the air that is the blessing of all the bay cities
after the sun goes down crept in about them. They heard the switch
engines puffing in the railroad yards, and the rumbling thunder of the
Seventh Street local slowing down in its run from the Mole to stop at
West Oakland station. From the street came the noise of children playing
in the summer night, and from the steps of the house next door the low
voices of gossiping housewives.

"Can you beat it?" Billy murmured. "When I think of that six-dollar
furnished room of mine, it makes me sick to think what I was missin'
all the time. But there's one satisfaction. If I'd changed it sooner
I wouldn't a-had you. You see, I didn't know you existed only until a
couple of weeks ago."

His hand crept along her bare forearm and up and partly under the
elbow-sleeve.

"Your skin's so cool," he said. "It ain't cold; it's cool. It feels good
to the hand."

"Pretty soon you'll be calling me your cold-storage baby," she laughed.

"And your voice is cool," he went on. "It gives me the feeling just
as your hand does when you rest it on my forehead. It's funny. I can't
explain it. But your voice just goes all through me, cool and fine.
It's like a wind of coolness--just right. It's like the first of the
sea-breeze settin' in in the afternoon after a scorchin' hot morning.
An' sometimes, when you talk low, it sounds round and sweet like the
'cello in the Macdonough Theater orchestra. And it never goes high up,
or sharp, or squeaky, or scratchy, like some women's voices when they're
mad, or fresh, or excited, till they remind me of a bum phonograph
record. Why, your voice, it just goes through me till I'm all
trembling--like with the everlastin' cool of it. It's it's straight
delicious. I guess angels in heaven, if they is any, must have voices
like that."

After a few minutes, in which, so inexpressible was her happiness that
she could only pass her hand through his hair and cling to him, he broke
out again.

"I'll tell you what you remind me of. Did you ever see a thoroughbred
mare, all shinin' in the sun, with hair like satin an' skin so thin an'
tender that the least touch of the whip leaves a mark--all fine nerves,
an' delicate an' sensitive, that'll kill the toughest bronco when it
comes to endurance an' that can strain a tendon in a flash or catch
death-of-cold without a blanket for a night? I wanta tell you they ain't
many beautifuler sights in this world. An' they're that fi