Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/31

Rh "Dearest!" cried Basil. This time he seized her firmly and kissed her. "I didn't forget it I've been thinking of it all day! …"

"No, you haven't. You forgot we were to go out at five for a walk. You only thought about painting that horrid woman, while she told you about her sins and said her prayers! Hypocrite!"

"Which is the hypocrite—she or I?"

"Both of you. Go and change your coat, I want to get out. It will be dark now; we've missed the twilight."

Basil was not yet forgiven. Teresa was still melancholy. Even the consciousness of the excellent cut of her new dress, the perfume of her extravagant bunch of violets, the feeling of Basil's uneasiness and fear lest their evening should be spoilt, the knowledge that she had only to smile to make him radiant and gay—all these mollifying influences she resisted for the sake of discipline. It was necessary to make Basil a little miserable before making him happy. And also there was a vague but real shade that overcast her pleasure in the rolling spectacle of the avenue along which they walked, in the soft cooling blue of the sky where stars were appearing, and the mild air that smelt of spring, the perfume of flower-stands at busy corners, the haze of lights, the roar from streets beyond of the great cityful homeward bound—all the dis-