I.
She waited.
Mamma and Mark had turned their backs to her as they clung together. But there was his sparrow-brown hair, clipped close into the nape of his red-brown neck. If only Mamma wouldn't cry like that—
"Mark—"
"Is that Minky?"
They held each other and let go in one tick of the clock, but she had stood a long time seeing his eyes arrested in their rush of recognition. Disappointed.
The square dinner-table stretched itself into an immense white space between her and Mark. It made itself small again for Mark and Mamma. Across the white space she heard him saying things: about Dan meeting him at Tilbury, and poor Victor coming to Liverpool Street, and Cox's. Last night he had stayed at Ilford, he had seen Bella and Edward and Pidgeon and Mrs. Fisher and the Proparts. "Do you remember poor Edward and his sheep? And Mary's lamb!"
Mark hadn't changed, except that he was firmer and squarer, and thinner, because he had had fever. And his eyes—He was staring at her with his disappointed eyes.
She called to him. "You don't know me a bit, Mark."
He laughed. "I thought I'd see somebody grown up. Victor said Mary was dreadfully mature. What did he mean?"