usin
Gene, blast him! There was a smile in York's eyes whenever he looked
across the street. When he turned to his work again his face was stern.
What he thought was a determination not to be bothered by rainy-day
loafers coming into his office, what made him set his teeth and grip to
his work, was really the fight with a temptation to go over to the hotel
and look after a homesick girl.

Meantime Jerry Swaim, snug in a filmy gray kimona with pink facings and
soft gray slippers, was enjoying the day to the full limit. Secure from
strangers, relaxed from the weariness of travel, she slept dreamlessly,
and wakened, pink and rested, to watch the cool, life-giving rains and
dream her wonderful day-dreams wherein new adventure, victory over
obstacles, and Eugene each played a part. Jerry was in love with life.
Sunshine and rain, wind and calm, every season, were made to serve her,
all things in nature to bring her interest and pleasure--all except
_sand_. That hot hour and a half between sand-leaguered palisades seared
her memory. But that was all down-stream now, with the junction station,
and the country Thelma, and the tow-headed woman and flabby flopping
baby, and the little old Teddy Bear humping his yellow-brown fuzziness
against the swirl of cinders and prairie dust. The recollection of it
all was like the touch of a live coal on the cool surface of her
tranquil soul, a thing abhorred that yet would not be uncreated nor
forgotten.

"To-morrow will be Sunday." The little pagan would have one more idle
day. "I'll get a letter from Eugene on Monday. On Monday," dreamily,
"I'll beg into live here, not stay here. What charming folks the
Macphersons are! and--so different."

There was a difference. Jerry did not know, nor care to analyze it, nor
explain to herself, why these two people had in themselves alone begun
to make New Eden worth while for her. She for whom things, human and
otherwise, had heretofore been created--all except _sand_.

The third New-Edenite who had some special interests on this rainy day
was Junius Brutus Ponk. Often an idler in the Macpherson Company's
office, he was always interesting to York. There were never created two
of his kind. That in itself made him worth while to the big, strong man
of many affairs. And, much as York wanted to be alone to-day, he
welcomed the coming of Ponk. In the long, serious conversation that
followed, their usual bantering had no place. And when the little man
w