"Shall you mind if I go off this afternoon for golf?" he asked, as they went from the dining-room.
Isabel's face expressed satisfaction. Her husband had hardly left her side since their arrival. She believed in casual separation. She knew instinctively that Philip must feel renewed interest in his own sex, to be quite the man he had been before his trouble of months back.
"Go, by all means," she encouraged, as they went from the elevator to their rooms. "Golf must be your game; it will do you a world of good to follow the links."
"And you won't miss me?"
"Not a bit," she answered. "Besides, I want to expect you back. I wish to feel the pang of parting, so that I may know how very, very lonely I used to be." She spoke lightly, but he knew that in reality she did not jest. "And the man—your opponent in golf?" she asked.
Philip stooped and kissed her. "How do you know that I am not going to tread the turf with a fair lady?" he teased.
"I should be awfully jealous," she confessed. He knew that she spoke the truth. It came over him at the time that men were few who might claim such love as Isabel's. In her starry eyes he read salvation, felt the depth of her womanly will. Inadequate power to repay his debt made him humble. He kissed her again, holding her close with adoring tenderness. Then he told her that he was about to play golf with the great publisher whom he had recently met. The triumph on her lips amused him.
"Build no air-castles!" he begged. But she freed herself from his arms and danced like a child.
"What a chance!" she cried. "You must make him your friend. I saw last evening that he was immensely interested in you, and now he may ask you to write for his magazine." Isabel's estimate of her husband's genius, of his ability to rush into print in one of the foremost monthly publications in the country, was fresh proof of her blind passion.
"Don't think such foolish things, dear little girl," Philip commanded. "The road to solicited manuscripts is a long way off—as yet. I shall have to get my stuff back many, many times before I can count on an indulgent editor." He spoke humbly, yet withal the eternal spark of hope had kindled for his literary career.