Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/299

 "Ah, profits!" said Roland, and catching sight of his wife by the sundial set on the square of old brick paving close to the cottage, he hailed her. "Come and see Stephen's secret dissipations. Instead of taking to the bottle—in his old age"

She came down the grass path with that air of eternal youthfulness that was so untheatrical. Once or twice she paused to touch or to smell something, and her face had the softness of secret satisfactions.

"My dear," said her man; "you'll never grow old. What a problem for a man whose tailor tells him"

"Don't listen to your tailor. But Stephen, you are a genius"

"I'm nothing. I just muddle about, and the flowers do the rest"

"Arcadian anarchy! Cherry, do you think that if I had a dish of rose petals for breakfast each morning, or nibbled a blue delphinium, I should discover the secret of eternal youth?"

"Why worry?" she said, shyly and clearly smiling, her voice making Sorrell think of the voice of a thrush, "you will never grow old. People who make music and pictures and gardens"

"Blessed philosophy," said her husband. "Now, if I manufactured tooth-brushes or printed hymn books"

Sorrell had taken out a penknife and was cutting an early rose. He held it to his nostrils for a moment before offering it to Roland's wife.

"Just look at the curves of that bud! Wonderful! Makes you feel"

She inhaled the scent of it and looked with wide eyes at the two men as though both of them were lovable children, but far more lovable than any child.

While Sorrell paused upon his autumnal hilltop to sit in the sun of a reminiscent maturity, Christopher had developed the restlessness of a young soldier spoiling for war, and finding no use for his weapons.

Once a month he came down for the week-end, and oc-