Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/304



For one instant Mrs. Dud lost her poise; in her eyes he almost saw more than she meant; the sheer, flat blow of it levelled her for a breath to the plane of other and ordinary women. But even as he thought it, it was gone. She put out her hand; she smiled; she shook her finger at him.

“I think, my friend, she would be a fool not to marry you,” she answered him, clear-eyed; “and there was never,” her tone was too sweet, he thought, to carry but one meaning—pleasure for him, “there was never anybody else!”

Varian walked straight to the garden. She was training a fiery wall of nasturtiums with firm white fingers. It occurred to him that he was ready to give up the tally-ho, and the Berkshires, and the scramble of pretty girls for the place beside him, to sit quietly and watch her among her flowers.

“I’m getting old—old!” he said to himself, but he said it with a smile.