A Pen-and-Ink Effect
He was writing a letter, and, as his pen jerked over the paper, he smiled with a fatuous softness. She had betrayed herself so helplessly—had cared so much. And he? Well, yes, he had cared, too, a little; who could have been quite unresponsive to that impetuous inquiring tenderness, that ardent generous admiration? He remembered it all, with amused regretful vanity—the summer evenings by the window, the gay give-and-take of their talk, the graver moments when their eyes met, and hers spoke more eloquently than words. "Eager tell-tales of her mind"—how often he had quoted Matthew Arnold's line when he thought of her eyes! It might have been written for her; and when he had told her so, she had not been angry. Little goose! She ought to have been, of course—but he might say anything, he knew.
Well! they had been pretty days, those; "a fragrant memory"—(she had taught him some of her phrases)—and now they were over. Quite over! The involuntariness of his sigh pleased him, and the reluctance with which he took up his pen again seemed to complete the romance of the moment.
She knew already. That was certain; he had sent a telegram on his wedding-day, thinking it might not be quite so bad if she knew he had thought of her even then. And now he was writing.
