It was December then, gray and raw, with a wet snow that changed to rain as it fell. The country roads were ankle-deep with mud, the wayside paths thick with sodden leaves. The dreariness of the countryside that Saturday afternoon suited his mood. He had ridden to the end of the street-car line, and started his walk from there. As was his custom, he wore no overcoat, but a short sweater under his coat. Somewhere along the road he had picked up a mongrel dog, and, as if in sheer desire for human society, it trotted companionably at his heels.
Seven miles from the end of the car line he found a road-house, and stopped in for a glass of Scotch. He was chilled through. The dog went in with him, and stood looking up into his face. It was as if he submitted, but wondered why this indoors, with the scents of the road ahead and the trails of rabbits over the fields.
The house was set in a valley at the foot of two hills. Through the mist of the December afternoon, it had loomed pleasantly before him. The door was ajar, and he stepped into a little hall covered with ingrain carpet. To the right was the dining-room, the table covered with a white cloth, and in its exact center an uncompromising bunch of dried flowers. To the left, the typical parlor of such places. It might have been the parlor of the White Springs Hotel in duplicate, plush self-rocker and all. Over everything was silence and a pervading smell of fresh varnish. The house was aggressive with new paint—the sagging old floors shone with it, the doors gleamed.
“Hello!” called K.
There were slow footsteps upstairs, the closing of a bureau drawer, the rustle of a woman's dress coming down the stairs. K., standing uncertainly on a carpet oasis that was the center of the parlor varnish, stripped off his sweater.
“Not very busy here this afternoon!” he said to the unseen female on the staircase. Then he saw her. It was Tillie. She put a hand against the doorframe to steady herself. Tillie surely, but a new Tillie! With her hair loosened around her face, a fresh blue chintz dress open at the throat, a black velvet bow on her breast, here was a Tillie fuller, infinitely more attractive, than he had remembered her. But she did not smile at him. There was something about her eyes not unlike the dog's expression, submissive, but questioning.
“Well, you've found me, Mr. Le Moyne.” And, when he held out his hand, smiling: “I just had to do it, Mr. K.”
“And how's everything going? You look mighty fine and—happy, Tillie.”
“I'm all right. Mr. Schwitter's gone to the postoffice. He'll be back at five. Will you have a cup of tea, or will you have something else?”
The instinct of the Street was still strong in Tillie. The Street did not approve of “something else.”