"Oh, I expect them in a week or two."
"So soon?"
"Adelaide is always in a hurry, and this was only to be quite a short trip."
"Once out there how can they come away so soon? I should want to stay for months. If I once began really to travel there would never be an end to it, unless I were not my own master."
"It's quite extraordinary how you master yourself," Mrs. Mansfield said. "You are a dragon to yourself, and what a fierce unyielding dragon! It's a fine thing to have such a strong will."
"Ah! But if I let it go!"
"Do you think you ever will?"
"Yes," he said with a sort of deep sadness. "On one side's the will. But on the other side there's an absurd impulsiveness. But don't let's talk any more of me. Do tell me some more about Algiers and your daughter."
When Heath left her that day Mrs. Mansfield said to herself, "If Charmian really does care for him he doesn't know it."
What were Heath's feelings toward Charmian she could not divine. She was unconscious of any desire to baffle her on Heath's part, and was inclined to think that he was so wrapped up in the rather solitary life he had planned out for himself, and in his art, was so detached from the normal preoccupations of strong and healthy young men, that Charmian meant very little, perhaps nothing at all, to him. She had noted, of course, the slightly self-conscious look which had come into Heath's face when she had mentioned Charmian, but she explained that to herself easily enough. Her mention of Charmian in the sun had recalled to him the persistence of Mrs. Shiffney, which he knew she was aware of. In such matters he was like a sensitive boy. He had the peculiar delicacies of the nervously constituted artist, which seem very ridiculous to the average man, but not to the discerning woman. Mrs. Mansfield felt almost sure that his self-consciousness arose not from memories of Charmian, but of Adelaide Shiffney. And she supposed that he was probably quite indifferent to Charmian. It was better so. Although she believed that it was wise for most men to marry, and not very late in life, she excepted Heath from her theory. She could not "see" him married. She could not pick out any girl or woman whom she knew, and say: "That would be the wife for him." Evidently he was one of the exceptional men for whom the normal conditions are not intended. She thought again of his music, and found a reason there. But then she remembered yellow-haired Fan. He was at home with a child, why not with a wife and child of his own? She put aside the problem, but did not resign the thought, "In any case Charmian would be the wrong woman for him to marry." And when she said that to herself she was thinking solely of the welfare of Heath. Because he was a man, and had been unreserved with her, Mrs. Mansfield instinctively desired to protect his life. She had the feeling, "I understand him better than others." In a chivalrous nature understanding breeds a strong sense of obligation. Mrs. Mansfield felt as if she had duties toward Heath. During the two weeks which elapsed before Charmian's return from Algiers she thought more about his future than about her child's. But she was a very feminine woman and, to her, a man's future always seemed to matter more than a woman's.