But she remained in the hall, having procured string from the hall-table drawer, and she busied herself in polishing doors and skirting-boards with such an air of having eternity at her disposal, that Andy, after two or three noiseless sorties upon the landing, was reduced to the necessity of facing her with the roses in his hand or going down the back stairs.
He gave his hair a final dose of brilliantine to subdue an objectionable curl on his forehead, and came down the front stairs, armed with a bunch of roses and an air of unapproachable dignity.
After all—so far as she knew—he might be going to take them to some invalid.
“How beautiful!” murmured Mrs. Jebb as he passed. “How it brings things back. I well remember Mr. Jebb presenting me with just such a bunch when he proposed; but his was surrounded with maiden-hair fern. It seems a pity, Mr. Deane, that you haven’t a little maiden-hair to put with them.”
Andy made no reply, and marched out of the front door.
But as he walked along the pleasant field-paths that lead to the Attertons’ house he began to lose his sense of irritation, and to wonder vaguely if Mr. Jebb could by any human possibility have felt for Mrs. Jebb anything at all like he was feeling then.
It seemed incredible.
And yet, Andy reflected, the longer you lived the more you found out that people did think and feel the most unsuspected things. For love and nature together were opening Andy’s eyes, and he began vaguely to see how very different people are from what you think. Perhaps Mr. Jebb had felt something the same, after all.
However, when he neared the small park which surrounded the Attertons’ house, he dismissed the idea as ridiculous.
He was quite sure no one at all had ever loved any girl in just the wonderful and particular way that he loved Elizabeth. He had invented it, and it would die with him.