This last thought was disgusting! but His Grace of Mordryn had not the type of mind like that of Gerard Strobridge, to take comfort in the thought that if she did so, his own chance of future joy would be the greater. No touch of anything but reverence was in his heart towards Katherine.
And so the afternoon passed with much suffering in two souls, and the rainbow tints of the evening came over the sky. The chestnut trees were the softest fresh green, and the oaks only just out. Copper beeches and limes and firs all added to the beauty of tint. And young birds were twittering their good-nights; the whole world was full of love, and springtime promise of joy.
And Mordryn battled with himself and banished temptation, and had his sitting-room blinds drawn immediately to hide all these sweet things of nature, when they returned, and stayed alone there until it was time to dress for dinner, saying he had important letters to write.
But all the while he was conscious that just beyond that door and that passage, there was a woman who seemed to matter to him more than anything else in life!
The whole afternoon had been such a wretched tantalization. A long duty when he had spoken as an automaton to boring guests. He had not sought to talk to Katherine; that good-bye in the morning had been final, there could be no anticlimax, that would make it all futile.
And she had understood, she had realised his motive—this he knew and felt, but took no comfort from the thought.
And Katherine, with half an hour to herself, looked for and found that passage on page fifty-four of "Abelard and Héloise" and she read:
I remove to a distance from your person with an intention of avoiding you as an enemy. And yet I incessantly seek for you in my mind—I recall your image in my memory and in such different disquietudes I betray and contradict myself.—I hate you!—I love you! Shame presses me on all sides. I am at this moment afraid I should seem more indifferent than you are, and yet I am ashamed to discover my trouble.
Well—if he felt like that—what could be the end?