"Oh, you couldn't have looked at me——"
"Couldn't I? I'd often thought 'There's a sweetheart, now, some day, for some man.' I remembered, in barracks. Then I thought 'She's grown-up now, that kid. Supposing there were a chance of that very girl, grown-up, looking at me?' So——"
He stopped, with a smile, as though I must understand everything now.
To me an odd thing had happened; just as on that day among the chickens on the hillside I was swept back for a moment to the Past. I felt memories flocking and twittering about me. I remembered him, the leggy dark Welsh lad ... Mr. Wynn, the pupil ... yes ... yes, this was his familiar voice; this was the look and the movement of him, it was all coming back to me ... and the time that he'd said "Good-bye" to me under the dripping veranda. One hand clutching his suit-case, the other grasping me suddenly by the hair, his boy's mouth had snatched a half-brotherly kiss; the first I'd known from one who was not a brother. And now, more than seven years later, he came close, put his hand on the nape of my neck, just under my twisted-up hair. It thrilled me to the heels with happiness.
"Wait. Wait," I whispered, pulling back. "I haven't heard everything yet."
"You have."
"You always did—did contradict me," I said, standing there under his hand. "And you only wrote to me because there was nobody else—not much of a compliment——"
"What? Well, no answer came, and I knew I'd been an ass. Then came the business about my uncle's property." He began talking very quickly. "That shoved things right to the back of my mind, Dear ... why d'you shiver? Are you cold?"
"No."
"No?" He put his other brown hand about my neck. "Shoved things out of my mind until I came right up against you, Joan. You!"