Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/211

 wanted to change, and he wanted his tea, and he had his chemistry lecturer's notes to look through.

He opened the sitting-room door and saw his mother.

She was sitting by the window in one of the big wickerwork chairs his father had given him, and she seemed to fill it, sumptuously and easily, her black dress contrasting with the purple and orange cretonne. He noticed that her hair was grey, and that she was smiling at him.

Kit stood very still in the open doorway. He seemed to have nothing to say. He was astonished, conscious of nine dead years, and of those other memories that had puzzled and hurt him until Sorrell had somehow made him understand.

"I'm a ghost,—my dear Christopher."

He closed the door, remembering that Mrs. Jowett had ears and that she used them, and when he had closed the door he stood with his back to it.

"I hadn't any idea"

They looked at each other, but their points of view were very different. Christopher was a vivid person; he stood five feet eleven; he looked very big in his rowing togs; he had the glow of youth and of extreme fitness. He was more than a good-looking fellow. His mother had despised the so-called handsome men, knowing how thin and poor the shell is, and that a good getter of the world's gear ma have features. Ugly men can hug hard. And she saw in Kit the likeness of herself, a superficial likeness. He had her glowing skin, the same blue of the eye.

"Heavens, how you've grown!"

She put up her gloved hands and laughed,—but Kit's face maintained an embarrassed and stubborn seriousness. He stood and stared. He was looking at his mother across those nine years. There were many ne that astonished him, and held him in a state of inarticulate staring. She looked quite old. He felt himself in the presence of a stranger. There was no whimper of welcome in him. He was embarrassed, suspicious, immobile, at a loss to meet her sudden intrusion into his life. He had not needed her, and did not need her. He found himself looking at her and thinking—"So—this is the woman who let my father down. What does she want? How did she know?"

His mother was drawing off her gloves, and her down