She watched him cross to the store, go up the three
rough steps to the platform, and disappear into the yawning
blackness beyond the wide-open door.
She did not open the novel and begin reading, even then. She
dabbed her handkerchief at her eyes, muttered: "My Heavens, what
a fool!" apropos of nothing tangible, and stared dully out at the
forlorn waste of cinders with rows of shining rails running
straight across it upon ties half sunken in the black
desolation, and at the red abomination which was the pump-house
squatting beside the dripping tank, the pump breathing
asthmatically as it labored to keep the sliding water gauge from
standing at the figure which meant reproach for the grimy
attendant.
"What a fool--what a fool!" she repeated at the end of ten moody
minutes. Then she threw the novel into a corner of the room, set
her lower jaw into the square lines of stubbornness, went over to
the sleeping telegraph instrument which now and then clicked and
twittered in its sleep, called up Shoshone, and commanded the
agent there to send down a quart freezer of ice cream, a banana
cake, and all the late magazines he could find,
including--especially including--the alleged "funny" ones.
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