Mildred, relieved from the worst of fears, leaned from the window towards him. A slanting ray caught the floating cloud of her amber hair, her face glowed rosily, her eyes beamed on the new-comer, and she broke into such an enchanting ripple of laughter as he had never heard from those soft lips since it had been his privilege to kiss them. Then something happened within him. Upon his lonely walk he had been overcome by a depression against which he had every day been struggling. He had been disappointed in his marriage, now some weeks old—disappointed, that is, with himself, because of his own incapacity for rapturous happiness. Yet a year ago on the ice at Oxford, six months ago in the falling summer twilight on the river, under Wytham Woods, he had thought himself as capable as any man of feeling the joys and pains of love. In the sequel it had seemed that he was not; and just as he had lost all hope of finding once again that buried treasure of his heart, it had returned to him in one delightful moment, when he stood as it were on the top of the world in the crisp, joyous Alpine air, and his eyes met the eyes of his young wife, who leaned towards him into the sunshine and laughed. He could not possibly have told how long the golden vision endured; only that suddenly, precipitately, it withdrew. A "spirit in his feet" sent him bounding up the bare, shallow hotel stairs, two steps at a time, dropping on every step a cake of snow from his boots, to melt and make pools on the polished wood. The manager, who respected none of his guests except those who bullied him, called out a reprimand, but received no apology.
Stewart strode with echoing tread down the corridor towards No. 19, eager to hold that slender, girlish wife of his in his arms and to press kisses on the lips that had laughed at him so sweetly from above. The walls of the hotel were thin, and as he approached the door he heard a quick, soft scurry across the room on the other side, and in his swift thought saw Milly flying to meet him, just relieved from one absurd anxiety about his safety and indulging another on the subject of his wet feet. A smile of tender amusement visited his lips as he took hold of the door-handle. Exactly as he touched it, the key on the other side turned. The lock had been stiff, but it had shot out in the nick of time, and he found himself brought up short in his impulsive career and hurtling against a solid barrier. He knocked, but no one answered. He could have fancied he heard panting breaths on the other side of the ill-fitting door.
"Mayn't I come in, darling?" he asked, gently, but with a shade of reproach in his voice.
"No, you can't," returned Milly's voice; hers, but with an accent of coldness and decision in it which struck strangely on his ear. He paused, bewildered. Then he remembered how often he had read that women were capricious, unaccountable creatures. Milly had made him forget that. Her attitude towards him had been one of unvarying gentleness and devotion. Vaguely he felt that there was a kind of feminine charm in this sudden burst of coldness, almost indifference.
"Is anything the matter, dear?" he asked. "Aren't you well?"
"Quite well, thank you," came the curt voice through the door. Then after a minute's hesitation: "What do you want?"
Ian smiled to himself as he answered:
"My feet are wet. I want to change."
He was a delicate man, and if he had a foible which Milly could be said to execrate, it was that of "sitting in wet feet." He expected the door to fly open; but it did nothing of the kind. There was not a trace of anxiety in the grudging voice which replied, after a pause:
"I suppose you want dry shoes and stockings. I'll give them to you if you'll wait."