“Mildred, my idol has been cast down, and, as you told me to do, I have come back to you.”
“Dear,” she answered, “you are very welcome.”
And then came Miss Terry, pleased with all her honest heart to see him, and utterly ignorant of the fierce currents that swept under the smooth surface of their little social sea. Miss Terry was not by nature a keen observer.
“Dear me, Mr. Heigham, who would have thought of seeing you again so soon? You are brave to cross the bay so often” (her thoughts ran a great deal on the Bay of Biscay); “but I don’t think you look quite well, you have such black lines under your eyes, and, I declare, there’s a grey hair!”
“Oh, I assure you your favourite bay was enough to turn anybody’s hair grey, Miss Terry.”
And so, talking cheerfully, they went in to the pleasant little dinner, Mildred leaning over so slightly on his arm, and gazing into his sad face with full and happy eyes. After all that he had gone through, it seemed to Arthur as though he had dropped into a haven of rest.
“See here,” said Mildred, when they rose from table, “a wonder has come to pass since you deserted us. Look, sceptic that you are!” and she led him to the window, and, lifting a glass shade which protected a flower-pot, showed him a green spike peeping from the soil.
“What is that?”
“What is it?—why, it is the mummy hyacinth which you declared that we should never see blossom in this world. It has budded; whether or not it will blossom, who can say?”
“It is an omen,” he said, with a little laugh; and for the first time that evening their eyes met.