For seven years he had tasted the windy breath of a new country. But this land from which he had sprung was mellowed, trodden; the fields had been turned over many times. He could not conceive of its ever having been a cup of unripened green wine. Low hills locked it in; tight, complete; we have you, you have always been ours, you are drenched and seasoned with the sweat of quiet people, and their decaying bones have made you sweet.

He thought, “Virginia must be somewhat like this. And men are tearing it to shreds … Blundering about with brass guns—”

Beside the nasturtium bed, clover had come matting up in indefinite fairy rings, and in one of these rings he put his shoe and watched the delicate leaves yield beneath oppressing weight … He began to feel the emptiness of yard and house, the hollowness of a town which no longer belonged to his blood. He saw himself as a child, and his grandfather was leading him home up Chambersburg street, from the scene of some boyish crime. His long, yellow fingers clamped on Dan’s ear. Dan saw their shadows flickering over a vanished wooden sidewalk: child and grandfather, one struggling and impish, the other as tall and conscientious as a Puritan eternity.

Later he realized that some creature was jingling in the yard behind him. He turned quickly, then stood up. A fat white dog with clipped ears and a long rat tail, was nosing soberly along the picket fence; a tiny bell hung from the dog’s brassy collar and tinkled eerily.

“Cybo!” Bale cried. He had supposed, of course, that the dog was dead. Though he was barely full grown when Dan went west. “Yu, Cy,” he called softly. “Yu-yu-yu-yu-yu.” Cybo rolled toward him at an awkward gallop, his tail erect, his pink nostrils expanding. He snuffed at Bale’s knees, looked at him vacantly, and ran over to nose against the corner of the back porch.

Dan walked toward the front. He expected to find Tyler Fanning there—just why Ty should come, he did not know—but instead he met a woman at the corner of the house. They very nearly bumped together. “Excuse me,” Dan said. He thought in that first moment that she was the most desirable woman he had ever seen. She wore a dress of light-weight black silk, ruffled and spread into a sweeping richness around her, supported by the stiff carpentry of hoops. From a lowcut froth of drooping lace her neck rose like the stalk of an exotic flower. She wore a small straw hat with cloth violets foaming down against a mass of carelessly-bundled hair.

Hair the color of rye whiskey.

“Excuse me,” he said again.