Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/197

 She held the door open, looking at him with a soft glimmer of the eyes. "I brought these."

"Grapes. How good of you. She's asleep just now, and I have sent Aunt Eva home."

The little sitting-room was just as Sorrell had first known it, save that Fanny had bought her mother a comfortable new sofa upholstered in green and blue. It stood under the window. Fanny was putting Sorrell's grapes on a plate. She was wearing a soft green jumper, with the sleeves rolled up, and Sorrell could not help noticing the pleasant plumpness of her arms. She had a comely neck, and her fair, bobbed hair hung over it.

"You'll stay and have tea."

They had tea together, sitting on the sofa. Kit's apple tree, full of yellow fruit, caught the light of the sunset. The greenness of it was enriched by the ripe apples, even as a woman is enriched by desire.

They talked of Kit, and then fell to talking of each other, softly, while the dusk began to fall. Fanny's hair became a shadowy wreath, and her arms and throat grew whiter.

The dusk seemed to draw them towards a pleasant, human intimacy. They discussed life, sitting sideways on the sofa, and looking into each other's faces. The body of each seemed to relax. Fanny's fair head drooped gradually towards the padded back.

"Sleepy?"

She smiled at him. "Are you?"

He found a cushion and placed it under her head, and their voices grew softer.

"I'm not a marrying man."

He was explaining himself to her, and she listened, with the inward smile of a woman who has learnt to laugh at an old-fashioned man's dear pomposities.

"Does it matter,—Steve? I'm not a marrying woman. In these days"

He saw her hand pull the curtains gently across the window.