"No," he said; "I can't imagine you with a care in the world. I think
that's why you were so kind to me--you have nothing but happiness in
your own life, and so you could spare time to make my troubles turn
to happiness, too. But there's one little time in the twenty-four
hours when I'm not happy. It's now, when I have to say good night.
I feel dismal every time it comes--and then, when I've left the house,
there's a bad little blankness, a black void, as though I were
temporarily dead; and it lasts until I get it established in my mind
that I'm really beginning another day that's to end with YOU again.
Then I cheer up. But now's the bad time--and I must go through it,
and so--good night." And he added with a pungent vehemence of which
he was little aware, "I hate it!"
"Do you?" she said, rising to go to the door with him. But he stood
motionless, gazing at her wonderingly.
"Mary! Your eyes are so--" He stopped.
"Yes?" But she looked quickly away.
"I don't know," he said. "I thought just then--"
"What did you think?"
"I don't know--it seemed to me that there was something I ought to
understand--and didn't."
She laughed and met his wondering gaze again frankly.
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