Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/229

 should be a matronly and sumptuous black or something a little more June-like? What age was Mr. Sorrell?

"What dress, madam?"

"O,—something quiet," said the voice from the bed.

Mrs. Duggan drank her tea and ate two thin slices of bread and butter. She was all smiles and rotund beneficence. She had a feeling that she had her hand on the thing she wanted, and that a few careful caresses would make it hers. Or nearly hers, as much as a young thing could be hers. She wanted Kit, and she wanted him for all sorts of reasons, because he was flesh of her flesh, because he was young, because he belonged to Sorrell, because Sorrell had quietly defied her. She was a woman of strong appetites; she knew how to be generous; she had some knowledge of men. Her appreciation of Christopher had been instantaneous. Here was something difficult; his shyness and his reluctance had inflamed that sort of physical tenderness that was her love. He was a comely lad; he resembled her in his body. She was forty-nine, and she looked more than forty-nine, for in choosing to chase money she had had to live with oldish men, and that had aged her. They had been men who had drunk too much, and who had gone about like snappy old dogs. But youth,—the youth of her own son, to possess it, handle it, feel herself the mistress of it! A devoted son! To be able to score off that absurdly serious father!

At a quarter past eleven Mrs. Duggan entered her car.

"O,—Pounds,—if Mr. Sorrell should arrive before I return,—show him his room. I should be back about half-past twelve."

"Where to, madam?" asked the chauffeur, before closing the door.

"The Halcyon Club."

Christopher's mother was a member of the Halcyon Club. It was domiciled in the house of a dead grandee, and inherited an atmosphere of spaciousness and dignity. It was a cock and hen affair, but more hen than cock. The club gave Saturday night dances, and Mrs. Duggan dropped in to make sure of her dinner table. She wanted the table for four in the corner where the statue of the Venus de Milo stood in a recess. She asked for the steward, and he assured her the table was hers.