Judith put a hand lightly on hers as it lay on the grass. It quivered a moment, startled, then lay still, and Mariella turned her amazing eyes full on Judith. Sun and sky were mirrored in them so that they swam with more than their usual blind radiance, but the expression of her lips was tremulously pleased and grateful. Soon she sighed and said:
‘I s’pose he’d have adored Peter too. He and Julian were like that about children. I s’pose he’d have done everything for him. He was looking forward awfully.... It’s a pity really Peter’s not more like him—in looks I mean—not in——’ She checked herself.
Mariella was talking of Charlie: in a small, shy but unreluctant voice, she was talking of him: she was preparing to say the things which it had seemed never could be said. In another few moments it would be possible to say gently: ‘Mariella, why did you marry him?’
She leaned her cheek on her elbow and continued:
‘I don’t really understand children.’
‘But later on, Mariella, when he’s older you’ll be so happy with him,—doing things together. You’ll be such a marvellously young mother for him.’
‘Oh, later on!’ was all she said; and added: ‘I don’t believe boys care much anyway about their mothers being young.’
If Julian had heard her say that, so shrewdly, would he not have been disconcerted?
Judith turned to her, opened her mouth to speak.
But then, as on another occasion, Martin burst in upon the pregnant moment—coming round the corner with a loud ‘Hullo!’—fresh, pink and cheerful from his bathe; and Mariella rose from Judith’s side, her lips lifted lightly to smile him an agreeable welcome, her whole customary manner enfolding her in one instant.