CHAPTER XXX
REALITY
A few days after his conversation with his father, Ernie took a telegram up to the Third Floor in the afternoon, and was about to descend when he heard a bedroom bell ring violently for the maid on duty.
There was no maid visible.
He went along the corridor. At the end of it was a passage-landing with a window looking over the sea.
On the window-sill Ruth was sitting in the sun, perched as a woman riding, her work beside her.
She did not see him, and for a moment he watched her fascinated: the lines of her figure, almost majestic for so young a woman; the dignity of her face; the lovely curve of her neck and shoulders; the warmth of her colouring. Her thimbled finger flashed to and fro; and the sun caught her hair, simply massed beneath her cap, and revealing in its blackness just a note of tan.
Every now and then, as the sea thumped and hissed and poured on the fore-shore, she looked up.
There was for once a wonderful content upon her face, the look that Ernie had often sought and never found there before. The strain had vanished. This girl possessed her soul in love and peace for the moment at least.
Ernie was reluctant to disturb her, for she gave him the impression of one who prays.
"The bell's going, Ruth," he said at last gently.