"Then I shall certainly get over it," returned he with a touch of anger in his voice. "I don't propose to go through life wearing the willow for anybody."
She raised to his her eyes shining with shy but irresistible light.
"Ah," she half whispered, "that is the difference. I know he wouldn't get over it."
"He!"
The monosyllable brought to her an overwhelming sense of the confession which her words had carried. She pressed the arm upon which her finger-tips rested.
"I have trusted you," she whispered hurriedly. "Be generous. Ah, Mr. Van Sandt," she went on aloud, "I hope you didn't think I had deserted you. Mr. Stanford found me incapable of dancing, and had to revive me with bouillon."
XXIX
WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE
Hamlet, i. 2.
Strangely enough the thought which most strongly impressed Maurice Wynne on the morning following the Mardi Gras ball was the simplicity of life. He had heard in the early dawn the bell for rising; he had started up, then upon his elbow realized that he had freed himself from its tyranny. He had slidden back into his warm place, smiling to himself, and fallen into a sleep as quiet as that of a child. About eight he was roused by a brother sent to see if he was ill, his absence from early mass having been noted. Maurice sent the messenger away with the explanation that having been out to the midnight service he had slept late; then, being left alone, he made his toilet with deliberation. He seemed to himself a new man. There appeared to be no longer any difficulty in life. He reflected that one had but to follow common sense, to live sincerely up to what commended itself to his reason, and existence became wonderfully simplified. He no longer experienced any of the confusing doubts and perplexities which had of late made him so thoroughly miserable.
He hesitated to don again the dress of a deacon, but he reflected that to do otherwise would be to expose himself to the curiosity and comment of his fellows. With a smile and a sigh he put on for the last time the cassock, recalling the contemptuous terms in which at the time of the accident Mehitabel Durgin had referred to the garment. He wondered at himself for ever finding it possible to appear before the eyes of men in such a dress, and blushed to think how incongruous the clerical livery must have looked in the ballroom.