alone, you see--so I decided to try getting there on snowshoes--just
think of having a house that's so quiet that there isn't even a _road_ to
it any more! It was quite a tramp, but I made it and went in, and, oh!
it's so _wonderful_--so exactly like what I hoped it was going to
be--that I hurried back to see if you wouldn't come and see it too, and
let me tell you everything I'm planning to do to it?"

She stopped, entirely out of breath. In a flash, Austin realized, first,
that she had been lonely and neglected in the midst of the good times
that all the others had been having; realized, too, that he had never
before seen her so full of vitality and enthusiasm; and then, that,
without being even conscious of it, she had come instinctively to him to
share her new-found joy, while he had almost forgotten her in his. He was
not sufficiently versed in the study of human nature to know that it has
always been thus with men and women, since Eve tried to share her apple
with Adam and only got blamed for her pains. Austin blamed himself,
bitterly and resentfully, and decided afresh that he was the most utterly
ungrateful and unworthy of men. His reflections made him slow in
answering.

"Don't you _want_ to come?"

"Of course I want to come! I was just thinking--wait a second, I'll get
my snowshoes."

"I'm going to tear down a partition," she went on excitedly as they
ploughed through the snow together, "and have one big living-room on the
left of the front door; on the right of it a big bedroom--I've always
_pined_ for a downstairs bedroom--I don't know why, but I never had one
till I came to your house--with a bathroom and dressing-room behind it;