"I
fancy Stafford is not at all up to the mark. I told him to take a day
off if he wanted it."
"Why, when did you see him?" his wife asked.
"This morning, of course, at parade. He struck me then as being rather
peculiar."
"Ill?" Lois exclaimed with some alarm. She put her racquet on the
table and came and slipped her hand through the Colonel's arm. "You
don't think he is ill?" she asked earnestly.
Colonel Carmichael shook his head.
"No," he said, "not exactly ill." He laid his hand gently upon hers,
so that she could not draw it back. "Let us go outside and see if he
is coming," he went on.
The old man--for sorrow and physical weakness had made him older than
his years--led the way on to the verandah, still holding Lois' hand in
his own. He could not have explained the indefinable force which drove
him out of his wife's presence. His ear shrank from her hard,
matter-of-fact voice and undisturbed optimism. She who had never had
any mood but the one energetic and untirable one, had no comprehension
for the changing shades of his temper--would, indeed, have rather
scorned the necessity of understanding them. She did not believe in
what she called "vapors," and when they ventured to cross her path she
swept them away again--or thought she did--with a none too sparing
brush.
Unfortunately, there are some characters who can not overcome
depression, be it reasonable or unreasonable, simply because someone
else happens to be cheerful.
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