Page:The Return of the Soldier (Van Druten).djvu/67

 abroad. Oh, I can remember saying to myself, “Perhaps five years,” trying to make it as bad as could be so that if we could marry sooner it would be a lovely surprise. We’d made so many plans Chris had talked so much  he always wanted a son, he said. Perhaps five years! I never thought (She cries again a little.) Oh, well  crying won’t help, and it’ll make my eyes red. I shouldn’t like Chris to think I’d been crying. I won’t cry.

[She fishes in her bag for her handkerchief, dabs her eyes, and drinks some tea.



I’ve never told anyone all these years  just kept it to myself  but they were happy times, and one can’t help thinking of them sometimes. Well and then one afternoon—a Thursday it was—I’d gone on the backwater with Bert Batchard, nephew to Mr. B., who kept the inn at Surly Hall, and I was laughing out loud because he did row so funny! He’s a town chap, and he was handling those oars for all the world as though they were teaspoons. The old dinghy just sat on the water like a hen on its chicks, and didn’t move, and he so sure of himself. And me used to boats and the water all my life. I just sat and laughed and laughed. And then, all of a sudden, I heard the bell at the ferry, and there was Chris,