Of course mother and daughter were indignant. Their comments reached Madeline's ear. She took him to task.
“But why did you say it?” she demanded. “You know you don't mean it.”
“Yes, I do mean it. It IS rot. Lots of the stuff in that book of mine is rot. I did not think so once, but I do now. If I had the book to make over again, that sort wouldn't be included.”
She looked at him for a moment as if studying a problem.
“I don't understand you sometimes,” she said slowly. “You are different. And I think what you said to Mrs. Bacon and Marian was very rude.”
Later when he went to look for her he found her seated with Captain Blanchard in a corner. They were eating ices and, apparently, enjoying themselves. He did not disturb them. Instead he hunted up the offended Bacons and apologized for his outbreak. The apology, although graciously accepted, had rather wearisome consequences. Mrs. Bacon declared she knew that he had not really meant what he said.
“I realize how it must be,” she declared. “You people of temperament, of genius, of aspirations, are never quite satisfied, you cannot be. You are always trying, always seeking the higher attainment. Achievements of the past, though to the rest of us wonderful and sublime, are to you—as you say, 'rot.' That is it, is it not?” Albert said he guessed it was, and wandered away, seeking seclusion and solitude. When the affair broke up he found Madeline and Blanchard still enjoying each other's society. Both were surprised when told the hour.
CHAPTER XVII
So the first three weeks of his proposed month's visit passed and the fourth began. And more and more his feelings of dissatisfaction and uneasiness increased. The reasons for those feelings he found hard to define. The Fosdicks were most certainly doing their best to make him comfortable and happy. They were kind—yes, more than kind. Mr. Fosdick he really began to like. Mrs. Fosdick's manner had a trace of condescension in it, but as the lady treated all creation with much the same measure of condescension, he was more amused than resentful. And Madeline—Madeline was sweet and charming and beautiful. There was in her manner toward him, or so he fancied, a slight change, perhaps a change a trifle more marked since the evening when his expressed opinion of “The Greater Love” had offended her and the Bacons. It seemed to him that she was more impatient, more capricious, sometimes almost overwhelming him with attention and tenderness and then appearing to forget him entirely and to be quite indifferent to his thoughts and opinions. Her moods varied greatly and there were occasions when he found it almost impossible to please her. At these times she took offense when no offense was intended and he found himself apologizing when, to say the least, the fault, if there was any, was not more than half his. But she always followed those moods with others of contrition and penitence and then he was petted and fondled and his forgiveness implored.