The rails gleamed.
Away in front of us a red light wavered.
Karl bayed and shot away.
It was an express with sleeping cars and one brightly lit dining car.
Gradually we drew up level with it.
From the windows people waved.
We did not wave back.
We drove past.
I looked round.
The locomotive was spouting smoke and sparks.
It pounded along, black through the blue night.
We had overtaken it—but we were driving to the city, to taxis, repair-shops, and furnished rooms; while it would keep steadily on past forests, fields and rivers to the adventure of distant and more spacious lands.
Streets and houses came toward us.
Karl became gentler, but his roaring was still that of a wild creature.
Koster drove neither to Pat's nor to my place, but stopped near the graveyard in the neighbourhood of both, thinking apparently that we wanted to be alone.
We got out.
The other two whirled off at once, without looking round.
I glanced after them.
It felt queer for a moment, that they, my mates, should drive off and I remain behind.
I dismissed the thought.
"Come on," said I to Pat, who was watching me as if she had sensed something.
"Go with them," said she.
"No," I replied.
"You would like to have gone with them, though—"
"Ach, why—" said I, knowing it to be true. "Come."
We walked past the graveyard; we were still a bit rocky from the wind and the driving.
"Bob," said Pat, "I think I'd rather go home."
"Why?"
"I don't want you to give up anything on my account."
"What are you talking about?" said I.
"What am I giving up?" "Your friends—"
"I'm not giving them up at all. I'll see them again first thing in the morning."
"You know what I mean, though," said she. "You used to be with them much more before."
"Because you weren't there," I replied and opened the door.
She shook her head.
"That's different."
"Of course it's different, thank God."
I picked her up and carried her along the corridor to my room.
"You need comrades," said she close to my face.
"I need you too," I replied.
"But not so much."
"We'll see about that."
I bumped the door open and let her slip to the ground. She clung to me.
"I'm only a very poor comrade, Robby."
"Let's hope so," said I.
"Anyway I don't want a woman as a comrade.
I want a lover."
"I'm not that either," she murmured.
"What are you then?"
"Only half, nothing whole.