第105章

So the first three weeks of his proposed month's visit passed and the fourth began.And more and more his feelings of dissatisfaction and uneasiness increased.The reasons for those feelings he found hard to define.The Fosdicks were most certainly doing their best to make him comfortable and happy.They were kind--yes, more than kind.Mr.Fosdick he really began to like.Mrs.Fosdick's manner had a trace of condescension in it, but as the lady treated all creation with much the same measure of condescension, he was more amused than resentful.And Madeline--Madeline was sweet and charming and beautiful.There was in her manner toward him, or so he fancied, a slight change, perhaps a change a trifle more marked since the evening when his expressed opinion of "The Greater Love"had offended her and the Bacons.It seemed to him that she was more impatient, more capricious, sometimes almost overwhelming him with attention and tenderness and then appearing to forget him entirely and to be quite indifferent to his thoughts and opinions.Her moods varied greatly and there were occasions when he found it almost impossible to please her.At these times she took offense when no offense was intended and he found himself apologizing when, to say the least, the fault, if there was any, was not more than half his.

But she always followed those moods with others of contrition and penitence and then he was petted and fondled and his forgiveness implored.

These slight changes in her he noticed, but they troubled him little, principally because he was coming to realize the great change in himself.More and more that change was forcing itself upon him.The stories and novels he had read during the first years of the war, the stories by English writers in which young men, frivolous and inconsequential, had enlisted and fought and emerged from the ordeal strong, purposeful and "made-over"--those stories recurred to him now.He had paid little attention to the "making-over" idea when he read those tales, but now he was forced to believe there might be something in it.Certainly something, the three years or the discipline and training and suffering, or all combined, had changed him.He was not as he used to be.

Things he liked very much he no longer liked at all.And where, oh where, was the serene self-satisfaction which once was his?

The change must be quite individual, he decided.All soldiers were not so affected.Take Blanchard, for instance.Blanchard had seen service, more and quite as hard fighting as he had seen, but Blanchard was, to all appearances, as light-hearted and serene and confident as ever.Blanchard was like Madeline; he was much the same now as he had been before the war.Blanchard could dance and talk small talk and laugh and enjoy himself.Well, so could he, on occasions, for that matter, if that had been all.But it was not all, or if it was why was he at other times so discontented and uncomfortable? What was the matter with him, anyway?

He drew more and more into his shell and became more quiet and less talkative.Madeline, in one of her moods, reproached him for it.

"I do wish you wouldn't be grumpy," she said.

They had been sitting in the library and he had lapsed into a fit of musing, answering her questions with absentminded monosyllables.

Now he looked up.

"Grumpy?" he repeated."Was I grumpy? I beg your pardon.""You should.You answered every word I spoke to you with a grunt or a growl.I might as well have been talking to a bear.""I'm awfully sorry, dear.I didn't feel grumpy.I was thinking, Isuppose."

"Thinking! You are always thinking.Why think, pray?...If Ipermitted myself to think, I should go insane.""Madeline, what do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing.I'm partially insane now, perhaps.Come, let's go to the piano.I feel like playing.You don't mind, do you?"That evening Mrs.Fosdick made a suggestion to her husband.

"Fletcher," she said, "I am inclined to think it is time you and Albert had a talk concerning the future.A business talk, I mean.

I am a little uneasy about him.From some things he has said to me recently I gather that he is planning to earn his living with his pen.""Well, how else did you expect him to earn it; as bookkeeper for the South Harniss lumber concern?""Don't be absurd.What I mean is that he is thinking of devoting himself to literature exclusively.Don't interrupt me, please.

That is very beautiful and very idealistic, and I honor him for it, but I cannot see Madeline as an attic poet's wife, can you?""I can't, and I told you so in the beginning.""No.Therefore I should take him to one side and tell him of the opening in your firm.With that as a means of keeping his feet on the ground his brain may soar as it likes, the higher the better."Mr.Fosdick, as usual, obeyed orders and that afternoon Albert and he had the "business talk." Conversation at dinner was somewhat strained.Mr.Fosdick was quietly observant and seemed rather amused about something.His wife was dignified and her manner toward her guest was inclined to be abrupt.Albert's appetite was poor.As for Madeline, she did not come down to dinner, having a headache.

She came down later, however.Albert, alone in the library, was sitting, a book upon his knees and his eyes fixed upon nothing in particular, when she came in.

"You are thinking again, I see," she said.

He had not heard her enter.Now he rose, the book falling to the floor.

"Why--why, yes," he stammered."How are you feeling? How is your head?""It is no worse.And no better.I have been thinking, too, which perhaps explains it.Sit down, Albert, please.I want to talk with you.That is what I have been thinking about, that you and Imust talk."

She seated herself upon the davenport and he pulled forward a chair and sat facing her.For a moment she was silent.When she did speak, however, her question was very much to the point.