awakened."
Ruth laughed. She saw he was not smiling and his graveness gave her a sense of power. He had owned, with typical frankness, that she had moved him.
"Sometimes to wake up suddenly gives one a jolt," she said. "However, you will soon get calm again in the woods."
He sensed something provocative and challenging in her voice, but he would not play up.
"I wonder—" he said quietly. "In a way, the proper line's to go to sleep again."
"Sometimes one dreams! I expect you dream about locomotives breaking through trestles and dump-cars plunging into muskegs?"
He laughed. "They're things I know, and safe to dream about. All the same, I rather expect I'll be haunted by lights and music, pretty dresses and faces—"
He stopped, and Ruth remarked: "If these have charm, there are no very obvious grounds for your going without. You can command a locomotive and Winnipeg's not very far from your camp. But we're stopping the people, and I can't fix this clasp."
She moved, and the opera cloak fell back from her arm, which was uncovered but for the filmy sleeve that reached a little below the shoulder. He noted its fine curves and the silky smoothness of her skin. Although he fastened the clasp with a workman's firm touch, he thrilled. Then the crowd forced them on and they found Duveen waiting by the car. When they stopped at Lister's hotel Ruth said, "We are going to Winnipeg Beach, Saturday. Would you like to come?"