He was doing things as a matter of course, as if that was his business in life, just the way she remembered he used to clean the windshield of her father’s car and check the water and oil, sort of impersonally. It seemed to express a fineness of breeding that one would not look for in a man who was doing a menial task. It was as if to him no task was menial.

As she rode along by his side now, she had no sense that he was socially her inferior. In fact, if a Sheridan had ever had an overweening sense of class distinction, it was thoroughly purged out of Laurel now by the fire of sorrow.

As she considered the memory of the grim little farmhouse on the side of Crimson Mountain, sitting amid all the sadness of the past, it took on a kind of sacred dignity, like one who might have worn princely robes at some time long gone by but now sat in dull mourning clothes.

Chapter 3

They arrived presently in front of the high school.

“They’ll be meeting in the principal’s office, I suppose, if they are still here,” he said. “Would you like me to go in and find out?”

“Oh no. I’d better run in myself, and then if they are still there, I can save them a little time.”

“Please don’t say that.” He smiled. “My time is yours until I’ve seen you in possession of your car again. I’m really not in a hurry.”

She looked into his frank eyes and quietly accepted his planning. “That’s very good of you,” she said. “I thank you. I’ll be as quick as possible.”

“All right. I’ll wait a few minutes now, in case they have left. And if the hour is up before you come, I’ll run across to the drugstore and telephone the garage.”

She smiled and hurried up the walk into the school.

A moment later, he saw her shadow as she crossed the front window in the principal’s office and took a seat where he could see her.

He sat there in the car going over the strange events of the afternoon and trying to work them out clearly and define this odd feeling of exultation that seemed to dominate him, unlike any emotional stirring that had ever come to him before.

“Silly!” he said to himself. “She’s not in your class! Do all you can for her and then get on your way! Your paths will not cross again.”

But still he sat and went over what had happened, remembering her tones of voice, the way she had lifted her eyes to look at him, the exquisite turn of cheek and lip and chin, the very likeness of her childish self when she used to come with the chauffeur and her doll. How strange life was! Why had she crossed his path just now when he was likely going away from this part of the world entirely? He would probably never see her again in this life after today. And she was the first young woman who had ever won his thoughts away from the path he had set himself to walk.

He had thought he was immune to the wiles of girls. He had kept his own way through college, had declined the few invitations that came to him, had been too busy to step into the world. Furthermore, he had lived too close to nature and the great outdoors to admire the artificiality of most worldly girls. He had merely glanced past them and escaped from all but passing contact.

But this girl was different. Or else perhaps he hadn’t looked at the others closely enough to see any beauty in them. He had never been quite so near to any girl before, since his mother died. He thrilled at the thought of Laurel in his arms. There hadn’t been time to think much about it while it was happening, but to hold that light, helpless figure had been like holding something very precious, preserving it from danger; and the soft pressure of her head against his shoulder, the touch of her hair against his face lingered in his thoughts as a costly perfume might that had touched his garments. Just to draw his breath and feel the sweetness over again gave him a new and exquisite pleasure that he had never before dreamed there might be in the world.

Of course she was not for him. She belonged to a world into which he could not enter. A world of fashion and culture in which he was utterly unfit to live. A costly world where only the wealthy could enter with ease. Of course she might say her father’s fortune was gone, but she had been brought up under its privileges. She had never had to struggle for a bare existence and would not understand what his struggling life had been. She was not for him!

And yet he would always be glad that he had been privileged to hold her close for those moments of danger.