“Tell me,” Dolly insisted. She was expecting that he would answer “You,” in which case she meant to snub him and give him up. But he remained silent.
“Why did you come back, when your sister hated it and you hated vexing her, as I know very well you did?”
“Because I couldn’t stand seeing a girl carry those heavy cans.”
Dolly had her answer now, and she knew it was the truth. Lal had coloured over his admission and cast down his eyes; he should have looked youthful and ingenuous, but he did not. A very expressive mouth had Lal; the underlip was remarkably firm, pure, decisive; tenacity and independence controlled its curves. One might expect to find originality in his theory of life, anachronisms in his creed, possibly asceticism, certainly unworldliness: in fact, all those queer ideas whose existence Angela unhappily suspected. So much may be read in a momentary twist of the lips. Chivalry here in the twentieth century! Bernard looked on woman as an inferior animal, Lucian as a comrade, Farquhar as slave or sultana by turns: Dolly’s observations and reflections were summed up in the involuntary remark:
“Mr. Laurenson, how very odd you are!”
XIII
THE FIRST DROPS OF THE THUNDER-SHOWER
“O Medjé, who with thy smiling
Hast enchained my heart, once free—”
Gounod, whose sweet and sensuous church music has something of the quality of good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke, has written some acceptable love-songs; such at least was Lucian’s opinion. Aided by the night’s stillness and the seductive influence of the stream which cradled their boat, Noel Farquhar’s fine dramatic voice rang up the valley to the hotel, half a mile away. The twangs and pangs of Lucian’s banjo did not travel so far. Farquhar had a powerful voice, thoroughly well trained; he did not tremble in sentimental passion and murder time in the name of liberty, nor yet did he alternately spue out his words and gobble them down. And he had fire; he could sing the very heart out of a song. His native taste in music he usually sacrificed to the general good; he would sing “The Lost Chord” and “The Holy City” and “Beauty’s Eyes,” and other favourites, to please young ladies such as Angela Laurenson and elderly gentlemen who like a little music after dinner. But Lucian laid a taboo on these; he offered Farquhar the choice between what he called gamey music (meaning the glorious modern discords which we all delight to honour in the abstract) and ditties of the Bank Holiday school, with a chorus in which he expressed his desire to join. Whereupon Farquhar hurriedly embarked upon “Medjé.”
It was a clear night of summer, still and starry. The stream’s dark glass was filmed with silver mist which wavered and rose and receded as if it were the visible vesture of the wind; the smooth hills, spreading dark wings over the valley, breathed peace. For sounds they had the tinkle of the orchard runnel and the deep breaths of cows wrenching the dewy grass; and for scents the night perfume of the water and of the woods, as well as the sweeter individual smells of flowers: flaxen meadow-sweet, wild mint blowing purple among the reeds, and clover in the meadow-grasses.