"Well, what made you?"
"Oh, I don't know. Two or three things. I just wondered if you'd noticed it."
Her face clouded. "I haven't noticed that he had anything on his mind. I knew already—he told me before we were married—that there was something about which he wasn't—wasn't quite happy. I dare say you know what it is—"
He shook his head.
"Don't you? Well, neither do I. He may tell me some day; and till then—But I've thought he was better lately—more cheerful."
"Hasn't he been cheerful?"
"Oh yes—quite—as a rule. But of course I've seen—"
They were interrupted by Thor's return, after which Claude took his departure.
He woke in the morning with a frenzy that astonished himself to put into execution what he had resolved. With his nervous volatility he had half expected to feel less intensely on the subject after having slept on it; but everything that could be called desire in his nature had focused itself now into the passion to make Rosie his own. That first!—and all else afterward. That first!—but he could neither see beyond it nor did he want to see.
The excitement he had been tempted to ascribe on the previous evening to his talk with Elsie Darling, and perhaps in some degree to a glass or two of champagne, having become intensified, it was a proof of its being "the real thing." He was sure now that it was not only the real thing, but that it would be lasting. This was no spasmodic breeze through his æolian harp, but the breath and life of his being. He came to this conclusion as he packed a bag that he could send for toward evening, and made a few other preparations for a temporary absence from his father's house. Putting one thing with another, he had reason to feel sure that he and Rosie would be back there together before long, forgiven and received, so that he was relieved of the necessity of taking a farewell.