He was not as he had been the day before; the touch of mockery which she had seemed to see then was quite gone. He took her hand and caressed it gently.
"Poor dear," he said, "making up your mind always upsets you so terribly, doesn't it?"
"It's going away from you," she whispered, and her grasp fixed tightly on his hand.
"For a few months," he said.
"Don't you think that long?" she cried, her eyes growing reproachful; she had made up her mind that it was eternity.
"I don't mean to think it long, and you mustn't think it long," he said. "The time'll go like lightning. Get an almanac and ink out the days, as homesick boys do at school; it's quite consoling. And you'll have so much to do, so much to fill your thoughts."
"And you?"
"Oh, I shall jog along till you come back. I shall be there to meet you then. We'll come up to town together."
Was this really all? Was there no great, no final tragedy, after all? So it might seem from his quiet cheerful manner. Ora was bewildered, in a way disappointed, almost inclined to be resentful.
"It looks as if you didn't care so very much," she murmured; she tried to draw her hand away from his, but he held it fast. He shut his lips close for a moment, and then said, still very quietly,