CHAPTER XLII

THE TWO PASSIONS

The foggy February night refreshed his head, and the business of fetching
the luggage from the hotel--a commission that necessitated the delivery
of his card and some very commanding language--kept his mind in order.
Subsequently he drove to his cousin Baskelett's Club, where he left a
short note to say the house was engaged for the night and perhaps a week
further. Concise, but sufficient: and he stated a hope to his cousin
that he would not be inconvenienced. This was courteous.

He had taken a bed at Renee's hotel, after wresting her boxes from the
vanquished hotel proprietor, and lay there, hearing the clear sound of
every little sentence of hers during the absence of Rosamund: her
'Adieu,' and the strange 'Do you think so?' and 'I know where I am; I
scarcely know more.' Her eyes and their darker lashes, and the fitful
little sensitive dimples of a smile without joy, came with her voice, but
hardened to an aspect unlike her. Not a word could he recover of what
she had spoken before Rosamund's intervention. He fancied she must have
related details of her journey. Especially there must have been mention,
he thought, of her drive to the station from Tourdestelle; and this
flashed on him the scene of his ride to the chateau, and the meeting her
on the road, and the white light on the branching river, and all that was
Renee in the spirit of the place she had abandoned for him, believing in
him. She had proved that she believed in him. What in the name of
sanity had been the meaning of his language? and what was it between
them that arrested him and caused him to mumble absurdly of 'doing best,'
when in fact he was her bondman, rejoiced to be so, by his pledged word?
and when she, for some reason that he was sure she had stated, though he