"I'm not tired. I come down here every day and watch life go past."
"Sigrid——" He faltered. "Does that mean that you are very lonely?"
"No—not very. My husband is always away now. Mrs. Boucicault and Mary come sometimes—and even Mrs. Bosanquet. I think they all love me, but they can't alter circumstances, and it makes them desperately unhappy. Often I wish they wouldn't come——" She waited a moment, studying his set features with a pitying knowledge. "I know what you're thinking, Major Tristram. You're comparing this life with the golden palaces and the mountain-tops, with my splendid living and splendid dying."
She burst out laughing and patted him on the arm. "Oh, my innocent friend, don't you know us mortals better than that—don't you know how we love to air our borrowed souls and talk largely and pompously about the ideals we've cribbed out of a novel? There is nothing in it—nothing. I just sold myself for an easy life in a mud hut in the valley. Let that comfort you."
He threw back his head, looking her full in the face.
"That's a lie," he said. "You must have loved greatly."
For a full minute they remained staring at each other in defiant silence. And under his unhappy eyes her expression changed and grew careless and indifferent.
"Well—perhaps you're right, perhaps I did love with all my heart." She held out her hand. "But I am very, very tired now. The heat is appalling. I wish you God speed, Major Tristram."
He scarcely touched her. He swung himself up into the saddle with a suddenness which startled Arabella into a youthful curvet. The tabbies mewed protest, and Tristram laid his hand soothingly on their basket. Then he looked down and saw Sigrid standing at his knee. The change in her held him motionless for all that every nerve in him ached for motion and action. Her small, pale face lifted itself to his in breathless eagerness; her parted lips quivered, the eyes were fiery with the glitter of sternly mastered tears.
"Tristram—tell me—are all the old dreams gone?" she asked huskily.