Page:The Trespasser, Lawrence, 1912.djvu/58

50 bowl of purple pansies. She looked up at him rather heavily as he stood radiant on the threshold. He put her at her ease. It was a gay, handsome boy she had to meet, not a man, strange and insistent. She smiled on him with tender dignity.

“You have bathed?” she said, smiling, and looking at his damp, ruffled black hair. She shrank from his eyes, but he was quite unconscious.

“You have not bathed!” he said; then bent to kiss her. She smelt the brine in his hair.

“No; I bathe later,” she replied. “But what——”

Hesitating, she touched the towel, then looked up at him anxiously.

“It is blood?” she said.

“I grazed my thigh—nothing at all,” he replied.

“Are you sure?”

He laughed.

“The towel looks bad enough,” she said.

“It’s an alarmist,” he laughed.

She looked in concern at him, then turned aside.

“Breakfast is quite ready,” she said.

“And I for breakfast—but shall I do?”

She glanced at him. He was without a collar, so his throat was bare above the neck-band of his flannel shirt. Altogether she disapproved of his slovenly appearance. He was usually so smart in his dress.

“I would not trouble,” she said almost sarcastically.

Whistling, he threw the towel on a chair.

“How did you sleep?” she asked gravely, as she watched him beginning to eat.

“Like the dead—solid,” he replied. “And you?”

“Oh, pretty well, thanks,” she said, rather piqued that he had slept so deeply, whilst she had tossed, and had called his name in a torture of sleeplessness.