"You seldom do now, Jack. Perhaps it's because I've remained in my own climate while you have been borne by the 'warm, sweet, harmless' current into this one."
"I am not conscious of any tendency to drift, Imogen. I still steer. I intend, very firmly, always to steer."
"To what, may I ask?"
He was silent for a moment; then said, lifting eyes in which she read all that new steeliness of opposition, with, yet, in it, through it, the sadness of hopeless appeal: "I believe in all our ideals—just as I used to."
To this Imogen made no rejoinder.
"Do you like Sir Basil?" she asked presently, after, for some time, they had turned along the windings of a long path in a heavy silence.
"I've hardly seen him." Jack's voice had a forced lightness, as though for relief at the change of subject; but he guessed that the change was only apparent. "He is very nice; very delightful looking."
"Yes; very delightful looking. Do you happen to remember what I said to you about him, long ago, in the winter? About him and mama?"
"Yes"; Jack flushed; "I remember."
"I told you to wait."