“Some day—when?”
“Perhaps very soon.”
Bellairs wondered what she meant, and wondered, too, why he had a sudden sense of uneasiness.
It was a day or two after this conversation that a light cloud seemed to float across his lover's happiness with Betty. He could not tell the exact moment when it came, nor from what quarter it journeyed. But he felt the obscuring of the sun and the lessening of the lovely warmth of intimacy. He was chilled and alarmed, and at night, when he was alone with Betty in the stern of the Hatasoo bidding her good-bye, he could not refrain from saying:—
“Betty, is anything the matter?”
“The matter, Jack?”
“Yes. Are you quite happy to-day? Quite as happy as you were yesterday?”
“I suppose so—I believe so.”
But she did not speak with a perfect conviction, and Bellairs was more gravely troubled.
“I am certain something is wrong,” he persisted. “I have done something that has offended you, or said something stupid. What is it? Do tell me.”