They were old friends. The doctor's wife was one
of Jocelyn's closest friends on the Coast.
"Do you know anything about Meredith's future movements?" he asked.
"Does he intend to come out here again?"
"I could not tell you. I do not think they have settled yet. But I
think that when he gets home he will probably stay there."
"Best thing he can do--best thing he can do. It will never do for
him to risk getting another taste of malaria--tell him so, will you?
Good-bye."
"Yes, I will tell him."
And Jocelyn Gordon walked slowly back to tell the man she loved that
he must go away from her and never come back. The last few days had
been days of complete happiness. There is no doubt that women have
the power of enjoying the present to a greater degree than men.
They can live in the bliss of the present moment with eyes
continually averted from the curtain of the near future which falls
across that bliss and cuts it off. Men allow the presence of the
curtain to mar the present brightness.
These days had been happier for Jocelyn than for Jack, because she
was conscious of the fulness of every moment, while he was merely
rejoicing in comfort after hardship, in pleasant society after
loneliness. Even with the knowledge that it could not last, that
beyond the near future lay a whole lifetime of complete solitude and
that greatest of all miseries, the desire of an obvious
impossibility--even with this she was happier than he; because she
loved him and she saw him daily getting stronger; because their
relative positions brought out the best and the least romantic part
of a woman's love--the subtle maternity of it.
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