"Warm—that's the word. And it looks pretty fine to me."
Then suddenly he went away. He took his hat off, kissed Kay quickly, and disappeared. Mrs. Mallory listened to that one step at a time descent of his as he went down the narrow Stairs.
"He never was one to show what he feels," she said to Kay, half apologetically. "Now I hope that bed's comfortable. If you want more blankets"
It was their first real separation since their marriage. After the beginning Kay accepted it stoically, but she missed him. Now that he was gone, after the fashion of women the world over, she forgot his failures, his occasional moroseness, his quick angers, his moments of actual violence. And, also after the fashion of women, she began to rebuild her romance. Her letters to Bessie, with their enclosures to her mother—Bessie had suggested that finally—took on a new note.
"Dearest mother:
Aunt Bessie says you are feeling better, and I am so relieved. And I am not on the ranch just now. Tom has had to go north on business, and I have a room in town. I am more than comfortable, but of course I long for my own little house. I had no idea I would miss it so much. I am getting some warm clothes for the winter while I am here" And so on and on.
Never a word about Nellie practicing on the old piano downstairs, hour after hour; or of the odors of cooking, or of the long periods when Mrs. Mallory sat creaking in her rocking chair and talked about the old times when Jake was still alive. Nor of Little Dog, nor Clare Hamel, nor of the "business" which had taken Tom north.
It was a business which threatened to keep Tom rather longer than he had thought.
He was working hard, new work which tired him more than he cared to admit. By dawn the engineer and crew were waiting by the big caterpillar. Then, when the time came, the engineer threw over his lever, the great belt began to move, and into the ever hungry jaws of the separator
