he open window while she busied
herself in crushing ice to a flaky coolness and gathering the
materials. To see her at this job seemed to put all of the solemnity
of the occasion far away. Yet he sneered at himself for his prudery.

The sun blazed down outside on the scorched lawn; here the summer heat
brought out all the pungent odors of the place, permeated, so it
seemed, by the stock-broker, by the kind of American who could endure
life only when his nerves were soothed in some way. Pfa! The
atmosphere of the Four Corners' swine! They reminded him of the
bondage to the flesh that in his masterful mood he hated. He sipped
his cocktail and lit a cigarette, inhaling it with deliberation,
noting with idle curiosity how his pulses responded by sharp little
beats.

The escape from reality! He had always liked blunt reality, and
believed in it professionally. You must have a sane mind and a normal
body to believe in reality, and hence few cared for that kind of
bitter bread. The mob tried to escape. Would he too, perhaps, try to
escape? What a time he was losing from that slow methodical task he
had set himself? Three months ago had occurred the first break in his
regular current of thought, and now he was drifting about aimlessly in
a mess of passions and desires.

"Do you like it?" Miss Ellwell asked, anxiously. He had it on his lips
to say:

"I hate it." That would sound silly and incomprehensible, like an
impromptu lecture on the sins of strong drink. His eyes wandered over
her, resting on one white arm that lolled across the side-board.

"I like you," his eyes said. A wave of brutal indifference to
everything but immediate desire surged in the man. However, tossing
away his cigarette, he nodded.

A little dash of pink in her face and neck answered his eyes.

"Now come." She put back the last glass and pulled down the shade,
shutting in the heavy odors.

They sauntered out through the orchard to the wood-road that led
eastward from the Four Corners.

There was a section of Middleton dominated by a high hill, with a
country pond at its foot, that possessed an air of distinction, of
being apart from the flat village and the small barren farms. High
stone-walls ribbed its green surfaces, meeting in a heap at the top,
where also a few wind-blown apple-trees maintained their stunted
growth. A little below the crown of the hill there was a thick
cluster of nut-trees. From this height one could see the Hampton hill