Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/100

 to a vulgar scuffle Buck would overwhelm him as the Vine Court bully had smothered Kit.

"We must do something about this," he said,—stroking his moustache.

And all the way home he was thinking over the problem, the age-old problem of how the brain can outwit the brute.

Easter came, with six days of sunshine, and a brisk life upon the road. The buds of the chestnuts were bursting, and in the garden daffodils swung yellow in the wind amid a spreading glimmer of greenness. Bowden's pugnacious and swarthy head began to go to and fro behind his lawn-mower.

There were hyacinths, rose, white and blue in the border close to the window where Sorrell used to sit and read, and the scent of them drifted in, but Sorrell and his books saw little of each other. For the city people were pushing the noses of their cars westwards in search of the spring, and the glittering Pelican saw them swirl and hesitate and pause.

Life became strenuous, and for Sorrell in particular more than strenuous. He laboured, groaning inwardly, jaw set, his eyes taking on a tired and blank stare. He cursed the people who travelled with solid trunks; heavy suit cases and kit-bags were not so bad, but a trunk was an uncompromising brute of a thing.

One evening he had paused on the second landing to get his breath when he heard a voice behind him.

"Why do you do all the work?"

He turned and looked into the pale face of the housekeeper, Mary Marks. She was a plain little woman, reserved, thin lipped, but with clear dark eyes. They were very intelligent eyes, and they had suffered, for somewhere a Percy Marks led a brisk and lascivious life. As a rule she was not a woman who offered sympathy, for she would have resented sympathy.

Sorrell, surprised, stood there panting.

"Pride," he said.

"Oh,—that's very well. But it's a shame. A great beast like that letting you."