"Oh, just down to the bank to cash a cheque. The Joint Stock branch in Wigmore Street. I took a bus up Regent Street and got off at the Circus——" and so on, and so on.
Nevertheless, he was reviving. The Old Man was being blown back into him just as surely as one prick of Helen Cather's determination had let it out. Where was he feeding his imagination? How had he got round his Helen's autocracy without her knowing it? Because she did not know. She was completely satisfied—she was even more than satisfied, she was—— I watched her. Something was happening to her, too. She was dressing differently. Her austerity was dropping from her. She did her hair in a new way, no longer pulling it back, harsh and austere, from her forehead, but letting it have freedom and colour. She had very pretty hair....
She was wearing bright colours and pretty hats....
What was happening?
The day came when the problem was solved. Bomb's old mother came up to town, a dear old lady of nearly eighty, who adored Bomb and thought him perfection. She came up for the wedding. She was to see Helen for the first time. It was agreed that the meeting should be at Hortons, a nice, central spot. We were gathered there waiting—old Mrs. Jones with her lace cap and bright pink cheeks, Peter, Bomb, and myself. Helen was late.
"You know, Benedick," said the old lady in a voice like a withering canary, "you've told me very little about Helen. I've no real idea of her at all."
A moment's pause, and Bomb had sprung to his feet. Peter and I, spiritually, so to speak, rushed towards one another. This was the old attitude. We had not seen Bomb stand like this, his legs spread apart, his chest out, his eyes flashing, for weeks. The old attitude, the old voice, the old Bomb.
"Helen, mother!" he cried, and he was off.
The picture that he drew! It was about as much like the real Helen Cather as the Venus de Milo is like Miss Mary Pickford in the pictures; but it was a glorious picture, the portrait of a goddess, a genius, a Sappho. The phrases tumbled from his lips in the good old way—it was all the old times come back again. And how his imagination worked! How magnificently he flung his colours about, with what abandon he splashed and sprawled! For a breathless ten minutes we listened.