His mother’s luggage on their little holiday jaunts had been so neat, so easily handled, fixed on in two minutes; but the tin trunk was a difficult, slippery shape, and anyhow an ignoble object. Every aspect of it annoyed him. It was like going about with a servant’s luggage, he thought, wrestling with the thing, which was too high and not long enough, and refused to fit in with his suitcase.
‘Off?’ inquired one of the loungers affably.
‘Looks like it,’ said Jocelyn, tugging at the cord.
What a question. Silly ass. ‘Do you mind standing a little further back?’ he said with icy anger. ‘You see, if you come so close I can’t get——’ he tugged—‘any——’ he tugged, setting his teeth—‘purchase——’
Nobody moved; neither the particular lounger he was speaking to, nor the others.
‘Upon my word, sir,’ said Jocelyn, jerking round furiously, ready to fight the lot of them.
But they were not attending to him. Their eyes were all fixed on the parlour window, to which Sally, so anxious not to keep Jocelyn waiting a minute when he called as to risk disobeying him, had stolen to see how near ready he was.
There she stood, almost full length, the blind, now that they were leaving, drawn up, and the sun shining straight on her. St. Mawes had not had such a chance before. Its other glimpses of her had been flashes. Nor had the place in all its history ever till now been visited by beauty. Pretty girls had passed through it and disappeared, or stayed in it and disappeared equally completely because of growing old, and there was a tradition that in the last century the doctor had had a wife who for a brief time was very pretty, and during that brief time caused considerable uproar; but no one living had seen her, it was all hearsay from the last generation. This at the window wasn’t hearsay. This was the thing itself, the rare, heavenly thing at its most exquisite moment. Naturally the loungers took no further heed of Jocelyn; naturally with one accord they lifted up their eyes, and greedily drank in.
Jocelyn gave the cord one final and very vicious tug, knotted it somehow, and ran indoors.
‘What on earth you must go and stand at the window for——’ he exclaimed, hurrying into the room and catching her by the arm. ‘I was going to fetch you in a minute. Come along, then—let’s start, let’s get out of this confounded place. Ready? Got everything? I don’t want any delays once we’re outside——’