Page:Encounters (Bowen).djvu/164

 "Martin, was that one going to have been called Martin too, Martin Ralph?"

"I don't know, it hadn't been decided."

"Didn't Anybody choose a name for him, although he didn't live? He was a real person."

"It had never been decided, Pussy. I'm going to get you a longer sofa, so that you can put your feet up. We can choose it when we choose the chintzes."

"Oh, you mustn't. This one is very comfortable; I never sit in it, but that's because I just don't take to it."

"I hate the look of it."

"Well, get rid of it," she said, smiling, "as neither of us wants a sofa. Did Anybody ever sit on that one?"

As far as he remembered, it was the only thing in the room that she had ever sat on. She had never looked comfortable on it. She had a way of sitting with her head at the darkest end and straining her eyes over her work, then blinking up at him when he spoke. Of course she ought to have worn glasses; he hated women in glasses, and she knew it, but her short-sightedness annoyed