“... The hardest part is with my people—for me to go away again,” he was saying, a little later at the door. “Of course, they can’t understand—my mother and aunt and sister. Everything looks all right, except that—leaving them so soon again.”
“Perhaps I can help a little. I’ll go to them often—while you are away.”
“That’s quite too good for me to think of,” he said, and told her of Pidge’s call. “Why, Miss Claes, I haven’t known what it meant to be rested and straightened out like this—since Ahmedabad,” he said at last.
Her hand was raised before him:
“Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze. Just—go to them—and come back when you can. This also is your home always.”
XXXIX
SEVEN FLAWLESS DAYS
DICKY was riding westward through the citrus groves of the last fifty miles into Los Angeles. Eight days in New York; there had been no public announcement of a change in ownership of The Public Square, although John Higgins had retired and new energies were actively in operation. The old editor’s faith was gone in himself, but anchored all the tighter to the son of the trowel makers.
The great Range was crossed. All the forenoon the air had been clear and cold, but at noon the Limited had slipped down into San Bernardino, into summer and fruit fragrance. Now it was two in the afternoon and Dicky looked out upon one little town after another, the like of which he had never seen before. Sun-drenched and flowery towns; breathing-spaces between the houses and vine-clad trellises; and everywhere the great orchards, sometimes palm-bordered and often with rose-covered fences of stone.
“Sit tight, sit tight,” he said to himself.