That must not happen again. At this moment he knew he had a firm grip on himself--but at this moment yesterday he had felt even more secure. There had been no past then. That seemed a big word to use for such recent events covering so few hours; and yet it was none too big. It covered nothing less than the revelation of a man to himself. If that process sometimes takes years, it is none the less significant if it takes place in a day.
He turned quickly--so quickly that she started in surprise.
She was in blue this morning, and wore at an angle a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with black and white. He thought her eyes looked a trifle tired. He would have said she had not slept well.
"I--I didn't know you were down," he faltered.
The interval of six hours upon which he had been depending vanished instantly. To-day was but the continuation of yesterday. As he moved toward the breakfast-room at her side, the outside world disappeared as by magic, leaving only her world--the world immediately about her, which she dominated. This room which she entered by his side was no longer merely the salle-à-manger of the Normandie. He was conscious of no portion of it other than that which included their table. All the sunshine in the world concentrated into the rays that fell about her.
He felt this, and yet at the same time he was aware of the absurdity of such exaggeration. It was the sort of thing that annoyed him when he saw it in others. All those newly married couples he used to meet on the German liners were afflicted in this same way. Each one of them acted as if the ship were their ship, the ocean their ocean, even the blue sky and the stars at night their sky and their stars. When he was in a good humor, he used to laugh at this; when in a bad humor, it disgusted him.
"Monte," she said, as soon as they were seated, "I was depending upon you this morning."
She studied him a second, and then tried to smile, adding quickly:--
"I don't like you to disappoint me like this."
She frowned, but it was at herself, not at him. It did not do much except make dimples between her brows.
"I lay awake a good deal last night--thinking," she answered.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "You ought n't to have done that!"