George, tired and devitalized by his strenuous life, absorbed by his own and his employer's affairs, fell asleep at once. But his companion, more alive than she knew, would lie awake until long past midnight, her body unfatigued, her mind restless, her wakeful eyes staring into the dark which had for her no emotion and no mystery.
One afternoon she found she had read through a whole book without stopping, and for the first time in her life had been absorbed. She got up and turned off the steam heat and opened the window.
"It must be ninety here with these radiators! You either freeze or stew."
The air came in bluffly, its unfriendly edges met her cheeks; before they could be refreshed she was cold in her thin muslin shirt-waist.
She had risen in expression of a sudden need of air, a sudden sense of suffocation, but she thought only that she was "nervous," and would go out and take a walk. A little later, a golf cape over a short coat of material known as "covert"--short-skirted, a gray felt hat on her head--Mrs. George Warrener was seen by her neighbors to be going "uptown."
Not until she had left the village, keeping steady pace up the hill toward the Golf Club, did she feel that she had "let off steam." The quick motion set free the tension of her nerves, and she almost forgot the acute sensation that drove her from the house. At the golf links she approached the course and stood by the fence, near to one of the last bunkers.
The field was sparsely dotted with the golfers. A red dash in the distance, a green dash, indicated the players who bent in bright sweaters over their sticks. Two men came across the ground close to her--strangers--she saw that instantly, and regarded them with the curiosity of a resident. The man who was playing, his club swung over his shoulder, his driver in his hand, was short and stout, with smooth, red cheeks and bright eyes under shaggy brows. His shoes were large and heavy, his golf stockings thick, and his fustian clothes rough and well made. His companion, a younger man in a loose-sleeved overcoat, had a soft felt hat on his head and a lighted cigar in his hand. The older man said to him, laughing:
"There you are, old man! If you're really caddying for me, you'll have to ferret the ball out of that ditch by the fence. I saw it roll down."