I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes after nine. I had been fool enough to start without noting the time, and had no idea how far I had travelled. Surely I should be near Spoof's now.
But our engagement had never been quite cancelled. Or had it? I tried to recall, but my mind blurred. Once we were engaged; we were to have been married before this time; Jean and I were to have been married at Christmas. Then Spoof. I was not clever enough for her . . . . . . Perhaps Spoof would be, I thought, and hated myself for thinking it.
Perhaps she was right. I was a good bit of a dub. Never read much, never thought much. Bounded by the corner stakes of Fourteen. An ox. Jean had as much as called me an ox. Thinking more about oats than sunsets.
Didn't even mention her new cap. When I did I turned my compliment upside down; pinned it to the cap, instead of to her. Spoof would not have done that.
Our poem. The snow would be deep on it now. Or perhaps not. It might have whipped clear. If—if anything happened to Jean I would go to that poem, I would yearn over it, I would caress it, I would lean upon it——It was snow, and would be gone in the spring. Something about keeping her guessing. I was to keep her guessing. Well, she was keeping me guessing just now, with a vengeance!
I tried to call Jean up in my memory, to visualize her profile, her eyes, her hair, her lips, the tilting lift of her ankle, the joyous stride of her young, free limbs. It was all a mist; a picture out of focus. It was a nebulous thing, vague, indistinct, unformed. Through and beyond it I saw the grey snow falling eternally. Then about this central figure—if one may call a thing so ethereal a figure—gathered a circle of light, an irradiance glowing on a million crystals of frost; it grew and glowed and brightened until it haloed about her head. It was Jean!
"Oh! my God" I cried. "Not yet! Not yet!"
I fell in the snow. I floundered aimlessly in the broken crust. . . .
When I came back to realization the vision was gone. Only the snow, shot through with its thin mists of light, fell on forever.
Was I freezing? The thought prodded me to consciousness. I drew a hand from my mitt and thrust it against my face. The fingers were warm. The skin of my forehead would wrinkle. I was able to wriggle my toes in my boots. No, I was not freezing. My troubles were of the mind; my bodily engines were functioning properly. . . . . . . . I got the wind over my right shoulder and pressed on.