After that he felt for a long time much more of the old sympathy with her than he had known of late, and he tormented himself less often with the direction of his own motives and thoughts. He saw much of Laura, too, in those days, and spent long hours beside her as she lay upon her sofa. He always left her with a sensation of having been soothed and rested, though he could not say of her that she was much inclined to talk, or showed any great satisfaction at his coming. Probably, he thought, she was willing to see him so often because he had been Arden's friend. He did not understand that she did not quite like him and that his presence was often irksome to her, for she was far too kind by nature to let him suspect it. He only thought that he was in her eyes a perfectly indifferent person, and he saw no reason for depriving himself of her society so long as she consented to receive him. They rarely talked of subjects at all relating to themselves, either, and their conversation turned chiefly upon books and general topics. Ghisleri read a good deal in a desultory way, and his memory was good. It interested him, too, to propound problems for her judgment and to see how nearly she would solve them in the way he expected her to choose. He was rarely mistaken in his expectations.
Little by little, though Laura's principal feeling in regard to him did not change perceptibly, she became interested in his nature, beginning to perceive that there were depths in it which she had not suspected.
"Are you a happy man?" she once asked him rather abruptly, and watching the expression of his face.
"Certainly not at present," he answered, looking away from her as though to hinder her from reading his thoughts. "Why do you ask that?"
"Forgive me. I should not put such a question, I suppose. But you interest me."
"Do I?" He glanced quickly at her as he spoke, and she saw that he was pleased. "I am very glad that you should take any interest in me,—of any kind whatever. Would you like to know why I am unhappy?"
"Yes."
"I can only tell you in a general way. I make no pretence to any sort of goodness or moral rectitude, beyond what we men commonly include in what we call the code of honour. But I am perpetually tormented about my own motives. Knowing myself to be what I am, I distrust every good impulse I have, merely because it is not a bad one, because my natural impulses are bad, and because I will not allow myself to act any sort of comedy, even in my own feelings. That sort of honesty, or desire for honesty, is all I have left—on it hangs the last shred of my tattered self-respect."
"How dreadful!" Laura's deep eyes rested on him for the first time with a new expression. There was both pity and wonder in their look—pity for the man and wonder at a state of mind of which she had never dreamed.
"Does it seem dreadful to you?" he asked.