But at last the cold had let go of them. It was April, the snow had gone and the air promised that even to that valley spring would come. Ruth, out feeding the chickens, felt that spring nearness. She raised her face gratefully to the breeze. It had seemed almost unbelievable that the wind would ever again bring anything but blighting cold.
As she stood there, held by that first feel of spring, an automobile came along, slowed, and Stuart went running out of the house to meet it. It was his friend Stoddard, a real-estate man there. He had become friends with this man in the last few months. He had had little in friendships with men and this had brightened him amazingly. He had a new interest in business things, new hopes. It had seemed to make him younger, keener. He and Mr. Stoddard had a plan for going into Montana where the latter was interested in a land developing company, and going into business together. Stuart was alive with interest in it; it promised new things for him, a new chance. They would live in a town, and it would be business life, which he cared for as he had never come to care for ranching. He was beginning to talk to Ruth about moving, of selling off their stock and some of their things. He was eager to make the change.
She had gone in the house as the machine stopped, having seen that there were people in the car with Mr. Stoddard and not feeling presentably dressed. She went upstairs to do the work and as she glanced down from the upper window she saw Stuart in laughing conversation with a girl in the automobile. Something about it arrested her. He was standing to the far side of the machine so she could see his face. There was something in it she had not seen for a long time--that interest in women, an unmistakable pleasure in talking with an attractive girl. She stood there, a little back from the window, watching them. There was nothing at all wrong about it; nothing to resent, simply a little gay bantering with a girl. It was natural to him; it had been once, it could be again. His laugh came up to her. So he could still laugh like that; she had not heard him for a long time. He turned and started hurriedly for the house, the car waiting for him. He was smiling, his step was buoyant. "Ruth," he called up to her, and his voice too had the old buoyancy, "I'm going into town with Stoddard. We want to go over some things. He'll bring me back before night."