"Anything more, Gran?" asked Renny.
"No, darling."
"Quite comfy, Gran?" asked Alayne.
She did not answer, for she was again asleep.
Outside, they exchanged tender, whimsical smiles. They wished they did not have to return to the dining room. They loved each other all the more because of their pity for the old woman.
As Nicholas and Ernest separated for the night, Nicholas said in his growling undertone: "Did you notice anything about those two?"
Ernest had been blinking, but now he was alert at once.
"No, I didn't. And yet, now I come to think of it—What d'ye mean, Nick?"
"They're gone on each other. No doubt about that. I'll just go in with you a minute and tell you what I noticed."
The two stepped softly into Ernest's room, closing the door after them.
Renny, in his room, was sitting in a shabby leather armchair, with a freshly filled pipe in his hand. This particular pipe and this chair were sacred to his last smoke before going to bed. He did not light up now, however, but sat with the comfort of the smooth bowl in the curve of his hand, brooding with the bitterness of hopeless love on the soft desirability of the loved one. This girl. This wife of Eden's. The infernal cruelty of it! It was not as though he loved her only carnally, as he had other women. He loved her protectingly, tenderly. He wanted to keep her from hurt. His passion, which in other affairs had burst forth like a flamboyant red flower without foliage, now reared its head almost timidly through tender leaves of protectiveness and pure affection.
There she lay in the next room, alone. And not only
