‘Come home, my dear, come home.’
It was compassion and exultation and doubt and certainty, all mixed in an inarticulate eloquence.
He lifted her and brushed her skirt.
There was nothing to do but accompany him down the hill.
He left her at her bedroom door. His mother, he said, would come and give her aspirin and put her to bed, and see that dinner was brought up to her. His mother was splendid about headaches. To-morrow there would be plenty of time to talk.
He had behaved perfectly.
She fell asleep that night in her white room with its cretonne wreaths of pink roses tied up with blue ribbon, and dreamed of Roddy. He sat on the hill, close to where the rabbit had been shot, and conversed in friendly fashion. He had come back from abroad, from some remote island. He took a puff at his pipe and said with apparent irrelevance: ‘Not wives, my dear girl—mistresses. It’s more convenient. When I return I intend to take Martin as my partner.’
‘Martin wouldn’t come. Not if it’s mistresses....’
‘Oh, dear me, yes. He’ll soon forget you over there. It’s a very voluptuous clime.’
She said very humbly: