“Have you been ill, Mrs. Goddard?” he inquired in a voice full of interest. Her soft eyes glanced uneasily at him. He was now the only one of the party who was not in some degree acquainted with her troubles.
“Oh no!” she answered nervously. “Only a little headache. It always makes me quite wretched when I have it.”
“Yes. I often have headaches, too,” answered John. “The squire told me as we came down.”
“What did he tell you?” asked Mrs. Goddard so quickly as to startle her companion.
“Oh—only that you had not been very well. Where is it that you suffer?” he asked sympathetically. “I think it is worst when it seems to be in the very centre of one’s head, like a red-hot nail being driven in with a hammer—is that like what you feel?”
“I—yes, I daresay. I don’t quite know,” she answered, her eyes wandering uneasily about the room. “I suppose you have dreadful headaches over your work, do you not, Mr. Short?” she added quickly, feeling that she must say something.
“Oh, it is all over now,” said John rather proudly. But as he leaned back in his chair he said to himself that this meeting was not precisely what he had anticipated; the subject of headaches might have a fine interest in its way, but he had expected to have talked of more tender things. To his own great surprise he felt no desire to do so, however. He had not recovered from the shock of seeing that Mrs. Goddard had grown old.
“Yes,” said she, kindly. “How glad you must be! To have done so splendidly too—you must feel that you have realised a magnificent dream.”
“No,” said John. “I cannot say I do. I have done the thing I meant to do, or I have good reason to believe that I have; but I have not realised my dream. I shall never write any more odes, Mrs. Goddard.”