Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/184

 anything really outré, and for the moment the discovery of this love-affair affected him as though she had announced her intention of marrying Rupert, the coachman, whose last name was Higgins.

As he bade them all good night there was nothing in the easy friendliness of his manner to indicate the shock which the revelation had been to him. But he was anxious to be alone, to think it out, to readjust his plans if possible, and his point of view.

All night he lay awake on the hard cornhusk mattress in the one extra bed in the dobe of Riley, the freighter, trying to realize how life would seem if it no longer included Nan.

With a peculiar obstinacy, a characteristic tenacity of purpose for which Nan did not give him credit, he always had clung to the belief that in the end she would marry him—after she had had her "fling," as she called it—if he waited patiently for the time when she should learn her own mind and heart.

In spite of the attention Nan had received, there never had been any other man who had figured with sufficient prominence to seriously disturb him in this belief.