But still he hung back. “There’s lots of room.”
“I know. Like a sensible man you’re getting your outfit in London. Bring it along. Or shall I lend you a hand?”
“No! No!” He hurriedly shouldered the huge box and Jinny heard its contents shifting like a withered kernel in a nutshell. It was the same American trunk with the overarching lid, and as he swaggered up the garden with it, it seemed to her as if time had rolled back to last Spring. But what comedies and tragedies had intervened between the two box-carryings, all sprung from the same obstinacy! And yet, she felt, she did not love him the less for his manly assertiveness: how sweet would be the surrender when their sparring was over and her will could be legitimately embraced in his, held like herself in those masterful, muscular arms.
Her mind was really in her Australian hut as he dumped the box at her feet. No, it would hardly do for a table, she thought, with that lid-curvature. Then she braced herself for a tricky tussle.
“Well, where’s the goods?” he said lightly.
“Don’t be so unbelieving—they’re in that spruce-hutch. Four months, you know, you’ve got to provide against.”
“I know,” he said glumly, unlocking his trunk and throwing up the lid violently. He would have liked to smash the springs. But the lid, lined with cheap striped cloth, stood up stiffly, refusing to give him a pretext for postponing his journey.
Jinny from her doorway gazed at the jumble in the great void.
“Shove it forward a bit,” she said carelessly, moving backwards within.
“What for?”