“Have I given you pain now?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think, from the way I behaved, that I would let you kiss me for good-bye?”
“Yes.”
“You shall not say that I hurt you, and you shall not go away believing that I deceived you,” said Constance, coming back to him.
She put her two hands round his neck and drew down his willing face. Then she kissed him softly on both cheeks.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I did not mean to hurt you. Good-bye—dear.”
George left the house feeling very happy, but persuaded that neither he nor any other man could ever understand the heart of woman, which, after all, seemed to be the only thing in the world worth understanding. He had ample time for reflection in the course of the summer, but without the reality before him the study of the problem grew more and more perplexing.
The weather grew very warm in the end of June, and George left New York. He had written much in the course of the year and had earned enough money to give himself a rest during the hot months. He tried to persuade his father to accompany him and to spend the time by the seaside while George himself made his promised visits. But Jonah Wood declared that he preferred New York in the summer and that nothing would induce him to waste money on such folly as travelling. To tell the truth, the old gentleman had grown accustomed to rigid economy in his little house in town, but he could not look forward with any pleasure to the discomforts of second-rate hotels in second-rate places. So George went away alone.
He had already begun another book. He did not look upon his first effort in the light of a book at all, but he had tasted blood, and the thirst was upon him, and he must needs quench it. This time, however, he set himself steadily to work to do the very best he could, labouring to repress his own vivacity and trying to keep out of the fever that was threatening to carry him away outside of himself. He limited his work strictly to a small amount every day, polishing every sentence and thinking out every phrase before it was set down. Working in this way he had written about half a volume by the end of August, when he found himself in a pleasant country-house by the sea in the midst of a large party of people. He had all but forgotten his first book, and had certainly but a very dim recollection of what it contained. He looked back upon its feverish production as upon a sort of delirious dream during which he had raved in a language now strange to his memory.