"There'll come a moment," she said to herself as the street door opened
and he joined her and climbed into the car, "when it'll come of itself,
when it will be easy and natural."
By back streets they left the town, and soon upon the step road had
climbed through the belt of trees and out on to bare slopes.
As they wound up the mountain, sitting so dose together, she felt how
familiar his company was to her, and how familiar his silence. Their
thoughts, running together, would meet presently, as they had often met,
at the juncture when his hand was laid upon hers at the wheel: But when
he spoke he startled her.
"How long has the railway been extended to Charleville?"
"A fortnight," she answered upon reflection.
"How about the big stone bridge on this side? The railway bridge?"
"Why that lies at the bottom of the river as usual."
"And haven't they replaced it yet by a wooden one?"
"No, not yet."
"And no one is even working there?"
"I haven't been there lately," she answered. "Maybe they are by now. Is
it your railway to Revin you are thinking of?"
He was fingering his big note book.
"I can't start anything till the railway runs," he answered, tapping on
the book, "but when it runs--I'll show you when we get up there."
They came to a quagmire in the red clay of the road. It was an ancient
trap left over from the rains of winter, strewn with twigs and small
branches so that light wheels might skim, with luck, over its shaking
holes.
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