“More schemes?” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, and laughed unexpectedly.
If only John guessed what the latest scheme was! Had she allowed him a hundred guesses she believed he would never have arrived at the right one.
“I hope you won’t take up schemes, Belle,” he said, with a faint uneasiness in his voice. He looked at her wistfully. “You are too nice to be caught with fads, my dear.”
She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him on the lips.
“I’m too lazy,” she said, “and have my hands too full to trouble myself about anything beyond my boys. But a childless woman, John, dear, has to mother something.”
“I suppose that’s it,” he answered, a little relieved, it occurred to her, by this explanation of what had appeared to him inexplicable. “Yes; that’s the reason, undoubtedly. I am glad you have your boys, Belle.”
“So am I,” she returned gently, and kissed him good-night, and left him standing alone on the dim landing with his lighted candle in his hand.
He sighed as he listened to the closing of her bedroom door. Then he entered his own room, his mind still intent upon her, so that for a long time he remained Inactive, gazing abstractedly at a picture of his mother hanging on his wall, comparing the sweet, lined face with the younger face of the daughter, who came and went in the old home, bringing the sunshine with her, and taking it with her again when she left. He envied Charlie Sommers more than he envied any man on earth.
And yet John Musgrave would have been surprised had anyone told him that he was lonely. He enjoyed, he believed, all the companionship that a man requires. But no one, unless he be a misanthropist, is entirely happy in the possession of a solitary hearth.