“I feel that you and I—have to understand each other.”
She met his grave eyes for a moment. There was a wave of emotion within her. She could not speak. She reached out her hand to touch his, and for a moment their hands were together.
§ 13
Christina Alberta only got to her confession of faith in the studio after they had returned thither and relieved the Universal Aunt. Even then they didn’t settle down to the business all at once. Devizes walked about and looked for drawings by Harold; he deduced Harold from his drawings to a quite remarkable extent, Christina Alberta thought. He was curious about Fay. “What’s Mrs. Crumb like?” he asked. “Show me something of hers, something that seems to give her.”
It pleased Christina Alberta very much to think that he was shy with her. She felt that this was a recognition of her equality. He was respecting her and she was very eager that she should be respected by him.
He got to an anchorage at last in the gaily painted seat by the gas-fire; and Christina Alberta, after flitting about the room for a time, came and stood before it, shapely legs wide apart and hands behind her back in an attitude that would have shocked all her feminine ancestors for many generations. But it did not shock Devizes; he found her more and more interesting to watch, and he sat at his ease and regarded her with a lively admiration. Most of us get used to our daughters so gradually; they grow up and we carry the wonder of them as Milo carried his ox; it isn’t common for a man to get an unexpected daughter abruptly at the age of twenty-one.
She said she hadn’t much in the way of metaphysics; she was a Materialist.
“No prayers at mother’s knee? Religion of Mother and Daddy? School prayers and teaching? Church or chapel?”
“It all washed out and faded out, I think, as they laid it on.”
“No fear of hell? Most of my generation went through the fear of hell.”