Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/288

 great happiness; something in her had been satisfied.

Yet, Kit was not satisfied. There were certain little things that he confessed to with shame, broodings, forgetfulness, the taking of love for granted, a vague sense of limitation, a feeling of giving less and less than his share.

Once, he had spoken of marriage, and she had laughed and then burst into tears.

"That's almost an insult, dear boy."

"Mary!"

"I went into this with my eyes open. We didn't bargain, did we? We just wanted each other."

He did not understand her tears, nor those days when she showed a quiet aloofness, choosing to be a little apart from him, yet with no insinuation of pique or of suspicion. He remembered one particular Sunday on the Thames when she had sat at the other end of the punt, using a desultory paddle, her eyes looking into the distance beyond him. He had fallen asleep on the cushions. He had heard a voice calling—"Kit—Kit!" and had opened his eyes upon a strangely tragic face. "The weir, I didn't see it." He had scrambled up with a "Good lord," and had snatched up the pole and managed to work the punt clear of that sliding crest of water.

"What on earth were you doing, dear?"

"O,—just dreaming."

A time was to come which would make him wonder whether she had been dreaming a dream for both of them, and whether that warning cry had not been torn from her by an awakened selflessness.

Christopher was going round one of his surgical wards about six o'clock, examining two or three of the more serious cases, when the hospital porter came in search of him.

"Where's Mr. Sorrell?"

"In Battersby Ward."

Kit, bending over a man who had been operated upon for duodenal ulcer, heard the porter's voice behind him.

"Letter for you, sir."