“Well, then?”
“It’s a feeling—I don’t know. It’s something I want to keep to myself—part of me. You don’t understand.”
He shook his head, and, struck with the peculiar intensity of her eyes, revery mixed almost with a touch of fear, he said impulsively,
“Inga, I can’t make you out.”
“Don’t.”
This reply dissatisfied him. His eyes began to follow her more intently when they were alone, and several times unsuccessfully he returned to the attack.
During this time, the visitors, men of his own world, who flitted in for a brief duty-visit, began to fall away. He saw them go with a scorn and bitterness at first, and then with a sort of relief. Sassafras received orders to announce that he was out, except to two men, lawyers evidently, who came from time to time. Curiously enough, even after the wildest nights, he never showed any remorse. When Inga was there he often fell into profound fits of moroseness, in which he would sit with his fists clutched to his mouth, gnawing at his nails, staring at a medallion, a Della Robbia, or a Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, which he had brought forth out of the disorder.
She never relinquished her intention of getting him into an atmosphere of calm and order, and occasionally tried by devious ways to suggest the subject of unpacking. But the moment the man felt a compelling hand, some malicious and refractory devil seemed to rise up in him, and he would say:
“I know what you’re after. Well, I won’t do it.”
Then, one morning, to her surprise, he called her and said abruptly: