Io snatched the book from the reader’s hand and tossed it into a corner. “Sears-Roebuck are very tactless,” she declared. “Everything they have to offer reminds one of home. What do you think of home, Ban? Home, as an abstract proposition. Home as the what-d’you-call-’em of the nation; the palladium—no, the bulwark? Home as viewed by the homing pigeon? Home, Sweet Home, as sung by—Would you answer, Ban, if I stopped gibbering and gave you the chance?”
“I’ve never had much opportunity to judge about home, you know.”
She darted out a quick little hand and touched his sleeve. The raillery had faded from her face. “So you haven’t. Not very tactful of me, was it! Will you throw me into the corner with Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck, Ban? I’m sorry.”
“You needn’t be. One gets used to being an air-plant without roots.”
“Yet you wouldn’t have fitted out this shack,” she pointed out shrewdly, “unless you had the instincts of home.”
“That’s true enough. Fortunately it’s the kind of home I can take along when they transfer me.”
Io went to the door and looked afar on the radiant splendor of the desert, and, nearer, into the cool peace of the forest.
“But you can’t take all this,” she reminded him.
“No. I can’t take this.”
“Shall you miss it?”