When he put her down and saw her face, something went crack. Good God! They were not, then, in that dream of his, married, hand in hand, with a baby boy growing in the sun!
He bolted like a mountain goat.
XXXIII
The sight of him after he had put her down, scared, with his hands out as though they had been burned, and the complete acknowledgment of the ineptitude of apology that he gave by bolting, made Beatrix laugh. It caught her sense of comedy and left a picture on her mind to which she would always be able to turn to dispel depression. All the same her heart was thumping and her cheeks were hot. She exulted in the fact, now proved beyond argument, that she drew him, that he was all alive to her attraction. She thrilled again as she thought of how he had kissed her foot and the way in which he had carried her across the beach.
She found herself trying to find the right word to describe his strength and cleanness and physical beauty, the odd boyishness of him, the passion that was without animalism,—and failed. She got as far as to wish that she had run her fingers through his hair as she felt a strong desire to do,—and then began to dress quickly, drawing back, with an odd touch of puritanism, from that kind of thought.
"I would like to come here every fine day," she said, looking about, pretending that it was the view that appealed to her, and the color and the gentle break of the sea. "And I'm as hungry as a hunter now," and she knew that she was hurrying to see him again.
When she was dressed and had packed the bathing things into the bag she stood still for a little while under the shadow of the rocks, with dry seaweed all round her in a vague pattern. Privately and in a sort of way in secret from herself, she tapped at her heart and went in, afraid to take more than one quick look around. It was all untidy and chaotic. Someone had stamped about in that hitherto perfectly neat and undisturbed place. It was unrecognizable.... She ran away from it. What did it mean? Why did she begin to feel that she was not the old Beatrix, not quite so high-chinned and self-composed, not quite with the same grip on the reins, softer, simpler, with a queer new feeling of homesickness for a home that she didn't know?
"Now, now, my good girl," she said, "string up, pull yourself together. No sloppiness, please." But she went eagerly back over the uneven rocks and something was making her heart more untidy than ever.
She found the food laid out on a flat place and Franklin in the launch doing something to the engine. She whistled and he looked up. "I'm awfully hungry," she said.
"Right. I'll come. This engine's a bit groggy somewhere. I thought so as we ran in. Careless blighter, Jones." He washed his hands in the sea and came up, putting on his coat. "I hate messing about with machinery. I know next to nothing about it and if I can't get it right at once I have an unholy desire to smash. I've no patience with things I don't understand."