But first there was the long time when he lay quite still—did not think at all, only remembered her hands and her eyes and her hair, and the pretty way her brows lifted when she was surprised or perplexed—and the four sudden sweet dimples that came near the corners of her mouth when she was amused, and the way her mouth drooped when she was tired.
"I want you. I want you. I want you," said the man who had been the Amorist. "I want you, dear!"
When he did begin to think, he moved uneasily in the dark as thought after thought crept out and stung him and slunk away. The verses he had written at Long Barton—ironic verses, written with the tongue in the cheek—came back with the force of iron truth:
"I love you to my heart's hid core:
Those other loves? How can one learn
From marshlights how the great fires burn?
Ah, no—I never loved before!"
"I love you to my heart's hid core:
Those other loves? How can one learn
From marshlights how the great fires burn?
Ah, no—I never loved before!"
He had smiled at Temple's confidences—when Betty was at hand—to be watched and guarded. Now Betty was away—anywhere. And Temple was deciding whether it was she whom he loved. Suppose he did decide that it was she, and, as Miss Voscoe had said, made her see it? "Damn," said Vernon, "Oh, damn!"
He was beginning to be a connoisseur in the fine flavours of the different brands of jealousy. Anyway there was food for thought.
There was food for little else, in the days that followed. Mr. Vernon's heart, hungry for the first time, had to starve. He went often to Lady St. Craye's. She was so gentle, sweet, yet not too sympathetic—bright, amusing even, but not too vivacious. He approved deeply the delicacy with which she ignored that last wild interview. She was sister, she was friend—and she had the rare merit of seeming to forget that she had been confidante.
It was he who re-opened the subject, after ten days. She had told herself that it was only a question of time. And it was.
"Do you know she's disappeared?" he said abruptly.