The Yates Pride | Page 8

was about midway of this street when she saw a man approaching. He was a large man clad in gray, and he was swinging an umbrella. Somehow the swing of that umbrella, even from a distance, gave an impression of embarrassment and boyish hesitation. Eudora did not know him at first. She had expected to see the same Harry Lawton who had gone away. She did not expect to see a stout, middle-aged man, but a slim youth.
However, as they drew nearer each other, she knew; and curiously enough it was that swing of the tightly furled umbrella which gave her the clue. She knew Harry because of that. It was a little boyish trick which had survived time. It was too late for her to draw back, for he had seen her, and Eudora was keenly alive to the indignity of abruptly turning and scuttling away with the tail of her black silk swishing, her India shawl trailing, and the baby-carriage bumping over the furrows. She continued, and Harry Lawton continued, and they met.
Harry Lawton had known Eudora at once. She looked the same to him as when she had been a girl, and he looked the same to her when he spoke.
"Hullo, Eudora," said Harry Lawton, in a ludicrously boyish fashion. His face flushed, too, like a boy. He extended his hand like a boy. The man, seen near at hand, was a boy. In reality he himself had not changed. A few layers of flesh and a change of color-cells do not make another man. He had always been a simple, sincere, friendly soul, beloved of men and women alike, and he was that now. Eudora held out her hand, and her eyes fell before the eyes of the man, in an absurd fashion for such a stately creature as she. But the man himself acted like a great happy overgrown school-boy.
"Hullo, Eudora," he said again.
"Hullo," said she, falteringly.
It was inconceivable that they should meet in such wise after the years of separation and longing which they had both undergone; but each took refuge, as it were, in a long-past youth, even childhood, from the fierce tension of age. When they were both children they had been accustomed to pass each other on the village street with exactly such salutation, and now both reverted to it. The tall, regal woman in her India shawl and the stout, middle-aged man had both stepped back to their vantage-ground of springtime to meet.
However, after a moment, Eudora reasserted herself. "I only heard a short time ago that you were here," she said, in her usual even voice. The fair oval of her face was as serene and proud toward the man as the face of the moon.
The man swung his umbrella, then began prodding the ground with it. "Hullo, Eudora," he said again; then he added: "How are you, anyway? Fine and well?"
"I am very well, thank you," said Eudora. "So you have come home to Wellwood after all this time?"
The man made an effort and recovered himself, although his handsome face was burning.
"Yes," he remarked, with considerable ease and dignity, to which he had a right, for Harry Lawton had not made a failure of his life, even though it had not included Eudora and a fulfilled dream.
"Yes," he continued, "I had some leisure; in fact, I have this spring retired from business; and I thought I would have a look at the old place. Very little changed I am happy to find it."
"Yes, it is very little changed," assented Eudora; "at least, it seems so to me, but it is not for a life-long dweller in any place to judge of change. It is for the one who goes and returns after many years."
There was a faint hint of proud sadness in Eudora's voice as she spoke the last two words.
"It has been many years," said Lawton, gravely, "and I wonder if it has seemed so to you."
Eudora held her head proudly. "Time passes swiftly," said she, tritely.
"But sometimes it may seem long in the passing, however swift," said Lawton, "though I suppose it has not to you. You look just the same," he added, regarding her admiringly.
Eudora flushed a little. "I must be changed," she murmured.
"Not a bit. I would have known you anywhere. But I--"
"I knew you the minute you spoke."
"Did you?" he asked, eagerly. "I was afraid I had grown so stout you would not remember me at all. Queer how a man will grow stout. I am not such a big eater, either, and I have worked hard, and--well, I might have been worse off, but I must say I have seen men who seemed to me happier, though I have made the best of things. I always did despise a flunk. But you!