One more last scruple, easily disposed of. In all this there was no disloyalty to the woman he was going to make his wife. For the Sonnets belonged to the past in which she had no part, and to the future which concerned her even less.
The next day, then, at about five o'clock, the time at which Lucia had told him she would be free, he came to her, bringing his gift with him.
Lucia's face gladdened when she saw the manuscript in his hand; for though they had discussed very freely what he had done once, he had been rather sadly silent, she thought, as to what he was doing now. He had seemed to her anxious to avoid any question on the subject. She had wondered whether his genius had been much affected by his other work; and had been half afraid to ask lest she should learn that it was dead, destroyed by journalism. She had heard so much of the perils of that career, that she had begun to regret her part in helping him to it. So that her glance as it lighted on the gift was, he thought, propitious.
He drew up his chair near her (he had not to wait for any invitation to do that now), and she noticed the trembling of his hands as he spread the manuscript on his knees. He had always been nervous in approaching the subject of his poems, and she said to herself, "Has he not got over that?"
Apparently he had not got over it; for he sat there for several perceptible moments sunk in the low chair beside her, saying nothing, only curling and uncurling the sheets with the same nervous movement of his hand. She came to his help smiling.
"What is it? New poems?"
"No, I don't think I can call them new. I wrote them four or five years ago."
He saw that some of the gladness died out of her face, and he wondered why.
"Were you going to read them to me?"
"Good Heavens, no." He laughed the short laugh she had heard once or twice before that always sounded like a sob.