"Catch me," Judith called, but it was Neil, snatching off her toboggan cap by its impudent tassel, who had to be caught. It was heavy and breath-taking work on the broad, old-fashioned snowshoes which she managed with clumsy grace. Judith, short-skirted and trim in fleecy white sweater, collar rolled high to the tips of small, pink ears, blond curls blowing in the wind, pursued ardently. Neil evaded her like a lean and darting shadow, hands deep in the pockets of his old gray sweater, cap low over his brooding eyes.
Under the unrelenting glare of the Colonel's windows, and across the deserted grandeur of his lawn, the two small and dishevelled figures dodged and doubled and retreated, only to grapple and trip each other up at last at the foot of the veranda steps, and collapse there, breathless and laughing. But their laughter died quickly, and Judith, pulling the recovered cap over her wind-tossed curls, watched the brooding gloom come back into Neil's eyes as he settled into a sulky heap on the step below her.
Her quarrels with Neil were as strange as her beautiful hours with him, fed by black undercurrents of feeling that swept and surprised her, flaming up suddenly like banked fires. She was hotly angry with him now.
"Neil, I heard what you said about Green River shutting its eyes. It was foolish."
"I'd say it to his face." Neil flashed a black look at the bland and elegant drawing-room windows, as if he could talk to the Colonel through them. "I've got worse than that to say to Everard."
"Then say it to me. Don't hint. I'm tired of hearing you. You're as bad as Norah."
That is the irresistible challenge to any woman. Judith's eyes kindled. Neil slouched lower on the steps, dropping his head in his hands. "Everard," he threw out presently, "has bought the Hiawatha Club Camp."
"The club was in debt. That's a bad thing for a club or a man to be, if the Colonel knows it. And it's a worse thing for a woman."
He did not explain or raise his head. "I've got a job for the summer vacation," he said presently.
"Oh, fine. In the fish market--tend store, drive the cart. And I'm fired from the _Record_, Judith."
"They're going to take on one more man, and pay him real money."
"But you've got the Green River Jottings to do for the Wells _Clarion_."