Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/134

 "Women," he said, "one has to remember—that some day—there may be a woman."

For he had been fore-feeling these possibilities very strongly during the last few months. Lying with Kit on some hillside or under a tree, he would become aware of the boy as a vigorous and separate personality. He was on the edge—too—of the great adventurous sea of sex.

"I suppose that some day," Sorrell thought, "a woman will take him away from me. That's life. Have I any right to complain? Isn't it my job to make life as full and as rich for him as I can? But what sort of woman will it be? That's his affair. I'm not going to be the fool father, throaty and pompous. But I hope it will be a'woman who won't want to leave the hotel porter at the bottom of the back stairs."

Needless to say he did not speak of this to Christopher, for when sex dawns certain reticences are born with it. The fig leaf is symbolical.

Late in the autumn the most unexpected of coincidences emphasized Sorrell's sense of the imminence of woman.

About four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon a big silver-coloured car with red wheels turned into the space behind the posts and chains. It had been raining and the hood of the car was up. A man in a leather coat emerged, a man with a ginger-coloured moustache, blurs of redness on each cheek, and the angry eyes of the heavy drinker. Sorrell, who was standing by one of the lounge windows, went out to meet him.

"Got a room here?"

"Double or single, sir?"

"Double."

"Yes,—on the first floor, sir."

"Right. Where's the garage?"

"Round to the left, sir. Shall I bring in the luggage?"

"Yes,—I'll go and have a look at the room."