The birds were stirring, and a sullen dawn was taking possession of the sky before she fell into a troubled doze. She was conscious of a disturbing dissonance, a harsh thumping that beat against her brain, and she awoke to the sound of Lady Denby’s voice crying,
“You would have made him a good wife, Azalea!”
Heavy-eyed, she entered the office in the morning.
“Hello,” cried Dilling. “You’re here, at last! I’d begun to fear that you were ill.”
The eagerness in his manner enraptured her. She drew it into her being, and was refreshed as from a draught of wine. She was conscious of a lifting of the weight that lay upon her spirit. He had been watching for her . . . he had been anxious . . . afraid that she was ill . . .
She looked at him, standing in the doorway, vibrant with unusual health and vigour, scarcely able to keep the glory of her happiness from shining through her eyes. “Here you are, at last,” he had said. It was wonderful but it was true.
Dilling relapsed into his accustomed matter-of-factness. He was utterly unconscious of his dependence upon this girl. At least, he was unconscious of the extent of his reliance. During the time he was waiting here, when his thoughts were definitely concerned with her, he was by no means wholly aware that she stood for him as an absorbing problem, intensifying mysteries and contrasts, pricking strange and sensitive spots in the sheath of his imagination. He only dimly suspected how much he owed her for the enlargement of his world and the discovery of new regions of thought and feeling.
He had looked at the clock, trying to summon a sense of irritation. Azalea had never been late before. Instead, he succumbed to anxiety. She must be ill . . . He tried to recall her appearance, yesterday, and failed. He was stupid, that way . . . intensely stupid. He never noticed people . . . Marjorie was very clever. She could have seen in an instant whether Azalea Deane was ill . . .
A curious thought cut athwart the woof of his reflection, a thought that had disturbed him more than once. Might she be tiring of her work? Did she find it—him—too exacting? Perhaps she wasn’t coming back at all!