“But—” said Madeleine. And then very brightly, “let’s go and see!”
She was amazed. She couldn’t understand. She hid it under a light playfulness, that threatened to become distraught. Even when presently, after a very careful stalking of the dell under the guidance of Mrs. Geedge, with the others in support, she came in sight of him, she still found him incredible. There was her lover, her devoted lover, standing on the top bar of a fence, his legs wide apart and his body balanced with difficulty, and in his fingers poised high was a little scrap of paper. This was the man who should have been waiting in the hall with feverish anxiety. His fingers released the little model and down it went drifting....
He seemed to be thinking of nothing else in the world. She might never have been born!...
Some noise, some rustle, caught his ear. He turned his head quickly, guiltily, and saw her and her companions.
And then he crowned her astonishment. No lovelight leapt to his eyes; he uttered no cry of joy. Instead he clutched wildly at the air, shouted, “Oh damn!” and came down with a complicated inelegance on all fours upon the ground.
He was angry with her—angry; she could see that he was extremely angry.
§ 11
So it was that the incompatibilities of man and woman arose again in the just recovering love dream of Madeleine Philips. But now the discord was far more evident than it had been at the first breach.
Suddenly her dear lover, her flatterer, her worshipper, had become a strange averted man. He scrabbled up two of his paper scraps before he came towards her, still with no lovelight in his eyes. He kissed her hand as if it was a matter of course and said almost immediately: “I’ve been hoping for you all the endless morning. I’ve had to amuse myself as best I can.” His tone was resentful. He spoke as if he had a claim upon her—upon her attentions. As if it wasn’t entirely upon his side that obligations lay.
She resolved that shouldn’t deter her from being charming.