The path to the house was a real cottage-garden path, bordered thickly with old-fashioned flowers, flowers which must have grown undisturbed for many a long year, only thinned out, or added to, with the forethought born of love. Memories thronged North’s mind as he looked. He wondered what demon had induced him to come in, to accept tea. It was unlike him. But to his relief the new owner of Thorpe made no attempt at small talk. Indeed, she left his side, and gathered a bunch of the pinks, whose fragrance went up like evening incense to Heaven, leaving him to walk alone.
For Ruth Seer sensed the shadow of a great grief. It fell like a chill across the sunlight. A sense of pity filled her. Fearing the tongue of Miss McCox, which ceased not nor spared, she fetched the tea herself, out on to the red-bricked pathway, facing south, and proudly called the terrace.
Sarah and Selina had somehow crowded into the visitor’s chair and fought for the largest space.
“I won’t apologize,” said Ruth. “That means you are a real dog lover.”
He laughed. “My wife says because they cannot answer me! How did the little ladies take Larry’s intrusion?”
“They seemed to know he had the greater right.”
North dropped a light kiss on each black head.
“Bless you!” he said.
He drank his tea and fed the dogs shamelessly, for the most part in silence, and Ruth watched him in the comfortable certainty that he was quite oblivious of her scrutiny. He interested her, this man of a world-wide fame, not because of that fame, but because her instinct told her that between him and the late owner of Thorpe there had been a great love. When she no longer met the glance of the humorous, tired eyes, and the pleasant voice, talking lightly, was silent, she could see the weary soul of the man in his face. A tragic face, tragic because it was both powerful and hopeless. He turned to her presently and asked, “May I light a pipe, and have a mouch round?”
Ruth nodded. She felt a sense of comradeship already between them.