It was the old Corthell beyond doubting or denial. Not a single inflection of his low-pitched, gently modulated voice was wanting; not a single infinitesimal mannerism was changed, even to the little tilting of the chin when he spoke, or the quick winking of the eyelids, or the smile that narrowed the corners of the eyes themselves, or the trick of perfect repose of his whole body. Even his handkerchief, as always, since first she had known him, was tucked into his sleeve at the wrist.
"And so you are back again," she cried. "And when, and how?"
"And so—yes—so I am back again," he repeated, as they shook hands. "Only day before yesterday, and quite surreptitiously. No one knows yet that I am here. I crept in—or my train did—under the cover of night. I have come straight from Tuscany."
"From Tuscany?"
"—and gardens and marble pergolas."
"Now why any one should leave Tuscan gardens and—and all that kind of thing for a winter in Chicago, I cannot see," she said.
"It is a little puzzling," he answered. "But I fancy that my gardens and pergolas and all the rest had come to seem to me a little—as the French would put it—malle. I began to long for a touch of our hard, harsh city again. Harshness has its place, I think, if it is only to cut one's teeth on."
Laura looked down at him, smiling.
"I should have thought you had cut yours long ago," she said.
"Not my wisdom teeth," he urged. "I feel now that I have come to that time of life when it is expedient to have wisdom."