“Ut be a pleasure—”
John Gore and Barbara looked up at him smilingly, and their eyes seemed to drive the whole art of oratory out of Mr. Jennifer’s head. He took refuge in his mug, brandished it toward them, and set it down empty, with emphasis. Then he looked at his wife with an affectionate grin.
“I be powerful pleased, my dear. Seven years ago—”
“Eight,” interposed the wife, with a shocked glance at son William.
“Eight be ut, then—I dared ut like a man, and I’d dare ut again, please God.”
“Lor’, Christopher!”
“William, keep t’ gravy off thy breeches. Mr. Gore, sir, you’ll be for pardoning me, but t’ lady’s face be a good bargain. T’ Bible says something of vines and fig leaves and olive branches—I dunno as I quite knows what; but I wish ye all of ut, sir, you—and the lady.”
So Barbara lay in her lover’s arms that night, and they heard the birds break out with their songs at dawn.
XLIX
The sun was up, the birds making the air quiver, the life of the world awake with the faint fragrance of a spring morning. Barbara, lying upon her lover’s arm, looked with shadowy eyes at the casement that caught the light of the glowing east. And with the first coming of consciousness she had remembered the refugee at Thorn and the part that they had set themselves to play that day. The “self” in them was to be thrust aside on that first morning of their life together.