Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/370

 "But we—arrived—together. No old rib business. Say, do you like China tea?"

"Not much."

"Well—Indian. My coffee is like someone's sad past."

"Right."

"Hallo! Is there much water in the punt?"

"A little. Shall I mop it up?"

"Presently. I'm just about to time the eggs."

Kit ran his hands through his hair, and made some show of smoothing its wetness. He extracted a collar and tie and a stud from his coat pocket, and put them on, standing up in the punt and facing the sun.

"Ready."

She was standing in the doorway, and with a suggestion of swiftness he went to her, and grew suddenly and bigly shy, and touched her gently.

"It is all so very wonderful."

They sat down at the oak table, opposite each other, and while Molly was handling the old flowery Amhurst Japan teapot, Kit cut the bread.

"Suppose there is a train somewhere about nine."

He did not see the look she gave him.

"I dare say. Is there any hurry?"

His serious and happy face struck her as being poignantly innocent. Didn't he understand?

"O, no great hurry. But I'm feeling responsible. Rather a precious responsibility,—dear heart."

She handed him his, and he sat stirring it, and smiling over some secret and sacred thought.

"Dear," he said; "if I seem a rather practical idiot—you'll know why. Because I'm so profoundly yours—in all my thinking."

"I know."

She seemed to stiffen, to be ready to resist something.

"When are we going to be married?"

"We are not going to be married. Dear lad, don't you understand?"

For most of that day Christopher strove with her passionate ruthlessness. She had shocked him, and at first