Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/194

 “Oh! but you must come and see us one day. My mother will be delighted. There are a lot more photographs at home. You must bring him out one day, Norah,” she said turning to Miss Monogue.

If he had been a primitive member of society in the Stone Age he would at this point, have placed Robin carefully on the floor and have picked Miss Rossiter up and she should never again have left his care.

As it was he said, “I shall be delighted to come one day.”

“We will talk about Cornwall—”

“And Germany.”

His hand was burning hot when he gave it her—he knew that she was looking at his eyes.

He was abruptly conscious of Miss Monogue's voice behind him.

“I've read a quarter of the book, Peter.”

He wondered as he turned to her how it could be possible to regard two women so differently. To be so sternly critical of one—her hair that was nearly down, a little ink on her thumb, her blouse that was unbuttoned—and of the other to see her all in a glory so that her whole body, for colour and light and beautiful silence, had no equal amongst the possessions of the earth or the wonders of heaven. Here there was a button undone, there there was a flaming fire.

“I won't say anything,” Miss Monogue said, “until I've read more, but it's going to be extraordinarily good I think.”

What did he care about “Reuben Hallard?” What did that matter when he had Clare Elizabeth Rossiter in front of him.

And then he pulled himself up. It must matter. How delighted an hour ago those words would have made him.

“Oh! you think there's something in it?” he said.

“We'll wait,” she answered, but her smile and the sparkle in her eyes showed what she thought. What a brick she was!

He turned round back to Miss Rossiter.

“My first book,” he said laughing. “Of course we're excited—”

And then he was out of the room in a moment with