He was concerned excitedly, doubtfully, and a little fearfully with very different things.
As she rode home Valerie’s mind was in a ferment. The thing that Bob had told her had shown her with the force of a revelation the tormenting division of her own interests.
For a month after she and Dane had come home he had been absorbed in the war, had written excellently about it, and had seemed so much better in health that her fears about him had subsided. Then for no reason that she could see he had slumped. He had kept on writing, but under stimulants again, she feared. Sometimes she had not seen him till night and then he was often listless.
But they were still in love with each other. It was still possible for him to surprise her, to move to her like a shining presence. She loved not a bit the less his looks, his grace, and the compelling music of his voice. She cared more than ever for his love-making. But he did not overwhelm her as he had done in the beginning. She was recovering dominant factors in her personality that he had submerged for a time. There was a large part of her that loved a fight, that loved riding head first at obstacles and sweeping over them, and the work on the News had taught her what she could do in that direction, that she could think and act quickly, revel in responsibility, and make people do their best for her. And she craved to use these gifts, to show what she could do now. But she wanted the big field, not the little one.
And though life at the old station had now its own tests for endurance they were not the ones she wanted.
Dane was still lying in his hammock when she took him the mail. As she sat down, Lee brought out the tea-tray. Dane put his correspondence aside, ready to be sociable.
“Don’t you want to read your letters?” she asked.
