“Let’s have lunch together early next week.”
“I will if I can, but I’m infernally busy just now. Get a vacation soon though, thank goodness.”
The door closed behind him, and as if the impulse were mutual, they found themselves shaking hands again.
“Colin, what a long time you’ve been away. Don’t dare to tell me you’ve any plans for going away again, because I shall really hit you on the head with the brassie and incapacitate you.”
It was a woman who teased him now, not the fresh, eager-eyed girl he had left. But from most men’s point of view she had gained more, much more than she had lost. She had acquired a nice, physical balance, that had been wanting before. She had the charm of early maturity. She was a woman who knew her power over men, and knew just what that power meant. She was on the surface even more frankly gay and charming, but it hid certain reserves. She would pretend to be more confidential and open, but would be less so. She would never shut a door with a bang in anybody’s face, but it would be shut quietly all the same. In the few minutes that he had been with her, Colin realized all this and, mingled with his admiration for her development—for he found her far handsomer than she had been—there was a touch of regret for the girl who had talked about anything and everything, and as frankly answered questions as she asked them. She was Gilbert’s wife, a woman of the world, and—a great deal more.
“Taking stock of me?” she laughed, meeting his eyes. “But I don’t think Topsy had growed much this time.”
“On the contrary, I think she has grown a good deal,” he said quietly. “You haven’t grown into a giraffe or a fat Boy Joey, but all the same you have grown.”
She rested her head on her hand, her elbow propped on the arm of the couch, and looked speculatively at him. He reminded her of those days before her marriage, when she had spelt marriage with a capital letter. And—yes—she did look back at herself from one side of a huge gulf. Was that gulf growth? She realized more what life meant, and might mean. She had touched hard facts, unalterable laws of nature, great moments, petty awakenings ... was all that growth?
“Perhaps you are right,” she said slowly.
“I am sure I am right. You have shot up at an alarming rate. You think before you speak now, a most potent symptom! In the old days you would have blurted out ‘I haven’t grown,’ with great suddenness and force, and I should have been laid low by your vehemence.”