He stood up, and looked at her closely and rather anxiously. Then he put his arms round her.
"You're not well, sis—I've noticed it for a long time. I say—there's nothing the matter, is there? You'd tell us if there was, wouldn't you?"
"Of course ... there's nothing," she whispered, as his rough hand stroked her hair. He held her to him very tenderly, he was always gentler and less exacting with her than Nigel. Yet, somehow, when she was unhappy it was Nigel she wanted to cling to, whose strong arms she liked to feel round her, whose suffering face she wanted close to hers. She wanted Nigel now.
But Nigel had gone out.
He walked heavily, his arms folded over his chest, his head hanging.
So she was back—and she was grown up—and she would soon be married.
These three contingencies had never struck him before. She had gone so inevitably out of his life, that he had never troubled to consider her return to Shovelstrode. She had stood so inevitably for adolescence, unformed and free, that he had never thought of her growing up. And as for marriage, it had seemed a thing alien and incongruous, her girlhood had been virgin to his timidest desire.
But she was grown up. She was ready for marriage, and most likely would soon be married. He realised that to some other man would be given, probably readily enough, what he had not dared even think about. A shudder passed through him, but the next minute he flung up his head almost triumphantly. He had had from Tony what she would never give to another—he had had her free thoughtless comradeship, and she would never give it again. She was grown up now, and unconsciously she would realise her womanhood, put up little barriers, put on little airs. He—he alone—would have the memory of her heedless girlhood innocently displayed—he had what no other man had had, or could have ever.
Christmas came, a moist day, warm and rather hazy. Janey had decorated Sparrow Hall with holly and evergreens, and had even compounded an ominous-looking plum-pudding. She was desperately anxious that their first Christmas together for four years should be a success—she even ventured to hint the same to Nigel.
"Why," he drawled, "do we keep Christmas? Is it because Christ was born in a manger?"