CHAPTER X--AND NOTHING ELSE SAW ALL DAY LONG He had lost count of days in the swiftness of happenings. As he drove uptown to fetch her, he wondered why the streets were so quiet. He pulled out his watch; it was past eight. Not so extraordinarily early! His watch might be wrong. His eye caught a clock; it wasn’t Then the knowledge dawned on him that the emptiness of the streets and his sense of earliness were due to the leisure which betokens Sunday morning. New York had a look of the rural. Now that few people were about, trees claimed more attention and spread abroad their branches. Grass-plots in squares showed conspicuously. It almost seemed that on these islands of greenness, lapped by sun-scorched pavement, one ought to see rabbits hopping. When he reached the apartment, she wasn’t ready. From somewhere down the passage she called to him: “Good-morning, Meester Deek. You’re early.” Then he heard her tripping footsteps crossing and recrossing a room, and the busy rustling of packing. He leant out of the window, drinking in the sunny stillness. A breeze ruffled the Hudson. The Palisades shone fortress-like. Far below, dwarfed by distance beneath trees of the Drive, horsemen moved sluggishly like wound-up toys. A steamer, heavily loaded with holidaymakers, churned its way up-river; he caught the faint cheerfulness of brazen music. The tension of endeavor was relaxed; a spirit of peace and gayety was in the air. His thoughts went back to Eden Row, lying blinking and quaint in the Sabbath calm. In this city of giant energies he smiled a little wistfully at the remembrance. He listened. The sounds of packing hadn’t stopped. Time grew short; it wasn’t for him to hurry her. Secretly he hoped she would lose her train; they might steal an extra day together. She entered radiant and laughing. “You’ll think I always keep you waiting. Come on. We’ve got to rush for it.” “But let me have a look at you.” “Time for that on the way to the station.” When he had seen the luggage put on, he jumped in beside her--really beside her, for she sat well out of the corner. “Almost like a honeymoon,” he laughed, “with all the bags.” “A spoilt honeymoon.” As they made a sharp turn into Broadway she was thrown against him. “Poor old you, not to be coming!” “Hulloa!” He looked at her intently. “A discovery?” “The beauty-patch has wandered. It’s at the corner of your mouth to-day.” “Observing person! There’s a reason.” She leant nearer to whisper. “It’s a sleep-walker.” In the midst of her high spirits she became serious. “It’s mean of me to leave you. If I’d known that it was only to see me that you’d sailed---- I couldn’t believe it--not even when you’d cabled. I ought to feel flattered. I shouldn’t think--shouldn’t think it’s often happened that a man came so far on ’spec.’” “Perhaps never,” he said. “There was never a Desire----” Then they felt that they had gone far enough with words, and sat catching each other’s smile in silence.