wondered why Renny had not chosen to ride with her. She was relieved that the propinquity of a long drive had not to be endured, but she felt a quick disappointment, even resentment, that he had shunned her. His mixture of coldness and fire, of calculation and restrained impulse, had always disturbed her. To be near him was to experience alternate moods of exhilaration and depression. She was glad that she was not to be in the house with him. Fiddler's Hut was near enough.
As she settled herself in the familiar shabby car of the Whiteoaks beside Finch, beheld the remembered form of Wright, the stableman, driving, and dressed to the height of his power for the occasion, she wondered what had been the force which had impelled her to this strange return. Had it indeed been the shadow of her dead love for Eden—springing desire to cherish his life for the sake of his poetry? Or was it that, knowing Renny willed it so, she had no self-denying power to resist? Or was it simply and terribly that the old house—Jalna itself—had caught her in the coil of its spell, had stretched forth its arm to draw her back into its bosom?
Finch and she said little. An understanding that made words no obligation had been born between them. He too had his moving thoughts. He was passing through the town where his school was. What a great city it had seemed to him until he had seen New York! Now it looked as though it had had a blow on the head that had flattened it. Its streets looked incredibly narrow. The crowd, which had seemed to him once to surge, now merely loitered. They had different faces, too, less set, more good-humoured. And how jolly the policemen looked in their helmets!
When they had left the town and were flying along the country road, past fields of springing corn and gardens bright with tulips and heavy with the scent of lilacs, Finch's face was so happy that Alayne said, with a half-rueful smile: "Glad to be home after all, aren't you?"
He assented with a nod. He longed to tell her that part of his gladness was due to her presence, the miracle of her riding beside him in the spring, but could not.
