V.

SENTIMENTAL EXCHANGE

If Lorry slept that night he was not aware of it.  The next morning, after he had breakfasted with his mother, he tried in vain to recall a minute of the time between midnight and eight a.m. in which he did not think of the young woman who had flown away with his tranquillity.  All night long he tossed and thought.  He counted ten thousand black sheep jumping over a pasture fence, but, after the task was done and the sheep had scattered, he was as far from sleep as ever.  Her face was everywhere.  Her voice filled his ear with music never-ceasing, but it was not the lulling music that invites drowsiness.  He heard the clock strike the hours from one to eight, when he arose, thoroughly disgusted with himself.  Everything seemed to taste bitter or to look blue.  That breakfast was a great strain on his natural politeness.  He worshipped his mother, but in several instances that morning he caught himself just in time to prevent the utterance of some sharp rejoinder to her pleasant, motherly queries.  Twice she was compelled to repeat questions, his mind being so far away that he heard nothing save words that another woman had uttered, say twenty-four hours before.  His eyes were red, and there was a heavy droop to the lids; his tones were drawling and his voice strangely without warmth; his face was white and tired.

“You are not well, Grenfall,” his mother said, peering anxiously into his eyes.  “The trip has done you up.  Now, you must take a good, long rest and recover from your vacation.”

He smiled grimly.

“A man never needs a rest so much as he does at the end of his vacation, eh, mother?  Well, work will be restful.  I shall go to the office this morning and do three days’ work before night.  That will prove to you that I am perfectly well.”

He made a pretence of reading the morning paper.  There was nothing to interest him on’ those cold, commonplace pages, not one thing—­but wait!  A thought struck him suddenly, and for ten minutes he searched the columns assiduously, even nervously.  Then he threw down the paper with a sigh of relief.

There was nothing to indicate that her train had been wrecked.  She had undoubtedly reached New York in safety.  He looked at his watch.  She was probably enjoying her breakfast at that very moment.  Perhaps she was thinking of him and—­perhaps not.  The memory of that last tender hand clasp and the soft glow in her eyes stood like a wall between the fear that she had forgotten and the certainty that she remembered.  Had not this memory kept him awake?  That and the final, mysterious emotion which had shown itself in her face as he had last looked upon it?  A thousand times had he pondered over that startled look and the signs of agitation.  Was it fear?  Was it dismay?  Was it renunciation?  Whatever it was, it sorely disturbed him; it had partly undone the charm of the moment before—­the charm that could not and would not be gainsaid.