Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/280



Christopher went to his room and slept till one o'clock. He had other cases to visit during the afternoon, and it was four o'clock when he entered Orange Court and climbed the stairs to the little flat occupied by Gwen and Mary. A strange woman with a red face let him in.

"Yes, she's doin' lovely, doctor, 'ad a nice sleep."

The door of Mary's bedroom was open, and he had a glimpse of a rose-coloured woollen coat hanging from a hook on the door. The coat and its colour were Mary. It sent an instinctive thrill through him, a pang of desire, and even when he was standing by the bed and talking to Mary's friend, his consciousness was busy with Mary, and Mary's bedroom and her clothes, and her mouth, and the way she smiled. The baby was asleep beside its mother, and Kit remembered the awkward way in which Mary Jewett had held the baby, as though she disliked it. Her dislike had surprised him. He had imagined that all women were sentimental about babies,—mother love, and all that sort of thing, and for some reason—which he could not explain, he preferred Mary's hostility. Kit had no illusions about babies. He had seen so many of them of late; red, raw, wrinkled, absurd creatures, he had found them rather repulsive.

But his senses were more alert. He noticed that the pillow was white, and that the bed had a pretty coverlet; the kitchen was clean, the brass taps of the range polished, the table covered with a blue and white cloth. There was self-respect here, the self-respect of women who worked.

"You will be coming to-morrow, doctor?"

"Yes,—to-morrow morning."

Before going to bed that night Christopher took half an hour's walk, and he was surprised to find that the quality of his restlessness had changed. It was happy and pleasant, and he felt a peculiar good will towards all the other strollers, as though he had drunk good wine, and the streets were the paths of a pleasure garden. He found himself outside the Pelargonium, where boards announced that the house was full. He looked through the glass door into the foyer.