He pressed the hand on his arm.
"It was hard work—and the home times were ugly in those days, Amaryllis, though the goal was worth it, and now we must carry on…." And then his reserve seemed to fall upon him again, and he took her through the other rooms, and kept to solid facts, and historic descriptions, and his bride had continuously the impression that he was mastering some emotion in himself, and that this stolidity was a mask.
When lunch time came the usual relations of obvious and commonplace goodfellowship had been fully restored between them, and that atmosphere of aloofness which seemed impossible to banish enveloped John once more.
Amaryllis sighed—but it was too soon to despair she thought, after the hope of John's words, and with her serene temperament she decided to leave things as they were for the present and trust to time.
But as her maid brushed out the soft brown hair that night, an unrest and longing for something came over her again—what she knew not, nor could have put into words. She let herself re-live that one moment when John had pressed herewith passion to his heart. Perhaps, perhaps that was the beginning of a change in him—perhaps—presently—
But the clock in the long gallery had chimed two, and there was yet no sound of John in the dressing-room beyond.
Amaryllis lay in the great splendid gilt bed in the warm darkness, and at last tears trickled down her cheeks.
What could keep him so long away from her? Why did he not come?
The large Queen Anne windows were wide open, and soft noises of the night floated in with the zephyrs. The whole air seemed filled with waiting expectancy for something tender and passionate to be.
What was that? Steps upon the terrace—measured steps—and then silence, and then a deep sigh. It must be John—out there alone!—when she would have loved to have stayed with him, to have woven sweet fancies in the luminous darkness, to have taken and given long kisses, to have buried her face in the honeysuckle which grew there, steeped in dew. But he had said to her after their stately dinner in the great dining-hall: