"No, I don't think she is, Honora. Why should she suspect anything ignoble of you?" Silence fell. A dull golden star blossomed in the West. "All aboard! All aboard!" called the conductors. The people began straggling toward their trains, laughing their farewells. "Hope I'll meet you again sometime!" "East or West, home's the best." "You're sure you're not going on my train?" "Me for God's country! You'll find nothing but fleas and flubdub on the Coast." "You'll be back again next year, just the same. Everybody comes back." "All aboard! All aboard!" "God willing," said Honora, "I shall never see her again." Suddenly she ceased to be primitive and became a civilized woman with a trained conscience and artificial solicitude. "How do you suppose she's going to live, Kate? She had no money. Will David have made any arrangement for her? Oughtn't I to see to that?" "You are neither to kill nor pension her," said Kate angrily. "Keep still, Honora." The fiery worms became active, and threshed their way across the fast-chilling and silent plain. On the eastbound one two women sat in heavy reverie. On the westbound one a group of solicitous ladies and gentlemen gathered about a golden-haired daughter of California offering her sal volatile, claret, brandy-and-water. She chose the claret and sipped it tremblingly. Its deep hue answered the glow in the great ruby in her ring. By a chance her eye caught it and she turned the jewel toward her palm. "A superb stone," commented one of the kindly group. "You purchased it abroad?" The inquiry was meant to distract her thoughts. It did not quite succeed. She put the wine from her and covered her face with her hands, for suddenly she was assailed by a memory of the burning kisses with which that gem had been placed upon her finger by lips now many fathoms beneath the surface of the sun-warmed world. XXXIV Kate and Honora left the train at the station of Wander, and the man for whom it was named was there to meet them. If it was summer with the world, it was summer with him, too. Some new plenitude had come to him since Kate had seen him last. His full manhood seemed to be realized. A fine seriousness invested him--a seriousness which included, the observer felt sure, all imaginable fit forms of joy. Clothed in gray, save for the inevitable sombrero, clean-shaven, bright-eyed, capable, renewed with hope, he took both women with a protecting gesture into his embrace. The three rejoiced together in that honest demonstration which seems permissible in the West, where social forms and fears have not much foothold. They talked as happily of little things as if great ones were not occupying their minds. To listen, one would have thought that only "little joys" and small vexations had come their way. It would be by looking into their faces that one could see the marks of passion--the passion of sorrow, of love, of sacrifice.