Page:Thunder on the Left (1925).djvu/78

 juice," he said, "it would look just like that. Coiling round and clotting."

Sickening idea, Phyllis thought.

"I know exactly what's going to happen, just about the time I have to drive over"

He was going to say it, she felt it coming. He was going to say depot instead of station. George always said depot when they were in the country, and she couldn't bear it. It was coming, it was coming; everything was predestined; all her life she had known this scene was on the way, sitting under the hot croup-kettle smell of the pine trees, blue thunder piling up on the skyline, poor adorable George mumbling away, and Mr. Martin watching them with his air of faint surprise. It was like the beginning of some terrible poem. Everything in life was a symbol of everything else. The slices of lemon lying at the bottom of the iced-tea jug, on a soft cloud of undissolved sugar, even they were a symbol of something. . ..

"George!" she interrupted desperately. "I had the most terrible premonition. I felt that you were going to say depot."

"Why, yes, I was going to say, just about the time I'm ready to drive over"

For his own sake, for her sake, for Mr. Martin's sake, George must be prevented. If he used that