This impression was made, as all strong impressions are made, in a moment, and there was no pause between his parting speech to Duncan, the fish-laden, and her taking up again the casual thread of talk. Yet was the thread a casual one? For his last words to Duncan seemed to come from the very heart and soul of the man, from the spring of his happiness.
“Do tell me,” she said, “why did you say to Duncan that his wife only thought she was ill?”
The convinced happiness of his brown eyes looked at her a moment before he answered.
“Doesn’t it come somewhere in Shakespeare?” he said. “‘There’s nothing but thinking makes it so?’ Or words to the same purpose?”
“Yes, but if we take that literally,” said Maud, “we must conclude that if she could only think she was well, poor soul, she would be. It is hard to think that when you happen to have typhoid.”
The brown eyes grew graver, but their happiness, as well as their gravity, seemed to deepen.
“Certainly, it is hard,” he said. “Indeed, it is impossible, unless you can think right. But when you can do that, all the rest follows.”
Maud suddenly felt slightly antagonistic to him. She remembered the few words she had had with Thurso last night about people who say they are always well, because they think they are, and his conclusion that they must be fools. She had tacitly agreed with him then, and was a little vexed with Mr. Cochrane because, honestly, he did not seem to be a fool.
“Have you ever had toothache?” she asked briskly.
“Never. And if I had, I shouldn’t. Sounds nonsense, doesn’t it? But it just expresses the truth.”