“I shall have to do some thinking.”
“Do you think it will be hard?”
“No, but we shall see. Shall we start back—I'm afraid you won't get home till pretty late, now.”
“It doesn't matter; I'm alone there now, you know. But still, perhaps we'd better.” As they rowed down the stream, and later, on the ride back to the city, Beveridge could not but be fascinated by Madge, in the flow of spirits that had come with the freedom of this evening. She liked to look at him and to laugh at his little jokes. She caressed him in a hundred ways with her voice and her eyes. She rode her wheel with the lightness of youth, and led the way flying down the paved streets of the city. And when at last she dismounted at “The Teamster's Friend,” and unlocked the side door, she was in a merry glow.
“Come in,” she said.
“Don't you want to get to sleep? It is late.”
“I'm not tired. We must have something to eat after that ride. Wasn't it fine?”
So he went in with her, and they sat down to a cold lunch in the dining room.
When he rose to go, and they were both lingering in the dining-room door, he said, smiling, “By the way, Madge, while I think of it, I want an empty bottle.”
“Come out into the bar-room. You can help yourself.”