She could have screamed at him.
"We shall jog along here," she said.
He looked at her abstractedly. "Take the kids to Littlehampton in the summer; give yourselves a change. Your mother'll go with you, I daresay."
"How jolly!"
He took her seriously. He seemed so densely absorbed in what was coming to him that he only just heard her reply.
He said absently: "I hope it will be; look after yourselves."
She went back, in her busy mind, to the honeymoon adventure on which they had both embarked six and a quarter years ago. Then they had gone out hand-in-hand like children into a big dark and they had found light. Now they had dropped hands; and at the first chance he ran off alone, a boy once more, hungry for thrills. A strong yearning rose in her to run after him, catch his hand again, and set out with him. But there was much in the way; the butcher and baker, speaking through her mouth, had dulled his ears to her voice; he had forgotten how to hold hands; they were out of tune. Nature had sent them, all those years ago, converging together; and married life had sent them apart again.
Married life!
She traced the pattern of it, which she saw in her mind, upon the table with her needle tip—
