He was talking naturally now, smiling up at her as she stood above him. She found herself trembling, almost afraid to speak again lest her voice betray her. She had been more shaken than he by the encounter. She wondered at his ease.
She was to wonder more, as he walked home with her. The presence of the boys barred, of course, personalities. But Evans’ clear eyes met hers without a shadow of self-consciousness. He asked her about her journey, about Judy, about the babies, about Bob. The only subject on which he did not touch was her marriage with Frederick Towne.
And so it happened that, woman-like, as they walked alone at last after the boys had left them in the little pine grove back of the house, that Jane said, “Evans, you haven’t wished me happiness.”
“No,” he said, and his eyes met hers squarely. “I think you might spare me that, Jane.”
She flushed. “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
He laid his hand for a moment on her shoulder. “Don’t be sorry, little Jane. But we won’t talk about it. That’s the best way for both of us—not to talk.”
He stayed to dinner, stayed for an hour or two afterward—fitting himself in pleasantly to former niches. Jane could hardly credit the change in him. It was, she decided, not so much a resurrection of the body as of the spirit. His hair was gray, and now and then his eyes showed tired, his shoulders sagged. But there was no trace of the old timidity, the old withdrawals. He was interested, responsive, at times buoyant. The things she had loved in him years ago were again there. This man did not think dark thoughts!
When he went away, she and Baldy stood together on the terrace in the warm darkness and watched him.
“He still limps a little,” Jane said.
“Yes. Shall we go in now, Jane?”