Snapped at her. Snapped at his angel, his child of light, his being from another sphere, who ought, he had told her, making her fidget a good deal, for whatever did he mean? sit for ever on a sapphire throne, and be crowned by stars, and addressed only in the language of Beethoven’s symphonies. But then there were these confounded people suddenly sprung from nowhere, and it was enough to make any man snap, the way they looked at Sally. Where did they come from? Where were they going? What did they want?
Jocelyn seized her, and hurried her up the side path that led over the hill to the quiet country at the back. He was excessively put out. The swine—the idle, ogling swine, he thought, rushing her up the steep path at such a rate that the willing Sally, obediently putting her best leg foremost, nevertheless, light and active as she was, arrived at the top so breathless that she couldn’t speak.
Not that she wanted to speak. Never much of a hand at what her girl friends, when she still had them, used to call back-chat, the brief period of her honeymoon had taught her how safe and snug silence was compared to the draughty dangers of speech. Marriage, she already felt, groping dimly about in it, wasn’t at all like anything one was used to. It seemed swampy underfoot. You started walking along it, and it looked all right, when in you went. Husbands—difficult to know where one was with them, thought Sally. They changed about so. One moment on their knees as if one was a church, and the next rushing one off one’s feet up a hill such as one couldn’t have believed possible if one hadn’t seen it for oneself, and their face all angry. Angry? What for? wondered Sally, who was never angry.
‘It’s that hair of yours,’ said Jocelyn, got to the top, and standing still a moment, for he too was panting.
She looked at him uncomprehendingly, in a lovely surprise. He was frowning at the sea, and the bit of road along it visible at their feet, on which still crawled a few black specks.
‘’Ow?’ Sally was injudicious enough to ask; but after all it was only one word—she was careful to say only one word.
One was enough, though.
‘How, Sally—how, HOW. You really must learn to say how,’ said Jocelyn, exasperated.
‘I did say ’ow,’ explained Sally meekly.
‘Yes. You did. Exactly,’ said Jocelyn.