He lingered about the garden quite a long time, until the lights had disappeared one by one and the house stood up black against the sky. Then, carrying his hat in his hand, as though the very place in which she had walked were hallowed, he went out of the garden and back to the captain.
He found that gentleman conning a newspaper in his little parlour with the aid of a reading glass. The captain scorned spectacles, although they were really necessary in his case; he considered them effeminate. A reading glass was a graceful compromise. He looked up as Comethup entered, and laid down the glass and carefully folded the paper. “Well, boy,” he said, “I suppose you found her?”
“Yes,” said Comethup, “I found her.”
Something in his tone, in the large-hearted joyousness of it, struck the captain; he got up and stood with one hand resting on the table, looking across the shaded lamp at Comethup, who towered hugely at the other side of the room. For a moment or two nothing was said; then the captain made the half-circuit of the table, and they looked into each other’s eyes and their hands met.
“You don’t mean——” began the captain.
Comethup nodded and beamed upon him. “Yes,” he replied, “she’s going to be my wife. I’ve loved her—oh, a long time—ever since I was a little chap. Isn’t it splendid?”
The captain gave Comethup’s hand a final grip and let it go. “She’s the best woman in the world,” he said with great emphasis, and went back to his chair.
In the few days that followed before Comethup returned to London the captain endeavoured to frame various excuses for keeping out of the young people’s way. To-day he would be too tired; on another occasion there would be letters to write, or something which needed immediate attention in the garden. But Comethup and the girl laughingly insisted on his accompanying them, declaring that they could not possibly expect to be thoroughly happy if they left him at home. So, with some misgivings, he continued to be their companion as of old.
’Linda proved on that nearer, more delightfully intimate acquaintanceship with her to be the strangest creature of moods and caprices that could well be imagined. There seemed always a passionate desire in her heart to be all, in tenderness and gentleness, that her lover could wish; to show him how deep and sincere her love and gratitude were. Yet, though she succeeded in part in that desire, there were hours when she showed him only petulance; when the beautiful face was turned to him almost with careless indifference to meet his caress; when the words he uttered seemed to fall on unheeding ears. Again and again he left her at night with the miserable feeling that he had failed in some way to please her; blaming himself always, in that he was a rough and uncouth fellow, and that her delicacy and sweetness were things he could not properly meet.
She was always filled with the deepest contrition afterward; was always a thousand times kinder and gentler to him than she had been before, so that the misery he had suffered was more than atoned for. On one memorable occasion, when nothing that he did or said seemed to please her all day, and when she had scarcely responded to his caress when they parted under the balcony, she came running after him while he was sadly walking down the avenue, and cried his name, caught his arm, and fell breathless upon his breast, weeping. He feared that something had occurred to startle her, and was beginning eagerly and anxiously to question her, when she stopped him and poured out all that was in her self-accusing heart.