"The trouble is," he was saying, "that we don't often get a chance to try things—the big things—twice. The fairer way would seem to be to allow this, for we have to fail once in order to learn."
"You are generalizing?" she asked tentatively.
"I am sentimentalizing," he answered abruptly, suddenly coming to himself. He was more personal than he had any right to be. It did no good to become maudlin over what was irrevocably decided. The Present. He must cling to that one idea. Let him drink in the sunshine while it lasted; let him absorb as much of her as he could without taking one tittle from her.
His phrase had piqued her curiosity once more. She would like to know the inner meaning of his impatient eyes, the explanation of why his lips closed with such spasmodic firmness. There was something tantalizing in this reserve which he seemed to try so hard to maintain. She would like to deserve his confidences. He aroused her sympathy—a shy desire to be tender to him just because in his rugged strength there seemed to be nothing else but this for which he could need a woman. But as he glanced up she colored at the presumption of her thoughts.
"I think," he said, "that if you are rested we had better start again."
She rose at once and took her place by his side for the last stretch of free road that lay between her and the city.
At the station there was no sign of the fugitive. She objected instantly to Donaldson's suggestion that she go on while he wait over the night in the hope that Arsdale might turn up here for the first train in the morning.
"You have already sacrificed enough of your time to me and mine," she protested. "I will not listen to it."
And if she had been before her mirror doubtless the lady there would have pressed her to another explanation.
He submitted reluctantly, a new doubt springing to his eyes. But she was firm and so they boarded the train once more for home. She used the word "home," and Donaldson found himself responding to it with a thrill as though he himself were included. The word had lost its meaning to him since his freshman year at college.