"I told you my luck was changing," he answered somewhat irritably, but he would not meet her eyes, for although it was too dark for them to see each other clearly, he fancied that she might be able to read his mind.
"I'm so glad, Joel, and—and great-granny's very old!" She was half afraid to utter words which implied a wish that she dared not express.
"She'll be older still before she dies," said he, then added as a second thought, "I shouldn't wonder if she buried us first. Death seems to forget the old folk sometimes, and to take the young instead."
Lucy turned away; tears rushed to her eyes; she forced them back.
What was wrong with Joel to-night? She had not seen him for a week, and had been longing to hear him say that he had missed her desperately. But he seemed to be preoccupied and answered her enquiries after his health in on off-hand manner; his bearing was no longer gay, but distant. Saying good-night she went back to Greystones.
Joel let her go with the customary embrace, but she felt no warmth in it. She was hurt at his indifference, and paused, when she reached the garden, to compose her features before meeting the eyes of her great-grandmother, who believed that she was in the dairy turning cheeses. She thought of his handsome face and form, and then her resentment sank. She dared not lose him; she could not contemplate a quarrel; if she entered the house now and shut the door upon her present feelings, she would be also shutting up sorrow in her heart. She wondered whether she were to blame: whether she had failed in sympathy and understanding. Perhaps she had been cold, and he was hurt as well as she.
Lucy plucked a half-opened rose and returned, meaning to run after him if he had gone home. But he was still standing in their meeting place, hidden by the trees.
"I couldn't leave you so, Joel," she murmured, twining her fingers in his. "I shouldn't sleep to-night if I thought you had any cause to be angry with me. Have I done aught amiss?"
He put his arms round her, roused to a show of affection by her voice. He cared for her deeply, but there were times when he found her love exacting, when he could not reach the heights whereon she stood. The fault lay in himself. It lay in his heart, which was so weighted by anxiety, that he often had not the energy to climb up beside her.
"Yes," he said with a return to his usual manner, "you've done one thing amiss—you've grown so deucedly pretty that you've left me neither a calm heart nor a clear head to manage my worldly affairs."