"No. You oughtn't to have come back from Agaye."
"I never do what I ought, Mary."
She remembered how beautiful and strong he used to be, when he danced and when he played tennis, and when he walked up and down the hills. His beauty and his strength had never moved her to anything but a happy, tranquil admiration. She remembered how she had seen Maurice Jourdain tired and old (at thirty-three), and how she had been afraid to look at him. She wondered, "Was that my fault, or his? If I'd cared should I have minded? If I cared for Mr. Sutcliffe I wouldn't mind his growing tired and old. The tireder and older he was the more I'd care."
Somehow you couldn't imagine Lindley Vickers growing old and tired.
She gave him back the books: Ribot's Heredity and Maudsley's Physiology and Pathology of Mind. He held them in his long, thin hands, reading the titles. His strange eyes looked at her over the tops of the bindings. He smiled.
"When did you order these, Mary?"
"In October."
"That's the sort of thing you do when I'm away, is it?"
"Yes—I'm afraid you won't care for them very much."
He still stood up, examining the books. He was dipping into Maudsley now and reading him.