‘For three weeks, just before this last, everything seemed to get clearer and clearer.’
‘Why, those were the weeks I spent in the mountains,’ he said. ‘I was alone all the time, and high up. It sure was a change coming down, though. Last few days, it seemed my mind was trying to make up something that never really happened. Hardest of all, just before I got you on the ’phone this morning.’
Yes, it was the Border Highway they were on. She was at his left. Gradually he was breathing better. At first he had thought she would have to hurry back, but that thought was slipping away. She wasn’t speeding, but pressed the car forward steadily, as if making a day’s passage. It was a white dress she had on, a sort of linen—like a handkerchief. The white road stretched ahead, very straight, but gently rolling. The sense of on and on came to him. He had always felt like fighting when with a girl before—except in that flowered room—but there wasn’t a fight in the world to-day. The wide empty road stretched ahead for miles; a film of dull shining vapor gleamed over the top of each rise, but always as they rolled up to it, the film vanished, showing up presently above the next. They never arrived, always approaching, as to a mirage.
‘Sometime we’ll get to know it down here on the roads and even in the midst of the city,’ she said.
‘You mean that sense of clearness—I spoke of having in the mountains—?’
‘Yes, we must not lose it anywhere—as we did last week. Why, I thought some of the time you weren’t coming back—’
‘I thought some of the time, you weren’t expecting me to come back,’ he said with a shiver.
They were running through Harrisburg of trucking days. Evidently she had no mind to return—Heaslep’s beyond. It would break in upon their day to stop, yet she had chosen the way. He couldn’t tell her to go back. He had wanted to see Cal and Slim, but not to-day. Still, she kept on, the ranch-houses finally showing ahead.
‘I know ’em there—we’ll have to call, since we’re going by. That’s where Cal and Slim are. At least—’
‘Shall I turn in?’ she asked strangely.