Indeed,in those many months of absence,though quelling the intention to make her his wife,he had never forgotten that she was the type of woman adapted to his nature;and instead of trying to obliterate thoughts of her altogether,he had grown to regard them as an infirmity it was necessary to tolerate.
Knight returned to his hotel much earlier in the evening than he would have done in the ordinary course of things.He did not care to think whether this arose from a friendly wish to close the gap that had slowly been widening between himself and his earliest acquaintance,or from a hankering desire to hear the meaning of the dark oracles Stephen had hastily pronounced,betokening that he knew something more of Elfride than Knight had supposed.
He made a hasty dinner,inquired for Smith,and soon was ushered into the young mans presence,whom he found sitting in front of a comfortable fire,beside a table spread with a few scientific periodicals and art reviews.
I have come to you,after all,said Knight.My manner was odd this morning,and it seemed desirable to call;but that you had too much sense to notice,Stephen,I know.Put it down to my wanderings in France and Italy.
Dont say another word,but sit down.I am only too glad to see you again.
Stephen would hardly have cared to tell Knight just then that the minute before Knight was announced he had been reading over some old letters of Elfrides.They were not many;and until to-night had been sealed up,and stowed away in a corner of his leather trunk,with a few other mementoes and relics which had accompanied him in his travels.The familiar sights and sounds of London,the meeting with his friend,had with him also revived that sense of abiding continuity with regard to Elfride and love which his absence at the other side of the world had to some extent suspended,though never ruptured.He at first intended only to look over these letters on the outside;then he read one;then another;until the whole was thus re-used as a stimulus to sad memories.He folded them away again,placed them in his pocket,and instead of going on with an examination into the state of the artistic world,had remained musing on the strange circumstance that he had returned to find Knight not the husband of Elfride after all.