IX
ANOTHER ROAD
It was a few days later that Muriel, the reconciled, decided that she wanted to leave Aiken.
"Don't you think," she asked, for she had come unconsciously often to use phrases characteristic of Jim, "that a change of scene would be good for us both?"
Stainton had not thought so. He had wandered so much in his life that, now wandering was no longer a necessity of life, he was tired of it. Besides, he was eminently satisfied with Aiken.
"I don't know," he said. "I think it's splendid here. Haven't we been—aren't you happy, dear?"
Muriel was looking out of the window of their hotel sitting-room.
"Of course I'm happy," she said in a low voice. "At least," she added, "I know I ought to be, and I know I never knew what happiness was till I had you. It was only that I thought it would be—perhaps it would be good for me—now—if we travelled."
Stainton cursed himself for a negligent brute.
"What a beast I am!" he said, his arm encircling her waist. "We shall go wherever you want, and we shall go to-morrow."