Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/196

186 After a pause he rejoined: "No, I'm not particularly tied down."

"And your book?"

"Oh, my book—" He stopped and considered. He had thrust The Pageant of Alexander into his handbag on the night of his Bight from Venice; but since then he had never looked at it. Too many memories and illusions were pressed between its pages; and he knew just at what page he had felt Ellie Vanderlyn bending over him from behind, caught a whiff of her scent, and heard her breathless "I had to thank you!"

"My book's hung up," he said impatiently, annoyed with Miss Hicks's lack of tact. There was a girl who never put out feelers.

"Yes; I thought it was," she went on quietly, and he gave her a startled glance. What the devil else did she think, he wondered? He had never supposed her capable of getting far enough out of her own thick carapace of self-sufficiency to penetrate into any one else's feelings.

"The truth is," he continued, embarrassed, "I suppose I dug away at it rather too continuously; that's probably why I felt the need of a change. You see I'm only a beginner."

She still continued her relentless questioning. "But later—you'll go on with it, of course?"

"Oh, I don't know." He paused, glanced down the glittering deck, and then out across the glittering water. "I've been dreaming dreams, you