Then she turned away and did leave the room, this time taking Roy with her. Her joyous laughter and his wild, excited barking proclaimed through the length and breadth of Blore that he was enjoying the rare indulgence of a good romp on the back lawn. It was Roy's day.
And can a dog ever hope for a better day than that upon which his mistress becomes aware that she is also another's mistress: becomes aware that another is thinking of her and for her, nay, that she is the very center of that other's thoughts? What a charming, pleasantly bewildering discovery it is, this learning that for him when she is in the room it is full, and wanting her it is empty, be it never so crowded; that all beside, though they be witty or famous, or what they will, or can or would, are but lay figures, umbræ, shadow guests in his estimation. She learns with strange thrills, that in moments of meditation will flash to eye and cheek, that her slightest glance and every change of color, every tone and smile, are marked with jealous care; that pleasure which she does not share is tasteless, and a dinner of herbs, if she be but at a far corner, is a feast for princes. That is her dog's day, or it may be his dog's day. It is a pleasant discovery for a man, mutatis mutandis; but for a girl, a sweet, half fearful consciousness, the brightest part of love's young dream--even when the kindred soul is of another world, and an abyss, wide, impassable, unbridgeable lies between.
But these things come to sudden ends sometimes. Sprains, however severe, have an awkward knack of getting well. Swellings subside from inanition, and doctors insist for their credit's sake that the stick or ready arm be relinquished. Certainly a respite or a relapse--call it which you will--is not impossible with care, but it is brief. A singular shooting pain, not easily located with exactness, but somewhere in the neighborhood of the calf, has been found useful; and a strange rigidity of the tendon Achilles in certain positions may gain a day or two. But at last not even these will avail, and the doubly injured one must out and away from among the rose leaves. Twice Maitland fixed his departure for the following morning, and each time when pressed to stay gave way, after so feeble, so ludicrous a resistance, if it deserved the name, that Agnes scarcely concealed her grimace, and Joan looked another way. She did not add anything to the others' hospitable entreaties. If she guessed what made Maggie's good-night kiss so fervent and clinging, she made no sign and offered no opening.
In the garden next morning, Maitland taxed her with her neutrality. It was wonderful how his sense of humor had become developed at Blore.
"I thought that you did not need so much pressure as to necessitate more than four people's powers of persuasion being used," she answered, in the same playful spirit. "And besides, now you are well enough, must you not leave?"
"Indeed, Miss Joan?"
"And go back to your own way of life? It is a month since you saw the latest telegrams, and there is a French company at the Gaiety, I learn from the Standard. We have interests and duties, though you were so hard of belief about them, at Blore, but you have none."
"No interests?"
She shook her head. "No duties, at any rate."
"And so you think," he asked, his eyes fixed upon her changing features, "that I should go back to my old way of life--of a century ago?"