She told him then that Bennett was coming for her to the end of the street.
“And your belongings?” asked Francis.
“I was going to carry them.”
“Could you? I never thought they were so little. . . . Don’t brides usually have trousseaux?”
“I’m to have nothing that brides usually have. I don’t want anything.”
Francis filled the twelfth little pot, and very deliberately squeezed the mould down with his thumbs.
“I think,” he said, “I think that while you are talking to your mother I will walk along and see my—my son-in-law.”
“Yes. . . . Yes. Bennett will be glad to see you.”
“Will he?” said Francis dubiously.
They left the greenhouse. He watched Annette run upstairs, took his hat and stick and walked up the street. At the corner he saw a lean figure, standing under a lamp-post. It was Bennett. He was seized by a sudden fierce desire to hurt him and he gripped his stick more tightly and sawed with it up and down. He was walking rather faster than he knew and caught up with Bennett before the sudden mood had passed. His stick swung in the air, and Bennett was roused from his dreams of bliss by a sudden thwack across his loins. He was more startled than hurt, for he had not heard any approach.