"I shave every day, when I think of it. I never go anywhere, and I don't
have anybody here if I can possibly avoid it. It is all a man can do to
live and be up to his work."

"I know; it's frightful to work in such weather. How the mill roars! It
starts the blood to hear it. Last spring it sounded like a cataract; now it
roars like heat behind furnace doors. Which is your room now?"

"O Lord! I sleep anywhere; begin in my bed generally and end of the piazza
floor. It will be the grass if this keeps on."

"Mrs. Thorne continued to laugh spasmodically at her husband's careless
speeches, not at what he said so much as through content in his familiar
way of saying things. Under their light household talk, graver, questioning
looks were exchanged, the unappeased glances of friends long separated, who
realize on meeting again that letters have told them nothing.

"Why didn't you write me about this terrible heat?"

"Why didn't you write _me_ that you were not well?"

"I am well."

"You don't look it--anything but."

"I am always ghastly after a journey. It isn't a question of health that
brought me. But--never mind. Ring for Ito, will you? I want my keys."

At dinner she looked ten years younger, sitting opposite him in her summery
lawns and laces. She tasted the cold wine soup, but ate nothing, watching