"No. There's going to be the biggest panic yet in this country about one year from now."
"Oh, cheer up! You've been living on Homestead."
"If I have, it's poor living."
Across the aisle a woman was talking about the famine in Russia. "We are going to try to get up a bazaar and make a little money to send to get food with. Tolstoy—"
The horse-car jingled, jingled through the night. All the windows were down; it grew hot and close and crowded. The black night without pressed alongside, peered through the clouded glass. Within were a muddy glare and swaying and the mingled breath of people.
Lily sighed. "Don't you ever wish for just a clear Nothing? No pain, no feeling, no people, no light, no sound, no anything?"
The street-car turned a corner and swayed and jingled into a lighted, business street, where were Christmas windows and upon the pavement a Christmas throng. A drug store—a wine and liquor store—a grocery—a clothing store—a wine and liquor store—a drug store; amber and crimson, green and blue, broken and restless arrived the lights through the filmy glass. Laughter and voices of the crowd came with a distant humming, through which clanged the street-car bell. The car stopped for passengers, then creaked on again. A workman entered, stood for a couple of minutes, touching Hagar's skirt, then, a man opposite rising and leaving the car, sank into the vacant place. Hagar's eyes swept him dreamily; then, she knew not why, she fell to observing him with a puzzled, stealthy gaze. He was certainly young, and yet he did not look so. The lower part of his face was covered by a short soft, dark beard; he had a battered slouch hat pulled down low; the eyes beneath were sombre and the face lined. There was a dinner pail at his feet. He, too, had an evening paper; Hagar saw the headlines of the piece he was reading: "HOMESTEAD"; and underneath, "STRONG HAND OF THE LAW." Outside, topaz and ruby and emerald drifted by the windows of a wine and liquor store.
She knit her brows. Some current in the shoreless sea of mind had been started, but she could not trace its beginning nor where it led. Another minute and the car stopped before the theatre.
Within, Laydon manœuvred, and the end was that if he had Miss Bedford upon his right, yet he had Hagar upon his left. The orchestra had not yet begun; the house was dim, people entering, those seated having to stand up to let the others pass. Once, when this happened, he leaned toward her until their shoulders touched, until his breath was upon her cheek. He dared so much as to whisper, "If only we were here, just you and I, together!"
Every one was seated now, and she looked at the people with their festal, Christmas air. There was a girl in a box who was like Sylvie, and nearer yet a grey-haired gentleman with a certain vague resemblance to her grandfather. Her thought flashed across the dark country, up the winding, amber-hued river to Gilead Balm. They would have had her letter yesterday. The shimmer and murmur of the filled theatre were all about her, but so was Gilead Balm—she tried to hear what they would be saying there to-night. The music began, and in a moment she was in a colourful dream. The curtain went up, and here was the hot, sunshiny street of Verona and all the heady wine of youth and love.