Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/256

248 “Good Lord,” he drawled, “I’ve lain there thinking all afternoon. I didn’t know I could do such a thing. Where have you been? It’s with being all upset you see. You left the violets—here, take them, will you; and tell her: I’ll come when it’s getting dark. I feel like somebody else—or else really like myself. I hope I shan’t wake up to the other things—you know, like I am always—before them.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know—only I feel as if I could talk straight off without arranging—like birds, without knowing what note is coming next.”

When I was going he said:

“Here, leave me that book—it’ll keep me like this—I mean I’m not the same as I was yesterday, and that book ’ll keep me like it. Perhaps it’s a bilious bout—I do sometimes have one, if something very extraordinary happens. When it’s getting dark then!”

Lettie had not arrived when I went home. I put the violets in a little vase on the table. I remembered he had wanted her to see the drawings—it was perhaps as well he had kept them.

She came about six o’clock—in the motor-car with Marie. But the latter did not descend. I went out to assist with the parcels. Lettie had already begun to buy things; the wedding was fixed for July.

The room was soon over-covered with stuffs: table linen, underclothing, pieces of silken stuff and lace stuff, patterns for carpets and curtains, a whole gleaming glowing array. Lettie was very delighted.