His mother, said, smiling, that some day he would have to marry. She would like to know her grandchildren before she died. There was the long attic at the top of the house which they could have as a playroom.
“Sure there is no one?” she questioned him again, more urgently, more archly this time, and he denied it laughing, to reassure her; and suddenly the laughter which he had affected, became hearty, for he had thought of Isabel, Isabel whom he would never dream of marrying, and who would never dream of marrying him; Isabel, insolent, lackadaisical, exasperating, with the end of a cigarette—a fag, she called it—smouldering between her lips; Isabel with her hands stuck in the pockets of her velveteen jacket, and her short black hair; Isabel holding forth, perched on the corner of a table, contradicting him, getting angry, pushing him away when he tried to catch hold of her and kiss her—“Oh, you think the idea of marrying funny enough now,” said his mother sagely, hearing him laugh, “but you may be coming to me with a very different tale in a few months’ time.”
He was in a thoroughly good temper by now; he lounged deeper into his arm-chair and stirred the logs with his foot. “Good cigars these, mother,” he said, critically examining the one he took from between his teeth; “who advises you about cigars?”
“Mr. Thistlethwaite recommended those,” Mrs. Martin replied enchanted.
“Mr. Thistlethwaite? Who’s Mr. Thistlethwaite?” asked Henry.
She had an impulse to tell him, even now, the story of Mr. Thistlethwaite and the three hundred acres; to ask him whether he thought she had acted very unscrupulously; but a funny inexplicable pride held her back. She said quietly that Mr. Thistlethwaite was the local M.P. Henry, to her relief, betrayed no further interest. He continued to stir the fire absently with the toe of his shoe, and his mother, watching him, looked down a long vista of such evenings, when the lamplight would fall on to the bowl of flowers she placed so skilfully to receive it, and on the black satin head of Henry.
X
She opened her window before getting into bed, and looked out upon a clear night and the low-lying mists of autumn. It was very still; the church clock chimed, a dog barked in the distance, and the breathless silence spread once more like a lake round the ripple of those sounds. She looked towards that bit of England which was sufficient to her, milky and invisible; she thought of the ricks standing in the silent rickyard, and the sleeping beasts near by in the sheds; she, who had been brisk and practical for so many years, became a little dreamy. Then bestirring herself, she crossed the room to bed. All was in order: a glass of milk by the bed, a box of matches, a clean handkerchief, her big repeater watch. She wound it carefully, and put it away under the many pillows. She sank luxuriously into the pillows—that little pleasure which was every night renewed. She thought to herself that she was really almost too happy; such happiness was a pain; there was no means of expressing it; she could not shout and sing, so it had to be bottled up, and the compression was pain, exquisitely. For about five minutes, during which she lived, with a swimming head, through a lifetime of sensations, she lay awake; then amongst her pillows she fell asleep.
XI
Next morning she was awakened by some sound she could not at first define, but which she presently identified as the remote ringing of the telephone bell. She listened. The servants would answer it, of course, but she wondered who could be calling the house so early in the day. Feeling very wide awake she slipped into her dressing-gown and slippers and went to the top of the stairs to listen. She heard Henry’s voice, downstairs in the hall.