"What do you say to going off somewhere--tomorrow if you like--travelling abroad?" he called out, as she approached him. The idea, only a moment old in his mind, had grown to great proportions. "How can we?" she asked, upon the briefest thought. "THEY are coming at the end of the week. This is Monday, and they arrive on the 12th--that's this Saturday.""So soon as that!" he exclaimed. "I thought it was later.
H-m! I don't know--I think perhaps I'll go up to London this evening. I'm by way of feeling restless all at once.
Will you come up with me?"
She shook her head. "I can't think of anything in London that would be tolerable."He gave a vague little laugh. "I shall probably hate it myself when I get there," he speculated. "There isn't anybody I want to see--there isn't anything I want to do.
I don' t know--perhaps it might liven me up."Her face took on a look of enquiring gravity. "Are you getting tired of it, then?" She put the question gently, almost cautiously.
He reflected a little. "Why--no," he answered, as if reasoning to himself. "Of course I'm not.
This is what I've always wanted. It's my idea of life to a 't.' Only--I suppose everything needs a break in it now and then--if only for the comfort of getting back into the old rut again.""The rut--yes," she commented, musingly. "Apparently there's always a rut."Thorpe gave her the mystified yet uncomplaining glance she knew so well in his eyes. For once, the impulse to throw hidden things up into his range of view prevailed with her.
"Do you know," she said, with a confused half-smile at the novelty of her mood for elucidation, "I fancied a rut was the one thing there could be no question about with you.
I had the notion that you were incapable of ruts--and conventional grooves. I thought you--as Carlyle puts it--Ithought you were a man who had swallowed all the formulas."Thorpe looked down at his stomach doubtfully. "I see what you mean," he said at last, but in a tone without any note of conviction.
"I doubt it," she told him, with light readiness--"for Idon't see myself what I mean. I forget indeed what it was I said. And so you think you'll go up to town tonight?"A sudden comprehension of what was slipping away from his grasp aroused him. "No--no," he urged her, "don't forget what it was you said! I wish you'd talk more with me about that. It was what I wanted to hear.
You never tell me what you're really thinking about."She received the reproach with a mildly incredulous smile in her eyes. "Yes--I know--who was it used to scold me about that? Oh"--she seemed suddenly reminded of something--"I was forgetting to mention it. I have a letter from Celia Madden. She is back in England;she is coming to us Saturday, too."
He put out his lips a trifle. "That's all right,"he objected, "but what has it got to do with what we were talking about?""Talking about?" she queried, with a momentarily blank countenance. "Oh, she used to bully me about my deceit, and treachery, and similar crimes. But I shall be immensely glad to see her. I always fight with her, but I think I like her better than any other woman alive.""I like her too," Thorpe was impelled to say, with a kind of solemnity. "She reminds me of some of the happiest hours in my life."His wife, after a brief glance into his face, laughed pleasantly, if with a trace of flippancy. "You say nice things,"she observed, slightly inclining her head. "But now that Celia is coming, it would be as well to have another man.
It's such dreadfully short notice, though."
