"Yes, I love you enough, Wolff. And if there have been any regrets, any longings which have caused you pain, forgive them, my husband—above all, understand them. They will pass—they must pass, because, at the bottom, you are my all in all."
He made no answer. He lifted her hand to his lips, and in the movement there was a joy, a gratitude deeper than words could have expressed. She felt that she had satisfied him, and she, too, felt satisfied.
Thus they sat silent together, hand clasped in hand, his head against her shoulder, whilst peace and a new happiness seemed to creep in about them with the evening shadows. And in her young hope and confidence Nora believed in this new happiness as she had believed in the old. It seemed so strong, so invulnerable, the obstacles so petty, so mean. They had been swept aside in a moment, like sand-castles before the onrush of the sea, so that it seemed impossible, absurd, that she could ever have thought of them as insurmountable. And yet, though heart and mind believed in the change, another wider, less definable sense, which we call instinct, remained doubtful and fearful. It was the one sign that all was not as it had once been, that they had only outwardly regained the past. Once they had lived for the future, longing for it in their extravagant youth as for a time which must reveal to them new wonders and joys. Now they clung anxiously to the present, scarcely daring to move or speak lest the peace, the outward semblance of unity, should be destroyed. Thus they sat silent together, each apparently plunged in his own untroubled reflections, each in reality fighting back thought as an enemy who might overshadow their victory.
It was Arnim who at last spoke. He drew two letters from his pocket and gave them to her.
"The postman met me on the stairs," he said. "One is a disappointment and the other the fulfilment of a wish. Which will you have first?"
"The disappointment," she said, turning over the letters anxiously. "I always keep the bonne bouche for the last. But it has grown so dark that I cannot see. You must tell me what is in both."
"The one is from Aunt Magda," he answered. "It seems that the doctor has ordered Hildegarde a longer trial of the baths at Baden-Baden, so that their coming will be postponed a week or two at least. I am very sorry. I had looked forward to the time when you would have them—to help you."
It was the one faint intimation that he knew that she still needed help and that all had not gone well in the short period of their married life. Nora's face fell. Her very real disappointment proved to her how much she had longed for the two women who had always been her friends, even in the darkest hours. She loved them as mother and sister. She had never felt for them the antipathy, the enmity which had grown up between her and the Selenecks, and, in lesser degrees, between her and all the other women of her husband's circle, and she had longed for them as for a refuge from her increasing isolation. And now they were not coming—or, at least, not for some weeks. She was to be left alone among these strangers, these foreigners, with only Miles to support and uphold her. Only Miles? She remembered her husband with a pang of the old remorse, and she bent and kissed him as though to atone for some unintentional wrong.
"I am sorry they are not coming," she said; "but perhaps the baths will do Hildegarde good, and as for me—why, have I not got my husband to turn to?"
Wolff laughed happily.