Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/18

 he skimmed over the surface, sprang into space, twisted, turned, and pirouetted with the perfect balance of a gyroscope.

Felix did not indulge in fancy skating nor in fancy skating clothes. Sheilah swept him from head to foot with a swift glance as he stood before her. Poor Felix! The long overcoat he wore was like a truck-driver's, who must protect himself well below the knees. It was black and heavy, and from beneath it appeared an expanse of the baggy legs of long trousers, turned up above stout boots, with mountainous toe-caps and thick soles, onto which were clamped substantial hockey-skates. He wore a dark wool, long-visored cap—Sheilah thought it was the longest visor she had ever seen on any cap—pulled down over his head as far as it would go. There was something resembling the silhouette of a longbeaked crow about Felix, as he stood before her, his arms close to his sides, like folded wings, for he still kept his hands in the deep side pockets of his overcoat. He took them out finally. They were bare and white, in the growing dark. Like sudden unexpected slugs in dark brown loam, Sheilah thought.

'Come on,' he said, and he held the white hands out to her.

She put hers into them and, with arms crossed, in the old-fashioned position, they struck off.