Once he tried to elicit
from her some indication of when she would marry him; but from this
decision she exhibited a covert and inexplicable shrinking. This he
might attribute, if he chose, to that innate and sound formalism which
would always lead her to observe the rules of the game; if from no
special respect for them as such, then out of deference to the
prejudices of others. Nevertheless, he experienced a gnawing
uncertainty, amounting to a half-confessed dread.
Yet, at the moment of parting, she came to his arms, clung to him, gave
him her lips passionately, longingly; bade him write, for his letters
would be all that there was to keep life radiant for her....
Through some perverse kink in his mental processes, he found it
difficult to write to Io, in the succeeding weeks and months, during
which she devotedly accompanied the failing Mrs. Eyre from rest cure to
sanitarium, about his work on The Patriot. That interplay of interest
between them in his editorial plans and purposes, which had so
stimulated and inspired him, was checked. The mutual current had ceased
to flash; at least, so he felt. Had the wretched affair of his forfeited
promise in the matter of the strike announcement destroyed one bond
between them? Even were this true, there were other bonds, of the spirit
and therefore irrefragable, to hold her to him; thus he comforted his
anxious hopes.
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