And, now, what about Sylvia? Did she know that he had become free? How long had she known it? Had she just heard of it and returned forthwith? No; he dismissed that thought. But might she not have heard some time ago and simply allowed a decent interval to elapse in order to avoid giving the gossips grist for their mills? But he caught himself up sharply. What an ass he was to imagine, vaingloriously, that he had entered into her considerations at all. Presumably she had been governed by entirely different motives, something not even remotely connected with him. What grounds had he to imagine that his presence was of the slightest moment to her. Of course, it did seem as if she must have left Tokyo on account of the gossip connecting him with her; but, after all, that proved nothing, could certainly not by even the most fanciful contortion of imagination be construed into an indication of feeling related to affection. No, he was an ass.
The only thing he could do would be to sit tight and suffer matters to occur as they might. He was curious to meet her--he sternly insisted to himself that that was all--and yet he rather dreaded it, wondered what he should say, how he should act. He would leave it to her to take the lead. Women did these things better than men, had finer perceptions, possessed an instinctive sureness with which they could handle deftly such delicate situations.
So when he met her, he was not much surprised that the incident seemed almost commonplace. Luckily, there were others at the time whom she met also for the first time since her return. She treated him exactly like these, included him with those others with the usual drab, conventional commonplaces. It almost irritated him that the meeting had been so trivial. Was she then not interested? It piqued him. Well, why shouldn't he find out. He was free now, and if he did care for her--there was no denying that she interested him immensely, that she still had that old charm for him, yes, hang it, that he did care for, that he might easily come to love her. And why not? Came back to his mind the charm of the days when he and she had been close, when he had been afraid to dally with the thought of her in the place of Isabel. He need not fear that now. He had the right to. And if it had been pleasant then, why not now, why not allow himself the felicity of dreaming that dream. He warmed to the thought, a glow of sheer pleasure and happiness suffused him. Of course. He would be careful to be tactful. She was tremendously sensitive and he must take care not to spoil everything by being too precipitate, but he would watch his chance.