The train left Montreal Island and entered the bridge, and a deep hoarse rumble filled the car. The day-coach was half-empty, throbbing with the iron rumble, and dust motes stirred in the reddish light shot through the windows from the setting sun. Kathleen kept her eyes fixed on the sunset. In the seat opposite, Athanase was hidden behind the spread pages of La Presse.
A dreamy peace was in all her limbs, a physical ease mingled with a vivid sense of relief because Athanase had noticed no difference in her when they had met. He was so filled with his plans for the factory that he could think of nothing else. Since before lunch, after his arrival from Ottawa, he had been with McQueen. He had spared himself only half an hour to examine the new house and the lease had been signed without argument.
Abruptly the iron rumble ceased, the river disappeared, and they were out on the plain with farmhouses and barns and fences casting long shadows that pointed toward the east. The river was flushed with the sunset and the trees lining its banks looked frail and small, almost like stalks of grain in the distance. Athanase folded his paper and laid it on the seat beside him. He leaned over and patted her knees, she returned his smile, and for a second they seemed more like old friends. Some of his old gaiety had returned, some of his self-confidence, and he looked younger. He tapped his bulging brief-case. “I’ve got to go back to school,” he said. “McQueen gave me so much stuff to go through….” He rubbed his hands. “It’s fine to have facts to solve for a change, not people.”
Kathleen let him talk. A few days more and her night with Dennis Morey would have slipped away from her, warm and rich in the memory; a few weeks more and it would be almost as remote as though it had happened to someone else. Illogically, she would have been troubled by thoughts of her own disloyalty had she been forced to take part in the conversation, but merely sitting and listening eased her mind. With Athanase so excited and eager, it seemed obvious that her night with Morey had taken nothing from him.
When Athanase first told her about the factory she had been afraid it would mean they could never get away from Saint-Marc. But when she was made to understand that the financial control would be from Montreal, and the market managed from there, she was relieved. Only technical managers would be forced to live in Saint-Marc itself.
“Of course,” Athanase was explaining now for the third time, “I shall have to spend a lot of time on the spot. For me, this is going to be more than just another factory.” He went on to explain that he would arrange for a mortgage on the Tallard property. Already he had taken steps to convert his bonds into company stock. When the company was incorporated he would be the second largest shareholder.
Kathleen appeared to listen, but from the whole monologue she derived little except the conviction that at last her luck was changing. Living in Montreal, she would be free to be herself. After a while she would persuade Athanase to travel. Through her mind passed a vision of fine hotels in New York, herself dancing to a fine band in Palm Beach by moonlight. Perhaps they might even take a trip to California.
When they drove up the poplar-lined avenue to the house Kathleen was almost glad to be back, to find everything the same; it convinced her that nothing had happened during the past week except a matter-of-fact trip to Montreal on business. Paul was still up and eager to tell her all the things he had done while she was away. She went upstairs with him and sat in his room while he prepared for bed, telling him about the musical comedy she had seen in town. After he had washed and brushed his teeth he crawled between the sheets and lay on his back listening to her, wondering what it would be like next year in the city he had never seen, in a new school. Now that his mother was back the world was once again gay and full of wonder.