Maurice, gazing, saw only the musing thought.
"I can't blame him--really--either, Maurice. You and I know how Geoffrey loves me, but we can hardly expect papa to see that as an accepted fact nor to recognize the calibre of such a love."
It was his recognition of the calibre of Geoffrey's love that kept Maurice's faith high above even a self-dishonouring twinge of jealousy. Yet the sadness, as for might-have-beens in which he had no share, still was with him. The vision of that unseen kiss was with him too. He did not believe it true, though his love for Felicia almost claimed it true; it beautified her--that kiss of reverent pity and tenderness. The toad Angela flung became a flower on Felicia's breast; that he could smile at such a vision was his flower, too; but the vision was part of the sadness. He saw himself shut out from a strange, great realm--colourless, serene, like a country of glorious mountain peaks before the dawn, a realm that he, in some baffling way, seemed to have defrauded for ever of its sunrise. He put aside the oppression, saying, "You don't mind, so much then, his going?"
"I am sorry, of course. But he made things too difficult. It will be easier to get back to the old fondness if we are not too near. And he will enjoy, when things blow over, coming to us for short visits."
The prospective peace, he saw, left her, with a sort of lassitude, a little indifferent to her father's pathos. Before this placidity his sadness became a sudden throb of gloom.
Felicia was sitting on the window seat and had looked down into the street far below for his coming cab. She glanced up quickly at him as he stood beside her, seeing the shadow in his eyes.
"Dear goose!" She drew him down on the seat, her hand in his, "Mind your going? I hate it. But it's only for a fortnight--less, if you are lucky with your work."
"Only a fortnight!" Maurice repeated, half playfully, but half fretfully too. "You can say that! It's our first parting, Felicia. It seems to me an eternity before I shall see you again."
She still looked into his eyes, seeing, under the playfulness, the fretfulness, all that he had suffered during these last weeks of entanglement. Leaning her head on his shoulder, she said dreamily: "Don't go."