Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/193

 bitterness of disappointment in her own heart), had been perfectly seasoned for enjoyment. Similar points of view, dissimilar personal opinions.

Cicely sat a long while before her dressing-table that night after she had let down her hair. Roger used to say he loved her hair—lightly, of course, much in the same way he said he loved sunsets, spring, and chocolate-creams. But she had deceived herself into believing he had loved it as a man loves every pleasing detail in the woman he desires.

Sometimes he used to touch her hair, gently, just the surface of it, with the palms of his hands as if it was made of cloud, and once he had said, 'It is like a soft, dark summer night.'

How she had treasured that simile (he was so full of similes) and hugged it to her heart. Her hair had been the one thing about her that Roger had admired most, and it was the one thing that had changed most. Cicely's hair was no longer like a soft, dark summer night. It had become as white and brilliant as an Arctic noon. Oh, how she hated her white hair!

The first thing Cicely did the next morning, after she had drunk her black coffee and eaten her one piece of dry toast, was to reach under her pillow for Roger's letter and read it again. The letter had sent