Gordon found Meta Beggs on the outskirt of the throng; she was pale but otherwise unshaken. “I was sure you were going to shoot Buckley,” she told him.

“So was I,” he returned grimly.

“Will he die?”

“It looks bad—his head’s cracked. You didn’t see anybody throw that stone!” His voice had more the accent of a command than an inquiry.

“I really didn’t; the men were standing so closely...nobody saw.”

“That’s good. You’ll drive home with me, for certain.”

“I’m glad you didn’t kill him,” she confided to Gordon in the buggy. She was sitting very close to him. “It would have—upset things.”

“I don’t believe you were a scrap frightened,” he asserted admiringly.

“I wasn’t. I thought how foolish you would be to spoil everything for yourself.”

“I would have gone into the mountains,” he explained; “a hundred men would have kept the law off me. I was a year and a half there, when—when I was younger,” he ended lamely.

“I like that,” she replied, “I understand it. I’ve wanted to murder; but it would have been silly, I would have had to pay too dearly for a passing rage.” There was a menace in her even voice, a cold echo like that from a closed, empty room, that oppressed Gordon unpleasantly.

“I guess you’re not as dangerous as that,” he responded, more lightly. He wondered, unable to decide, if she were consciously pressing her body against him, or if it were merely the jolting of the buggy? They were passing through the valley that led into Greenstream; the sun was lowering behind them, the shadows creeping out. They dropped from the rough, minor forms into the bigger sweep—it was like a great, green bed half filled with a gold flood. Gordon’s horse walked, and, in their slow progress, the stream of light flowing between the ranges changed to a stream of shadow. A miraculous pink rose opened in the east and scattered its glowing petals across the sky. The buggy wound, like an infinitesimal toy, over the darkening road.

He passed his dwelling, a long, irregular roof against the veiled surface of the stream; a light shone from the kitchen window. The streets of the village, folded in warm dusk, were empty; the white columns of the Courthouse glimmered behind the shafts of the trees on the lawn. Supper was in progress at Peterman’s hotel; as Gordon and Meta Beggs left the buggy they heard the rattle of dishes within. She walked a few steps, then stopped, was about to speak, but she saw that Gordon had followed her, and turned and led the way to the steps giving to the gallery above.

Gordon Makimmon followed her without reason, without plan, almost subconsciously. He walked close behind her to where she opened the door to her room: it was grey within, a dim curtain swelled faintly with an unfelt air.

“Black,” he repeated stupidly, “size eight and a half.”

She stepped into the room, and faced him; her lips were parted over a glimmer of teeth. He took her roughly in his arms, and she turned up her face.

“For the stockings,” she said, as he kissed her.

He kissed her again, and she murmured, faintly, “Two pairs.”

It enraged him that she was so collected; her body, pressed against him from knee to shoulder, was without a tremor, her breast was tranquil. She might have been, from her unstudied, total detachment, a fine, flexible statue in his straining embrace, under his eager lips. Suddenly, with no apparent effort, she released herself.

She removed the hat with the blue feather, calmly laid it on the indistinct bed, and moved to the mirror of a small bureau, where her hands glided over her smooth hair.

“Men are so—elementary,” she observed, “and all alike. I wish I could feel what you do,” she turned to Gordon, “just once.”

“What are you made of?” he demanded tensely; “stone?”

“I often wonder.”

She crossed the room to the gallery, where she glanced swiftly about. “You must leave, and I’ll go down to supper. Next Sunday I am going to walk...in the morning.”

“If you go out by the priest’s,” he suggested, “and turn to the right, you will find a pretty stream; further down there’s an old mill.”

She drew back, waiting for him to descend to the ground below.

Simmons’ clerk was standing on the platform before the store, and Gordon drew up. “How’s Buckley?” he inquired.

“Bad,” the other answered laconically. “They sent to Stenton for help. His head’s cracked. It’s funny,” he commented, “with a hundred people around nobody saw that stone thrown ’tall.”

“It don’t do sometimes to see this and that,” Gordon explained, tightening the reins.

He unhitched the horse in his shedlike stable by the aid of a hand lantern. He was reluctant to go into the house, and he prolonged the unbuckling of the familiar straps, the measuring of feed, beyond all necessity. Outside, he thought he heard General Jackson by the stream, and he stood whistling softly, but only the first notes of the whippoorwills responded. “The night’s just come down all at once,” he said. Finally, with a rigid assumption of indifference covering an uneasy heart, he went in.

Lettice was asleep by the lamp in the sitting room. She looked younger than ever, but there were shadows under her eyes, her mouth was a little drawn as if by the memory of pain. A shawl, he saw, had slipped from her shoulders, and he walked clumsily on the tips of his shoes and rearranged it. Then he sat down and waited for her to wake.

The flame of the lamp was like a section of an orange; it cast a warm, low radiance through the room. His gaze rested on the photograph of Lettice’s mother in her coffin. He imagined that paper effigy of inanimate clay moved, turned its dull head to regard him. “I’m getting old,” he told himself contemptuously, repressing an involuntary start of surprise. His heart rested like a lump of lead in his breast; it oppressed him so that his breathing grew labored. His mind returned to Meta Beggs: coldness like hers was not natural, it was not right. He thought again, as men have vainly of such women since the dawning of consciousness, that it would be stirring to fire her indifference, to ignite a passion in response to his own desire. The memory of her slender, full body, her cool lips, tormented him.

Lettice woke abruptly.

“Gordon!” she cried, in an odd, muffled voice; “you’re always late; your supper is always spoiled.”

“I had my supper,” he hurriedly fabricated, “at Peterman’s. It’s nice in here, Lettice, with you and all the things around. It has a comfortable look. You’re right pretty, Lettice, too.”

The unexpected compliment brought a flush to her cheeks. “I’m not pretty now,” she replied; “I’m all pulled out.” General Jackson ambled into the room, sat between them. “Let’s hear the General sing,” she proposed.

Gordon wound the phonograph, and the distant, metallic voice repeated the undeniable fact that Rip Van Winkle had been unaware of the select pleasures of Coney Island. The dog whimpered, then raised his head in a despairing bay.

A time might come in a man’s life, Gordon Makimmon realized, when this peaceful interior would spell complete happiness.