I looked up with elevated eyebrows.
"And wherein do you imagine the gaiety of Paris consisted?" I asked.
"Oh, I've no doubt you found plenty of amusement there," he answered, with an indulgent smile.
"I assure you there was not one single hour of the whole time that was not spent in work or thought," I said, seriously.
He laughed.
"I am delighted to hear it, I'm sure, Victor," he said, with the air of a person who accepts the general truth of a statement with a large reservation of their own opinion on the details of it. However, I did not care. I had worked for my own sake; lived correctly for my own sake—and whether another knew it or not mattered to me not at all.
"No; on the contrary, I am very pleased to be back," I said. "I always look upon the place where you are as home."
A pleased expression came over his face as I spoke. We were sincerely attached to each other in spite of the jarring dissonance of character. Later that same morning when I was sitting beside Lucia as we drove to the Academy, I studied her closely in the sharp morning light, and I was alarmed at the pallor and exhaustion of her face. I am not an admirer of ill-health in any form. The hectic flush of phthisis, even, dear to the poets, has positively no charm for me; and Lucia's illness was not phthisis, and certainly did not enhance her looks.
"Who is your medical man, Lucia?" I asked.
"Why do you wish to know?"