“What are they?”
“Oh, I am not going to talk Shakespearian comedy to you,” he answered, laughing. “So you needn’t expect it.”
The jest put her into a mood of light frivolity. They discussed faces. Some were sermons, some were Hymns, Ancient and Modern, some were comic operas, some were post-office directories, whilst others were the collected works of minor poets. She wondered what her own was. Hugh suggested an ode. The comparison pleased her and she thanked him prettily. Really, she had been a most ugly child. Just as if she had been at a feast of features and stolen the scraps. The foolish chat took them to Sunnington. He walked with her as far as the gate of her house.
“When are you coming to dinner?”
“The day after to-morrow,” he said, after a moment’s reflection.
He shook hands with her and turned homeward with a buoyant step. He felt happy, exhilarated, a different man from the bereaved and depressed bridegroom who had set out in the morning. The day had opened with a wretched sense of loss; it closed with a glad consciousness of gain. He wondered at the change. The fact was that the small but varied incidents of the day, bringing him into close touch with the external world of work, action, thought and sympathy, had stimulated a somewhat flagging moral energy. He was conscious of this as he dwelt upon them. Yes, these were the things that made life worth the living. These together formed the heart of life. Without them he would perish of inanition. Love, even sweet, wedded love a fortnight old, was but the fringe, the grace, the colour, the what you will of adornment of life; but its heart—ah, no! He was honest and dishonest with himself at once. The conviction that he had spent his first day of absence from his wife, in whole-hearted enjoyment of the outer world, was too absolute for him to accept it otherwise than frankly. But deep down in his soul were warning glimmerings of a truth to which he defiantly blinded his eyes—glimmerings that duskly revealed a love that might be the heart of life, rich, throbbing, vitalising, such as his feelings for Minna were not.
He drew her letter from his pocket and read it through again. His heart smote him sorely for not feeling more miserable. Instinctively he conjured up the hours of sweet intoxication and caught at their lingering glamour.
“Poor little girl,” he said aloud, rising to his feet. “How wretched she must be at this moment.”
He sat down at his writing-table.
“Sweet little wife,” he began, “I would that you were with me now.” And, for the hour, he was quite sincere.