In the midst of these stood the young athlete, ruminating. In his seat before him sat the wolf man, studying a notebook. Beside him, the young wife, dark, piquant, nervously restless, kept her face to the window, arranging her back hair now and then with a jeweled hand, and occasionally turning her face inward to look at the car. It was as if a vast gulf lay between her and her spouse, as if they were miles and miles apart, and yet they were obviously married. You could see that by the curt, gruff questions he addressed to her, by the quick, laconic, uninterpretative replies. She was weary and so was he. The train neared Poughkeepsie. For the twentieth or more time the jeweled hand had felt the back of her dark piled-up hair. For the fourth or fifth time the elbow had rested on the back of the seat, the hand falling lazily toward her cheek. Just once it dropped full length along the back ridge, safely above and beyond her husband’s head and toward the hand of the standing athlete, who appeared totally unconscious of the gesture. Then it was withdrawn. A stir of interest seemed to go with it, a quick glance. There was something missing. The athlete was not looking. At Yonkers the crowd was already beginning to stir and pull itself together. At Highbridge it was dragging satchels from the bundle racks and from beneath the seats. The little wolf man was closing up his notebook, looking darkly around. For the thirtieth time the jeweled hand felt of the dark hair, the elbow rested on the seat-top, and then for the second time the arm slipped out and rested full length, the hand touching an elbow which was now resting wearily, holding the shoulder and supporting the chin of the man who was standing. There was the throb as of an electric contact. The elbow rose ever so slightly and pressed the fingers. The eyes of the wolf’s wife met the eyes of her summer ideal, and there stood revealed a whole summer romance, bright sun-shades, lovely flowers, green grass, trysting-places, a dark, dangerous romance, with a grim, unsuspecting wolf in the background. The arm was withdrawn, the hair touched, the window turned to wearily. All was over. And yet you could see how it might continue, could feel that it would. In the very mood of the two was indicated ways and means. But now this summer contact was temporarily over. The train rolled into Grand Central Station. The crowd arose. There was a determined shuffle forward of the wolf man, with his wife close behind him, and both were gone. The athlete followed respectfully after. He gave the wolf man and his wife a wide berth. He followed, however, and looked and thought--backward into the summer, no doubt, and forward. THE TRACK WALKER