Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/367

 "I could not help coming here," he said.

His eyes were fixed upon the hand and arm that rested on the top of the sofa.

"Obstinate old Kit."

Her voice made him tremble.

"I asked Oscar to see me here on business. We have dissolved partnership, and there were some figures to be looked into, and one or two papers to sign. How did you know I was here?"

"I did not know."

"Guessed?"

"Partly. Came to see."

"And you brought a suitcase with you?"

"No."

"No."

"But you said."

"I was bluffing."

"Then you are not staying at Marley?"

"No."

There was a pause, and the hiss of the rain filled it.

"What time is the last train?"

"O, somewhere about ten, I think."

He moved to the other end of the sofa, and sitting slantwise on the back of it, half facing her as she lay, he looked out of the window. The landscape was sheeted in rain. It dropped from the roof of the loggia; the feathery green of the willows seemed to droop under it. The hills were blotted out. And he thought how secret and strange this place seemed on its island in the midst of the river and the rain, and that he and Molly were alone together as they had never been before. Her relaxation, her sudden acceptance of their aloneness, had confused him. He could look at her hand and her arm, but somehow he could not bring himself to look at her face, as though he were leaning over the brink of a crisis and felt giddy and bewildered, and her face—shining dimly out of the deeps of the crisis—might make him throw himself over.

He was aware of a little, restless movement below him.

"Still raining?"

"It looks like keeping on."

"Lucky for you that I did some shopping this morning, or Man Friday would have found himself empty."