she was not looking into any doubtful future. She was lost in a subjective sweetness, conscious only of the flute-like notes that floated out to her. She felt a jar when they stopped.
He came out through the study door looking for her. He leaned over the back of her chair, putting his face against her hair, and one hand under her chin.
“I’m not in much of a mood to sing, dear, I feel lazy.”
He moved round her chair and dropped into his hammock with the motions of a man who is tired.
One of the boys came into the den and lit two of the lamps, and by the streamer of light that fell across Dane’s face Valerie saw with a little pang that there were heavy circles under his eyes. She could never bear to think of anything but beauty on his face. She wondered at times how far she was hypnotized by it, how far she loved the man behind that face. Of course there were definite qualities there that she could name as lovable, his appealing affectionateness, his whimsical sense of humour, his softness, his uncanny understanding, his personal charm, but behind all these was that baffling man she did not know, the man she could not help. She had speculated a good deal about his duality, the spartan mind in the hedonist body, as she put it to herself, and she wondered if the fight was between those two, if it were as simple as that. She knew now there was a deadly battle going on behind those eyes, but she could not tell what the opponents were, what armour they wore, what gods they fought for. But she could see the smoke of it, like a person watching from a far-off hill.
As she looked at him she was afraid that the trip they had taken that summer, a wandering trip about the North, had not toned him up as she had hoped it might.
The warm weather lasted for two more days before it
