CHAPTER XXIX
NEW EXPERIENCE.
Soon Cosmo began to recover more rapidly--as well he might, he told
Joan, with such a heavenly servant to wait on him! The very next
day he was up almost the whole of it. But that very day was Joan
less with him than hitherto, and therefrom came not so often and
stayed a shorter time. She would bring him books and leave them,
saying he did not require a nurse any more now that he was able to
feed himself. And Cosmo, to his trouble, could not help thinking
sometimes that her manner towards him was also a little changed.
What could have come between them he asked himself twenty times a
day. Had he hurt her anyhow? Had he unconsciously put on the
schoolmaster with her? Had he presumed on her kindness? With such
questions he plagued himself, but found to them no answer. At times
he could even have imagined her a little cross with him, but that
never lasted. Yet still when they met, Joan seemed farther off than
when they parted the day before. It is true they almost always
seemed to get back to nearly the same place before they parted
again, and Cosmo tried to persuade himself that any change there
might be was only the result of growing familiarity; but not the
less did he find himself ever again mourning over something that
was gone--a delicate colour on the verge of the meeting sky and sea
of their two natures.
But how differently the hours went when she was with him, and when
he lay thinking whether she was coming! His heart swelled like a
rose-bud ready to burst into a flaming flower when she drew near,
and folded itself together when she went, as if to save up all its
perfume and strength for her return! Everything he read that
pleased him, must be shared with Joan--must serve as an atmosphere
of thought in which to draw nigh to each other.
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