All this Lily felt with intuitive certainty. Neither she nor Nicholas alluded further to the subject, but he retained his gravity of demeanor until some trifling whimsicality struck his sense of humour, when his habitual spontaneous gaiety returned to him, with all the suddenness of a child's transition from sulky silence to laughter.
Lily was gladdened and relieved by the restoration of her husband's good spirits, and her plastic youth received yet another impression.
She must never let Nicholas know that she was anything less than radiantly happy, or he would attribute it to the disparity of years between them, and his feelings would be hurt.
There was no calamity that it seemed to her more essential to avoid.
XVI
A year after Dorothy Hardinge's marriage, her father died suddenly.
"It seems so incredible, somehow," said Lily.
"My dear, none of us can live for ever. But I know what you mean."
The face of Nicholas was abnormally grave, perhaps in decorous concealment of the indubitable fact that Charlie Hardinge's unexpected death could hardly affect him very deeply, save through concern for its effect upon Lily.