8
She opened the window upon Harriett and Gerald. Standing a little aloof from them was a man. As Harriett spoke to her Miriam met his strange eyes wide and dark, unseeing; no, glaring at things that did not interest him ... desperate, playing a part. His thin squarish frame hung loosely, whipped and beaten, within his dark clothes.
His eyes passed expressionlessly from her face to Harriett.
A great gust of laughter sounded from the open kitchen window away to the left, screened by a trellis over which the lavish trailings of a creeper made a bright green curtain. It was Bennett’s voice. He had just accomplished something or other.
“Ullo,” said Harriett. The strange man was holding his lower lip in with his teeth, as if in horror or pain.... They stood in a row on the gravel.
“Let me introduce Mr. Grove,” said Harriett, with a shy movement of her head and shoulders, keeping her hands clasped. Her face was all broken up. She could either laugh or cry. But there was something, a sort of light, chiselling it, holding everything back.
Miriam bowed. “What’s Bennett doing?” she said hurriedly.
“The last time I saw him he was standing on the kitchen table fighting with the gas bracket,” said Gerald.
The sallow man drew in his breath sharply and stood aside, staring down the garden. Miriam glanced at him, wondering. He was not criticising Gerald. It was something else.
“I say, Mirry, what did you do to old Tremayne this morning?” went on Gerald.