“You are altered,” she said presently. “You look older and graver than you used.”
“I am both,” he said.
“Well, you have need to be serious. Also, I do not think you even as moderately good-looking as you were. But you are bronzed, which is something; and you have a scar on your temple. What have you been doing with yourself these eight months?”
“I have been helping to fight Austria’s enemies.”
“And have run away from them at last?”
“Yes—during a truce, while they are trying to negotiate terms of peace.”
“You have come to the wrong place for peace. You will soon find it so, unless you study more discretion. My God! the shock it was to me this morning to see you back again amongst us. What devil brought you? and why, having done wisely after all, couldn’t you let well alone?”
“I couldn’t, that is why—for no reason, I suppose, but just that I am my own weak illogical self. I wanted to make sure that I had done right—to find out——”
“What?”
“If she were happy.”