“She asked me to stay and lunch with her, but very coolly, and when I refused, did not press the matter as she used to do. Yes, she was expecting him. I understand now her nervous manner, her restlessness, her indifference to my short visit. I wish I could do anything.”
“You cannot, and you must not try.”
“Some one must try.”
“There is her husband. Have you heard from Tyrrel yet.”
“I have had a couple of telegrams. He will write from Chicago.”
“Is he going at once to the Hot Springs?”
“As rapidly as possible. Colonel Rawdon is now there, and very ill. Tyrrel will put his father first of all. The trouble at the mine can be investigated afterwards.”
“You will miss him very much. You have been so happy together.”
“Of course I shall miss him. But it will be a good thing for us to be apart awhile. Love must have some time in which to grow. I am a little tired of being very happy, and I think Tyrrel also will find absence a relief. In ‘Lalla Rookh’ there is a line about love ‘falling asleep in a sameness of splendor.’ It might. How melancholy is a long spell of hot, sunshiny weather, and how gratefully we welcome the first shower of rain.”
“Love has made you a philosopher, Ethel.”