Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/232

 This highly coloured room was all surface, and without depth, and his mother's enthusiastic animation reduced Christopher to a mere surface. He found himself quite unable to respond to her vivacity, and since he persisted in sitting there like a graven image of his own youth, she had to continue her attack.

"I'm sure you must be awfully tired after all that work. And rowing—too. I'm going to give you a real—lazy—jolly week-end. There will be a little dance to-night at my club, but it will be over at twelve."

He told her that he was not much of a dancer.

"Fudge, my dear boy, an athletic child—with your figure. My two flappers will—make—you dance."

She thought him monstrously shy, and his seeming shyness did not displease her. Her eyes were making an intimate examination of him while she talked, taking in all the clean texture of his youth and enjoying it, contrasting it unconsciously with her many impressions of the oldish men with whom she had lived. She looked at Kit's fresh, brown hands with their young skin and supple fingers. How different they were from the blue and branny hands of John Duggan, or the wrinkled skinniness and yellow blotched claws of Arthur Sampits. Yes, old age was detestable. She herself was on the edge of it, and her urgent vitality craved the young blood of her son.

"You take after me, Kit,—a little—I think." ..

She was ready to let herself go. She wanted him to come across and kiss her.

"In looks—I mean. Just turn your head a little. Yes, you have my ears—exactly."

She laughed.

"You shy thing!"

His self-conscious rigidity became painful. She was making him feel a fool, and his glance glazed itself upon those American goggles of hers. Why on earth did she wear And talking about his ears—too! What perfect rot!

He withdrew his eyes as though he were plucking his glance away from her. He surveyed the room.

"I'm going to Vienna for two months. Rather a sound idea. The pater's idea."

She smiled right through this digression.