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Through a rift in the trees appeared a patch of delicate blue sky and the edge of a rosy cloud. Mrs. LeMasters came to the wistful end of an alluring and musty reminiscence and gazed regretfully at the tawdry beauties of the present. Then she turned her eyes upon Joe, and with a sigh that was sodden with romance: "How could you ever bear to leave that adorable spot?"
The town was full of people, kindly enough, but each with his own circle of interests. To some of these he sold motor cars. There would be a short period of contact, then that would pass and the customer would slip into the whirlpool of casuality and be swept away. None of the relationships seemed to last. Each one left him more alone than ever. He ran across Mrs. LeMasters. Mrs.
LeMasters was an ancient lady with a penchant for lavender. The day he called on her she was wearing a flowered dress with a sash, with bits of lace about the neck and cuffs. She put on a bonnet of lavender straw before the glass in her front hall and bound it to her by yards of voluminous cream tulle, wrapped under her chin and about her neck with trembling fingers.
Two or three insignificant details brazenly presented themselves and Joe fell upon them with feverish irritation. For a time they threatened to encroach upon a golden afternoon. A lady had sent in an inquiry about a winter top; Mrs. LeMasters was having trouble with her doors squeaking. They could just as well have waited until Monday. It was two o'clock when he finally quieted Mrs.
"Why, I took Tom LeMasters away from her," she giggled, and leaned over with her wrinkled and scented face close to his, grasping him by the arm. After that they were bosom friends. He told her about Bloomfield as it came back to him, rhapsodized over its meadows and woods and "purling streams," and felt a rising desire to taste its joys again.
LeMasters with a youngish boy with a very red, sunburned face, and she wagged her finger at Joe and looked long and critically at Myrtle. Thursday night he stayed home and felt solitarily virtuous. On Friday a picnic had been arranged. Joe "knocked off" work at four o'clock and went home and dressed by a window through which the sun streamed broiling hot.
LeMasters, using a small oil can on the hinges and a few honeyed words upon her ruffled spirits. He drew a deep breath of exasperation and relief as he clambered into his car and drove away. He looked at his watch, paused a moment in deep thought, stopping his car dead in the middle of the street and was almost run over from behind by a nervous, excitable "flivver."
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