Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/348

 She turned to say something to Roland, and while her eyes were elsewhere Kit looked at her deliberately and with a combative curiosity. He could not help wondering why she made him feel combative, confusedly quarrelsome. She was wearing black; and a green jade necklace hung about her throat. He watched the moving curves of her expressive mouth, and thought how black her hair was.

And suddenly she looked at him, and seemed to draw the veil of her self about her with the haughtiness of a proud thing taken unawares. He realized that he had been staring and there was a quality in her quick glance that reminded him of foil play, as though her glance were pressing against his and turning it aside. Something in her resented the way of his studying her. Her face seemed to grow thin. It was as though he had touched her and she had cried out fiercely—"Don't touch me."

He reddened and looked at his plate, while the Rolands exchanged a glimmer of the eyes.

"Have some more Burgundy, Kit?"

"Thanks."

"Had a heavy day?"

"Fairly so. In the theatre for three hours; rather difficult cases."

He had become suddenly possessed by a fierce desire to swagger, to ruffle his plumage under the eyes of the challenging presence on the other side of the table. Why should she resent his looking at her admiringly? For he had been admiring her.

He began to talk, and the more forcibly he talked, the more silent grew that other presence. She was watching him, appraising him just as he had done while she had been chatting to Roland. He felt it, and he resented it. He began to think of her as a clever, satirical, enigmatic young woman.

Cherry was singing, and a full moon had risen and was shining upon Thomas Roland's garden. He had opened the window before his wife's hands had touched the piano, and standing there and looking down into the garden, with the smoke from his cigar spreading out into faint, horizontal