Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/169

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THE SUMMONS
149

entered the waiting-room, where a great many people dashed in different directions for trains and hurrying porters staggered under loads of bags. Joan left him to wait for her while she very thoughtfully purchased return tickets. She noticed that almost every one had been looking rather hard at Garth, and fancied that it might be on account of the crutches. But as she returned to him, it struck her that it was for quite a different reason. He was sitting quietly, with his hands clasped, and he did not see her. On one side of him sat a hot woman with two restless children, who were standing on the bench, kicking the back of the seat. On the other side was a thin-featured young girl absurdly muffled in summer furs. She held a bag on her knees and sat gazing blankly before her with a listless, indifferent stare. Garth, it seemed to Joan, looked rather as though he had dropped from another planet. There was a curious sort of splendid simplicity about him, his sun-browned face full of a quiet eagerness, his clear, sea-gray eyes absolutely untroubled. Joan thought him a good deal like the salt wind that had blown in at her window from the great wide places that first night at Silver Shoal.