"I see the saffron woods of yesterday!" (I see, too, the setting sun shining on the yellow leaves, clinging frailly. I see myself standing beneath a tree holding up an overcoat—his overcoat, thrown across my outstretched arms to catch the pelting burrs that he is shaking off. I see his eyes looking down from the tree into mine. Later as we lean over a rock to crack open the prickly burrs, I feel our shoulders touch! Did he feel them, too, I wonder? If he were any other man I would say that he meant that our eyes should meet too long, our shoulders lean too near, and our silence, as we walked home in the dark, continue too tense. But he is different. He is not a lover. He is a friend—a comrade.) "I see the saffron woods of yesterday!"
Abruptly I lay aside my pad and pencil. I put on my coat and hat, pull on my gloves, and in self-defense plunge out into the cold November afternoon. I avoid the country, and try to keep my recreant thoughts on such practical subjects as trolley cars, motor-trucks and delivery wagons, rumbling noisily beside me along the street. A sudden "To Let" card appears in a new apartment. I wonder how much the rent is. I wonder how much the salary of an assistant professor is. Probably something under five thousand a year. The income from the investments left me by my father amounts to almost eight hundred dollars. Clothes alone cost me more than a thousand. Of course one wouldn't need so many, but what with rent, and food, and service, and—what am I thinking of? Why,
