They were still the guests of the evening while they sat grouped round the lamplit verandah supper-table that turned the dusk into night. But the end was coming. The voices in the lamplight were growing excited and forgetful. Indoors and separation were close at hand.
He was oblivious. Given up to his jesting ... she watched his jesting face, shiny now and a little loose, the pouching of his lips as he spoke, the animal glimmer of teeth below the scraggy moustache, repellent, yet part of the fascination of his smile, and perpetually redeemed by the charm of his talk, the intense charm of the glancing eyes, seeing and understanding, comforting even when they mistook, and yet all the time withheld, preoccupied behind their clean rings and filmy sightless grey—fixed always on the shifting changing mass of obstructive mannish knowledge, always on science, the only thing in the world that could get his full attention.... She felt her voice pour out suddenly, violently quenching a flicker of speech. He glanced, attentive, healing her despair with his quick interest. The women awoke from their conspiring trance, alert towards her, watching.
“Yes.” His voice followed hers without a break, cool, a comment on her violence. He turned, looking into the night. His shaggy intelligent gaze, the reflective slight lift of his eyebrows gave him the look of an old man lost. The rosy scene was chilled. Cold light and harsh black shadow, his averted form in profile, helpless, making empty the deeps of the thing that was called a summer night. Her desire beat no longer towards the open scene. She hated it. For its sake she had pulled him up, brought down this desolation.
“It’s a good night. It’s about the human optime in nights. We ought to sleep out.” He turned back to the table, gathering up expressions, radiating his amusement at the disarray caused by his absence.
“Let’s sleep out. Miriam will. Unless we lock her in.” He was on his feet, eagerly halted, gathering opinions. His eyes came to rest on Alma. “Let’s be dogs. Be driven, by Miriam, into fresh fields of experience.”
Would it happen? Would she agree? He was impatient, but deferring. Alma sat considering, in the attitude Mr. Stoner had called a pretty snap, her elbows meeting on the table, her chin on her slender hands; just its point, resting on the bridge they made laid flatly one upon the other. It was natural in her. But by now she knew that men admired natural poses. He was admiring, even through his impatience.
“I didn’t suggest it. I’ve never slept out in my life.”
“You suggested it, Miriam. My death, all our little deaths from exposure, will lie at your door.” The swift personal glance he dealt her from the midst of his watching swept round to Miss Prout and flashed into admiration as he turned, still sideways surveying her, to bend his voice on Alma.
“It’s quite manageable, eh, Susan?” Miriam followed his eyes. Miss Prout had risen and was standing away from the table posed like a Gainsborough; challenging head, skirts that draped and spread of themselves, gracefully, from the slenderness of her body. She was waiting, indifferent, interpreting the scene in her way, interpreting the other women for him, united with him in interpreting them....
Alma relaxed and looked up, holding the matter poised, deliberately locating the casting vote before breaking into enthusiasm. He paid tribute, coming round the table companionably to her side, but still looking from face to face, claiming audience.