Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/247

 to see; she was only vibrantly conscious of him as a near physical presence. And Winchester could not be far; England was so silly and little. Her mood varied from extravagant gaiety to tearful melancholy; she cried over her breakfast as she spread the clotted cream upon her bread.

Again and again in the series of coaches and post-chaises that took her to Winchester, Lanice conjured up the scenes of the reunion, 'Anthony—I've come thousands of miles...' The back of his head or his profile always seemed so real she could put out her fingers and touch it; the moment before he turned to her at the sound of his name and her voice was as actual as any experience she had had with him; but there everything stopped. The truth bore cruelly in upon her that for some reason her memory had perversely failed her. She could not really see his face except from the side. She knew he had grey eyes and a sweetly sullen mouth. She knew how his tawny hair joined the two-inches of beard before either ear. She could have drawn his likeness—but she could not see his face. In anguish she realized that for the rest of her life he would never turn his face towards her, but sit in half-profile before a fire. Through the years she would come to know every hair upon the back of his head. She would see the cheek-bone, the curve of the jaw, the square, tight set to the shoulder. She would never—even in her memory—see the silver light of his sad grey eyes or the unsmiling droop of the mouth her mouth had craved. She clenched her hands in their yellow kid gloves, pressed her feet