She was bored and anxious, and the outlook gave her no comfort. She knew it all; it was all she did know. Marcus the barber bending over some one in his chair; Carrie Young's baby carriage with the twins in it, parked outside of the drug store; an Indian in an old sack suit and straw hat, with red flannel twisted in his braids, driving past in a buckboard, a hungry-looking dog running along beside it; men in Stetsons rubbing shoulders with men in straw hats; the Prairie Rose café; the new bank building; a stream of cars. And over it all, for the weather had turned warm again, a haze of dust and heat.
Heat, dust and dreariness. Not even a customer to wander in, finger the dress-goods and exchange a bit of talk across the counter. Across from her—handkerchiefs, gloves, stockings and toilet goods—was Sarah Cain, likewise bored and idle. She did not like Sarah, and Sarah did not like her, but out of the heat and a certain dreariness that was in her she finally spoke across the aisle.
"Looks like a good picture tonight."
"Yeah. But it's so awful hot in there. My God, ain't this weather awful again?"
"It sure is. You could fry an egg out there."
"You bet."
Silence fell again. Then Sarah, with a glance toward the rear of the store where Mr. Dicer sat at a desk, edged out into the aisle and crossed to Clare.
"Say, I seen a friend of yours yesterday."
A hand, which had seemed to be wavering over Clare's heart for a day or two, suddenly closed down on it.
"What friend? I got more than one, you know."
"Tom McNair."
"Oh, Tom!" She moistened her dry lips. "Is he still in town? Pity he wouldn't come in and say how-d'ye-do."
"He wasn't saying anything to anybody when I saw him."
There was a sort of malicious pleasure in Sarah's voice, and Clare looked at her coldly.
"If you mean he'd been drinking why don't you say it?" she asked. "It's no news to me, and it's certainly nothing in my life."
