Master Nathaniel stood silently at the door for a few seconds watching her.
There came into his head the lines of an old song of Dorimare:—
I'll weaver her a wreath of the flowers of grief
That her beauty may show the brighter.
And suddenly he saw her with the glamour on her that used to madden him in the days of his courtship, the glamour of something that is delicate, and shadowy, and far-away—the glamour that lets loose the lust of the body of a man for the soul of a woman.
"Marigold," he said in a low voice.
Her lips curled in a little contemptuous smile: "Well, Nat, have you been out baying the moon, and chasing your own shadow?"
"Marigold!" and he came and leaned over the back of her chair.
She started violently. Then she cried in a voice, half petulant, half apologetic, "I'm sorry! But, you know, I can't bear having the back of my neck touched! Oh, Nat, what a sentimental old thing you are!"
And then it all began over again—the vain repinings, the veiled reproaches; while the desire to make him wince struggled for the ascendancy with the habit of mercy, engendered by years of a mild, slightly contemptuous tenderness.