"With all my heart. Anything in the world, Celeste," he cried.
"Then get him away from his work as much as possible. He won't go out anywhere, you know. I've implored him to go out with me time and again. Douglass, can't you think of some way to—to get him away from himself?"
She was standing beside him, her hand clasping his as it rested on the arm of the chair. Converse looked up into the troubled eyes.
"Tell me what to do, Celeste, and I'll try," he said, earnestly.
"Make him go out with you—go out among the men he used to know and liked so well. I'm sure he likes them still. He'd enjoy being with them, don't you think? He seldom leaves his studio, much less the house. I want you to take him to luncheons and dinners—where the men are. It will get him out of himself, I know. Do, Douglass, do for my sake, make him forget his work. Take him back to the old life in the club, at the cafés—if only for a little while. Don't you understand?"
"You mean—oh, Celeste, you don't mean to say that he is tired of this happiness?" he cried.
"He is unhappy, I'm sure of it. He loves me, I know, but—" She could go no further.
"I know what you mean, Celeste, but you are wrong—fearfully wrong. Poor little woman! God, but you are brave to look at it as you do."
They did not hear Jud as he stopped on the stairs to look down upon them. He saw them and was still. The pain was almost unbearable. There was no jealousy in it, only remorse and pity.
"Ah, if only she belonged to him and not to me," he was thinking. "He is straight as a die, and she would never know unhappiness. He loved her, he loves her still, and she—poor darling, loves me, the basest wretch in all the world."