It never did; he became even more convinced of that when he remembered at breakfast the many post-mortem arrangements to be made in connection with the "Beggar's Opera." However, he spent an active afternoon in completing what he could of these and delegating the remainder to subordinates, with the calm explanation that he was called away on business, and started for southern climes the next morning.
As soon as he had telegraphed Trotty and was actually on his way he became inclined to fear he had not done the right thing. It was so confoundedly quiet down there; he would have nothing to do but think about her. He should have plunged himself into some all-absorbing activity; he should have traveled or taken a nine-till-five clerkship or gone to New York for a while. This suspicion continued through his journey and even survived, though in a mangled form, Trotty's enthusiastic welcome of him. But after he had passed a few days among those pine-clad solitudes he began to see that he had done the wisest possible thing. Trotty was required to be out-of-doors practically the whole time, and the two drove endless miles in a dogcart through the quickening oaks and pines, or lay on fragrant carpets of needles, content with mere sensuous enjoyment of the wind and sun, sky and landscape.
Somehow these things brought calm and conviction to the heart of Harry. They seemed to rest and purge his soul from the fatigues of the past months; the anxiety and effort of the autumn before, the pangs of composition that had marked the winter, the hurry and worry to which these had given place during the last few weeks, and to give coherence and sanctity to the tremendous discovery of that Friday night. He could not tell why it was that the sight of a flock of feathery clouds scurrying across a blue sky or the sound of warm wind among pine needles should work this change in him, but it was so. "You're quite right," they seemed to say; "perfectly right. The thing has come, and it's not distracting or disturbing or frightening, as you feared it might be; it's just simple and great and unspeakably sweet. And you were quite right to come to us to find out about it; you can learn among us a great deal better than in all that hectic scrambling up north. So lay aside every thought and worry and ambition and open your whole heart and soul to us while we tell you how to take this, the greatest thing that ever was, is, or shall be!"
Trotty was also a source of comfort to him; Trotty had lost nothing of his former singular faculty of always rubbing him the right way. Not that either of them made any open or covert allusion to Harry's state of mind, for they did not, but there was something particularly reassuring, something strangely in tune with the great natural forces about them in his silent presence. For they would drive or read or simply lie about together for hours without speaking, after the manner of certain types of people who become very intimate with each other.
Whether these silences were to Trotty merely the intimate silences of yore or whether they had taken on for him also something of the character that colored them for Harry is not particularly clear; it is probable that he guessed something, but no more. As much might be gathered, at least, from the one occasion upon which their conversation even touched on anything vital.
This occurred on the eve of Harry's departure. For of course he had to leave some time. The birds and trees and sky were all very well for a while, but after three weeks the thought forced itself into his mind that any more time spent among them would smack of laziness if not of cowardice.
"Trotty," said he, "I'm going north on the twelve-fifty to-morrow."
"Oh," replied Trotty. "Bad news?"
"No."
"In love?"