"Then you shall."
He went to one of the cabinets and got out the materials, and in a few
minutes they were bending busily over the broken plaque, as interested
and eager about it as if no subject of more vital importance had ever
distracted them. They were like two children together, often as
quarrelsome, always as inconsequent; happy hard at work, and equally
happy idling; apt to torment each other at times about trifles, but
always ready to forget and forgive, and with that habit in common of
forgetting everything utterly but the occupation of the moment.
They talked on now for a little longer, but not brilliantly. They were
both considered brilliant in conversation, but somehow on these
occasions neither of them shone. I suppose when two such bright and
shining lights come together they put each other out.
Then it was time for Ideala to go. A bitter wind met them in the face
on their way to the station, and before they had gone far Ideala
noticed that Lorrimer's mood had changed again. His face grew pale, his
step less elastic, his manner cold and formal. All the brightness, all
the sympathy, which made their intimacy seem the most natural, because
it was the pleasantest, thing in the world to Ideala, had gone; he was
like a man seized with a sudden fit of remorse, disgusted with himself,
and moved to repent.
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