Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/331

 suitcase to the cottage. Father and son met there, in the garden, under the old pear tree where pale gold buds flickered in a moment of transient and windy sunlight. Kit looked cold, far colder than his father who was muffled up in an old ulster.

"All right, old chap?"

Sorrell's eyes were affectionately observant. He thought Kit had less than his usual colour, that he looked rather like a man just recovered from an attack of 'flu. But of course it was a beast of a day, ugly. Even the garden looked ugly.

Kit smiled, but it was a self-conscious smile.

"It's jolly cold."

"Tea's ready."

"Good."

Sorrell felt that somehow or somewhere all was not well. He knew his Christopher even better than he knew his garden, and therefore said the less, and became busy with the fire and the dish of buttered toast on the trivet, and the brass kettle on the hob. Kit drew up his chair and spread his hands to the fire, and his face seemed to relax a little. Something had stiffened it; worry or that infernal wind.

They had tea. Their pipes came out, and while Kit filled his and paused to stare at the fire, his father put a match to the bowl of his long "briar," and with an air of attentive unconcern.

"Ever had 'wind up,' pater?"

Sorrell remained very still, restraining an impulse that would have made him look at his son.

"Often. One does. Inevitable—you know."

Kit lit his pipe, and the hand that held the match was very steady. Sorrell noticed that.

"How did it take you?"

"O, various ways. Quite silly—at times. Like going on parade the first time you have to handle a company. Sort of speechlessness, feeling sure you are going to give a wrong order,—make a fool of yourself. But—one doesn't."

"You didn't."

"Just missed it—somehow. And then again,—like your first day in the trenches, in a devil of a funk and afraid of