In default of nearer ties, he made himself at home in his aunt’s house, frequenting it as familiarly as he had done in the days before his marriage.  In his strong, almost passionate nature, there was one great weakness; the love and admiration of women was a necessity to him.  He could no more help trying to make women love him, than the kingfisher can help thrusting down his beak when the bright speckled sides of his prey flash through the water.  It was from neither cruelty nor vanity, for Thorne had less of both traits than usually falls to the lot of men; it was rather from the restlessness, the yearning of a strong nature for that which it needed, but had not yet attained; the experimental searching of a soul for its mate.  That sorrow might come to others in the search he scarcely heeded; was he to blame that fair promises would bud and lead him on, and fail of fruition?  To himself he seemed rather to be pitied; their loss was balanced by his own.  Thorne had never loved as he was capable of loving; as yet the ego was predominant.

As he entered the room, after an absence of weeks, with a smile and a pleasant word of greeting, the younger members of the circle fell upon him clamorously; full of themselves and their individual concerns.  Even Warner, in whose mind lurked a jealousy of his cousin’s influence, forgot it for the nonce, and was as eager to talk as the rest.  Nesbit found himself listening to a demand for advice, an appeal for sympathy, and a paean of gratulation, before he had made his salutations, or gotten himself into a chair.

“Hold on!” he cried, putting up his hand in protest.  “Don’t all talk at once.  I can’t follow.  What’s the matter, Norma?”

His eye turned to his favorite involuntarily, and an almost imperceptible brightening, a lifting of the clouds on that young lady’s horizon, began to take place.  She answered his look, and (assisted by the irrepressible Percival) unfolded to him the family plans.  Thorne, with good-humored enthusiasm, threw himself into the scheme, pronounced it delightful, and proceeded to indulge in all manner of cheerful prognostications.  Percival was enchanted, and, establishing himself close beside the arm of his cousin’s chair, commenced a series of vehement whispers, which lasted as long as the visit.  Norma’s brow cleared more and more, and when Thorne declared his intention of paying them a long visit during the hunting season, she allowed a smile to wreathe her full crimson lips, and snubbed poor little Blanche unmercifully for still daring to be lachrymose.

The talk grew momentarily merrier, and the mother listened, smiling; her eyes, with a tender glow in them, fixed on Warner’s face.  The sick boy was in raptures over the old house mossed over with history and tradition, which would be his future home.  Noting the eagerness of his interest, her heart gave a sudden bound, hope took her by the hand, and she dreamed dreams.  There might come a reaction and improvement.  At times the intuition of an invalid was the voice of nature, crying out for that which she needed.  Warner’s longing for this change might be the precursor of his cure.  Who could read the future?