Joan joined in his laugh. She was there to make up for her unkindness. She would do her best under the circumstances. She hoped he would tell lots of long stories to cover her wordlessness.
Gilbert emptied his glass and filled it again. He was half conscious of dramatizing the episode as it unrolled itself and thrilled to think that this might be the last time that he would eat and drink in the only life that he knew. Death, upon which he had looked hitherto with horror, didn't scare him if he went into it hand in hand with Joan. With Alice trying, in her persistently gentle way, to cure him, life was unthinkable. Life with Joan—there was that to achieve. Let the law unravel the knots while he and she wandered in France and Italy, she triumphantly young, and he a youth again, his dream come true.... Would she have come with him to-night if she hadn't grown weary of playing flapper? She knew what she meant to him. He had told her often enough. Too often, perhaps. He had taken the surprise of it away, discounted the romance..
He got up and gave her some salad and stood by her for a moment. He was like a moth hovering about a lamp.
She smiled up at him again—homesick for the old bedroom and the old trees, eager to sit in her grand father's room and read the paper to him. He was old and out of life and so was she. Oh, Martin, Martin. Why couldn't he have waited a little while longer?
The shock of touching her fingers as she took the salad plate sent the blood to Gilbert's brain. But he reined himself in. He was afraid to come to the point yet. Life was too good like this. The abyss yawned at their feet. He would turn his back to it and see only the outstretched landscape of hope.
They ate very little, and Joan ignored her glass. Gilbert frequently filled his own, but he might just as well have been drinking water. He was already drunk with love.
Finally, after a long silence, Joan pushed her chair back and got up.
Instantly he was in front of her, with his back to the door. "Joan," he said, and held out his hands in supplication.
"Don't you think we ought to drive home now?" she asked.
"Home?"