Claude took her hands and they stood looking searchingly at each other in the swimming golden light that made everything transparent.  He never knew exactly how he found his hat and made his way out of the house.  He was only sure that Gladys did not accompany him to the door.  He glanced back once, and saw her head against the bright window.

She stood there, exactly where he left her, and watched the evening come on, not moving, scarcely breathing.  She was thinking how often, when she came downstairs, she would see him standing here by the window, or moving about in the dusky room, looking at last as he ought to look,—­like his convictions and the choice he had made.  She would never let this house be sold for taxes now.  She would save her salary and pay them off.  She could never like any other room so well as this.  It had always been a refuge from Frankfort; and now there would be this vivid, confident figure, an image as distinct to her as the portrait of her grandfather upon the wall.

XIII

Sunday was Claude’s last day at home, and he took a long walk with Ernest and Ralph.  Ernest would have preferred to lose Ralph, but when the boy was out of the harvest field he stuck to his brother like a burr.  There was something about Claude’s new clothes and new manner that fascinated him, and he went through one of those sudden changes of feeling that often occur in families.  Although they had been better friends ever since Claude’s wedding, until now Ralph had always felt a little ashamed of him.  Why, he used to ask himself, wouldn’t Claude “spruce up and be somebody”?  Now, he was struck by the fact that he was somebody.

On Monday morning Mrs. Wheeler wakened early, with a faintness in her chest.  This was the day on which she must acquit herself well.  Breakfast would be Claude’s last meal at home.  At eleven o’clock his father and Ralph would take him to Frankfort to catch the train.  She was longer than usual in dressing.  When she got downstairs Claude and Mahailey were already talking.  He was shaving in the washroom, and Mahailey stood watching him, a side of bacon in her hand.

“You tell ’em over there I’m awful sorry about them old women, with their dishes an’ their stove all broke up.”

“All right.  I will.”  Claude scraped away at his chin.

She lingered.  “Maybe you can help ’em mend their things, like you do mine fur me,” she suggested hopefully.

“Maybe,” he murmured absently.  Mrs. Wheeler opened the stair door, and Mahailey dodged back to the stove.

After breakfast Dan went out to the fields with the harvesters.  Ralph and Claude and Mr. Wheeler were busy with the car all morning.

Mrs. Wheeler kept throwing her apron over her head and going down the hill to see what they were doing.  Whether there was really something the matter with the engine, or whether the men merely made it a pretext for being together and keeping away from the house, she did not know.  She felt that her presence was not much desired, and at last she went upstairs and resignedly watched them from the sitting-room window.  Presently she heard Ralph run up to the third storey.  When he came down with Claude’s bags in his hands, he stuck his head in at the door and shouted cheerfully to his mother: