"My dear old girl!" he murmured.
"I suppose you must be as vulgar as you like to-day!" said Christine, with a dainty lift of her brow and an affected resignation. Then suddenly she turned and kissed him, saying gravely: "I'm grateful, John, and don't—don't think there's anything wrong in being generous."
"I only know I've got to have you back with me," he said. "That's all I know about it anyhow."
"I think it's enough, then," she whispered softly.
Presently the gates of John's mouth were loosed, and he began to tell all his news. It was mainly about his business—how it flourished, how he had built up his credit again, of the successes he had won; that as soon as he had paid off his debts—a moment of embarrassment befell him here—they would be as well off as ever they had been; horses could be bought again, the diamonds could reappear, there would be no need to stint Christine of any of the things that she loved. All that he had longed for sympathetic ears to hear in the last months came bubbling out now. And Christine was ready to listen. As he talked and she heard, the old life seemed to revive, the old interests of every day came back, exercised anew their uniting power, and brought with them the old friendship and comradeship. Christine had said that they could "nearly forget." The words had her courage in them; they had her caution too. To forget what had come upon them and between them was impossible—in Christine's obstinate heart even at this moment hardly desired; but it was possible nearly to forget—at most times so nearly to forget as to relegate the thing to some distant chamber of the heart and not let it count in the commerce and communion of the life which they lived together and which bound them to one another with all its ties. That was the best thing which could be looked for, since the past, being irrevocable in deed, is also not to be forgotten in thought. They were picking up and piecing together the fragments. The ruin here had not been as utter as it had at poor Tom Courtland's, where the same process was being undertaken; but there had been a crash, and, though the pieces might be joined, there would be marks to show the fracture. Yet even the memory that refused to die brought its good with it. After the ruin came the love which had in the end sought restoration; if the one could not be forgotten, the other would always claim an accompanying remembrance. From this remembrance there might well emerge an affection deeper, stronger, and more proof against the worries and the friction of common life which in the old days had so often disturbed their peace and interrupted their friendship.
Before dinner Christine found an opportunity to visit Sibylla in her room. Her own brief excitement and agitation had passed off; Sibylla seemed the more eager of the two about the event of the day. Christine related it. Her comments on it and on what it meant ran very much in the foregoing vein, but was modified by her usual veneer of irony for which her friend made easy allowance. Sibylla had been prepared for an ecstasy of sympathetic congratulation; but it was evident that though congratulation might be welcomed, ecstasy would be out of place. Neither Christine's conclusions from the past nor her anticipations of the future invited it.
"How reasonable you are, Christine!" sighed Sibylla. "And how immoral!" she added, with a smile. "You're not really very sorry about it all, you know. You're just very glad the trouble is over. And you don't expect a bit more than it's quite likely you'll get! Do you know, you're very useful to me?"
"My reasonableness or my immorality?"
"One's an example and the other's a warning," laughed Sibylla.
"I don't think I'm immoral. I've had an awful lesson, and I intend to profit by it. There'll be nothing more of that sort, you know."