While gazing at her in this cold disapproval, he noted with increased
annoyance that she then turned and looked long and wistfully toward the
forest path. It did not occur to him that she might be expecting or
wishing to see some one riding along the path. He was merely irritated
at what seemed to him an indication of unseemly restlessness and
empty-mindedness. To his mind the unusual and the unseemly were always
one and the same. And it was eminently unseemly in his eyes that the
woman who was to be his wife should wish to look away from the spot in
which he was sitting. And then, his displeasure turned to anger when
Ruth, after standing still and gazing up the forest path, till he felt
that he must go out to her and utter the reproof that was on his lips,
did not come back to her seat by his side, but began instead to play
with the swan.
He sat motionless and silent, calmly biding his time to express the
disapproval which such childish behavior made incumbent upon him. Cold,
hard anger like his can always wait; and waiting only makes it colder
and harder; there is never heat enough in it to melt its merciless ice.
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