Of course men’s lips are always saying that—but when two souls say it there is joy in heaven, because the day for which all creation strives is just so much the nearer.
CHAPTER XV
Andy was young and strong, so a good night’s rest and a little attention from the Millsby doctor soon put his arm sufficiently right to permit of his going about as usual. A few days later, therefore, he was quite able to escort his aunt and cousins to luncheon at the Stamfords’, whence they were to motor over to a garden-party at the Attertons’ in the afternoon.
But no one can be hurt in their vanity by a wound from which it will never recover sufficiently to grow strong again, without showing some signs of stress. And when to this is added a never-ceasing ache of suspense about the attitude of the Beloved, there is no doubt that the first chubby, careless look of youth is bound to vanish. The aunt and cousins found to their surprise that Andy was, after all, really grown up.
But enough boyishness remained to make him feel highly delighted, in spite of everything, at the prospect of showing the girls to his new friends, and his new friends to them. He was unfeignedly proud, too, of Mrs. Dixon and her smart appearance; even, vaguely, of the blue powder, which had seemed to him from earliest youth a sort of symbol of discreet dashingness.
“My aunt and cousins—Mrs. Stamford,” he said, with such a pleasant triumph in presenting people sure to accord to each other, that only a heart of stone could have failed to respond.
Mrs. Stamford, however, possessed that heart, socially; but she was so anxious to be agreeable to Andy’s relatives that she said with cordiality—
“I am so glad you were able to come.”
All the same, the stockings of the young ladies had a horrible fascination for her: she had never before realised that stockings could, as it were, so fill the horizon.