Raine's first act on reaching his room was to summon a servant and send Katherine a glass of cherry-brandy, which he poured from a flask he had brought with him for mountaineering chances, together with a scribbled line: “Drink this, at once.”
Then he changed his dripping garments for comfortable flannels, and went in search of his father. But the old man, though he smiled at Raine's account of his adventure, was still depressed.
“It will be wretched without you,” he said. “Yet you must go away for a time. Make it as short as you can, Raine. I shall think in the meantime of a way out of the difficulty.”
“Couldn't you take Felicia somewhere?” suggested Raine. “To Lucerne. You might start a few days before my return. I must come back for a little while. Afterwards, I might join you, when you have parted from Felicia, and go back to Oxford with you.”
“I will see,” replied the old man a little wearily.
“Man is ever poor,” said his father. “He will never learn the lesson of life. Even with one foot in the grave he plants the other upon the ladder of illusion.”
Raine sat smoking his pipe for a long time before going to bed. The events of the day had crowded so fast upon one another, that he had scarcely had time to estimate their relative importance. His mind was not yet perfectly balanced. The first kiss of a new love disturbs fine equilibrium.
It was characteristic of him that he at once put aside all temptations to postpone his departure. He could not meet Katherine again, except as a declared lover. To parade such relations before Felicia's eyes, seemed to his simple experience in such things a cynical cruelty. Yet he devoutly hoped that fate would decide and the destinies decree that he should return as quickly as possible. There was a peculiar irritation in the position in which he found himself. The sense of it grew in intensity as things assumed juster proportions. After all, what had been said? He was going away with everything unasked, everything unspoken. A question, a glance, a kiss; sufficient for the glowing moment--but painfully inadequate for after-hours of longing. With almost grotesque irritation he broke into an exclamation of anger against the storm that had interrupted the outburst of his gathering passion. But for a saving sense of humour he would have felt humiliated by the remembrance of the sudden check. He could not help chafing under the feeling of incompleteness.