“Hurry up,” he heard her calling. “The soup’s getting cold.”
“Coming,” he shouted back, and began to dry his large, blunt hands.
She seemed to have been improving lately. And to-night, to-night she had been a model of non-existence.
He came striding heavily into the dining-room. Rosie was sitting at the head of the table, ladling out the soup. With her left hand she held back the flowing pink sleeve of her kimono so that it should not trail in the plates or the tureen. Her bare arm showed white and pearly through the steam of lentils.
How pretty she was! He could not resist the temptation, but coming up behind her bent down and kissed her, rather clumsily, on the back of her neck.
Rosie drew away from him. “Really, Jim,” she said, disapprovingly. “At meal-times!” The fastidious lady had to draw the line at these ill-timed, tumbling familiarities.
“And what about work-times?” Shearwater asked laughing. “Still, you were wonderful this evening, Rosie, quite wonderful.” He sat down and began eating his soup. “Not a sound all the time I was reading; or, at any rate, only one sound, so far as I remember.”
The great lady said nothing, but only smiled—a little contemptuously and with a touch of pity. She pushed away the plate of soup unfinished and planted her elbows on the table. Slipping her hands under the sleeves of her kimono, she began, lightly, delicately, with the tips of her fingers, to caress her own arms.
How smooth they were, how soft and warm and how secret under the sleeves. And all her body was as smooth and warm, was as soft and secret, still more secret beneath the pink folds. Like a warm serpent hidden away, secretly, secretly.