She looked at him, worshipping. The bad spell was broken. Instantly she felt they could communicate. He was frightened too--the precious! Over his shoulder she caught sight of the little old-fashioned weather vane on the stable, a gilded galloping horse with flowing tail. Always racing in blue emptiness and never getting anywhere. Like Time itself; like this marvellous instant, so agonizingly reached, that could never come again. No one who knew her in her daily rote would quite have recognized her then as she looked into his eyes. She was completely herself, born again in innocence, in the instinctive yearning for what she knew was good. The unknown ripeness of woman woke for an instant from its long drug of peevish days, small decisions, goaded nothings. Humbled, purified, bewildered, she saw the dark face of Love, the god too errant for heaven and who suffers on earth like a man. “Martin, I love you.” “I love you too,” he said politely. Beyond the stable she heard the sound of the car. XI “It was just adorable of you to come.” Ruth was getting out of the car. They kissed. “Why, Phyllis! How sweet you look! Gracious: I thought this was a Picnic, and here you are in a dance frock. For Heaven’s sake lead me to hot water. Those awful Pullmans; I’m simply speckled with cinders. I feel gritty all over.” That, of course, must be Miss Clyde, on the front seat. “How do you do! After all these years! I don’t suppose we’d have known each other. But we ought to, George admires your work so much.” They shook hands. It was a hard, capable little hand, calloused like a boy’s. Phyllis knew now that she remembered the grey-green eyes: agates, gold-flecked, with light behind them. Eyes softly shadowed underneath, as though from too much eagerness to understand; eyes dipped in darkness. The small shy child of long ago, who stood apart from games. How many strange moments had both been through since last they met? George was getting out the suitcases. He was afraid to watch Phyllis and Joyce greet. When a finely adjusted balance hovers in equilibrium you don’t breathe on the scales. “We were on the same train,” cried Ruth, “and never recognized each other.” Ben felt the twinge of anxiety common to the husband who hears his wife tell an unnecessary fib. Ruth had said this once before already, in the car, so perhaps it was important. Her allusion to Pullmans, also, was based (he suspected) on the erroneous notion that Miss Clyde had ridden in a day coach. But he liked to back Ruth up, if he knew what she was heading for. “I guess we’ve all changed,” he said mildly. “The old house hasn’t, it looks just the same.” “Miss Clyde’s brought her paint box,” George said. “She’s going to do a picture.” “Oh, yes, and we have another--why, that’s fine, Miss Clyde--we have another artist here too, Mr. Martin. You must all come in and meet him.”