LITMIR.BIZ

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and put the Salome before her.

      “Look,” said I, “look here!”

      She looked; she was short-sighted, and peered close. I was impatient for her to speak. She turned slowly at last and looked at me, shrinking, with questioning.

      “Well?” I said.

      “Isn’t it — fearful!” she replied softly.

      “No! — why is it?”

      “It makes you feel — Why have you brought it?”

      “I wanted you to see it.”

      Already I felt relieved, seeing that she too was caught in the spell.

      George came and bent over my shoulder. I could feel the heavy warmth of him.

      “Good Lord!” he drawled, half amused. The children came crowding to see, and Emily closed the book.

      “I shall be late — Hurry up, Dave!” and she went to wash her hands before going to school.

      “Give it me, will you?” George asked, putting out his hand for the book. I gave it him, and he sat down to look at the drawings. When Mollie crept near to look, he angrily shouted to her to get away. She pulled a mouth, and got her hat over her wild brown curls. Emily came in ready for school.

      “I’m going — good-bye,” she said, and she waited hesitatingly. I moved to get my cap. He looked up with a new expression in his eyes, and said:

      “Are you going? — wait a bit — I’m coming.”

      I waited.

      “Oh, very well — good-bye,” said Emily bitterly, and she departed.

      When he had looked long enough he got up and we went out. He kept his finger between the pages of the book as he carried it. We went towards the fallow land without speaking. There he sat down on a bank, leaning his back against a holly tree, and saying, very calmly:

      “There’s no need to be in any hurry now —” whereupon he proceeded to study the illustrations.

      “You know,” he said at last, “I do want her.”

      I started at the irrelevance of this remark, and said, “Who?”

      “Lettie. We’ve got notice, did you know?”

      I started to my feet this time with amazement.

      “Notice to leave? — What for?”

      “Rabbits I expect. I wish she’d have me, Cyril.”

      “To leave Strelley Mill!” I repeated.

      “That’s it — and I’m rather glad. But do you think she might have me, Cyril?”

      “What a shame! Where will you go? And you lie there joking —!”

      “I don’t. Never mind about the damned notice. I want her more than anything. — And the more I look at these naked lines, the more I want her. It’s a sort of fine sharp feeling, like these curved lines. I don’t know what I’m saying — but do you think she’d have me? Has she seen these pictures?”

      “No.”

      “If she did perhaps she’d want me — I mean she’d feel it clear and sharp coming through her.”

      “I’ll show her and see.”

      “I’d been sort of thinking about it — since Father had that notice. It seemed as if the ground was pulled from under our feet. I never felt so lost. Then I began to think of her, if she’d have me — but not clear, till you showed me those pictures. I must have her if I can — and I must have something. It’s rather ghostish to have the road suddenly smudged out, and all the world anywhere, nowhere for you to go. I must get something sure soon, or else I feel as if I should fall from somewhere and hurt myself. I’ll ask her.”

      I looked at him as he lay there under the holly tree, his face all dreamy and boyish, very unusual.

      “You’ll ask Lettie?” said I. “When — how?”

      “I must ask her quick, while I feel as if everything had gone, and I was ghostish. I think I must sound rather a lunatic.”

      He looked at me, and his eyelids hung heavy over his eyes as if he had been drinking, or as if he were tired.

      “Is she at home?” he said.

      “No, she’s gone to Nottingham. She’ll be home before dark.”

      “I’ll see her then. Can you smell violets?”

      I replied that I could not. He was sure that he could, and he seemed uneasy till he had justified the sensation. So he arose, very leisurely, and went along the bank, looking closely for the flowers.

      “I knew I could. White ones!”

      He sat down and picked three flowers, and held them to his nostrils, and inhaled their fragrance. Then he put them to his mouth, and I saw his strong white teeth crush them. He chewed them for a while without speaking; then he spat them out and gathered more.

      “They remind me of her too,” he said, and he twisted a piece of honeysuckle stem round the bunch and handed it to me.

      “A white violet, is she?” I smiled.

      “Give them to her, and tell her to come and meet me just when it’s getting dark in the wood.”

      “But if she won’t?”

      “She will.”

      “If she’s not at home?”

      “Come and tell me.”

      He lay down again with his head among the green violet leaves, saying:

      “I ought to work, because it all counts in the valuation. But I don’t care.”

      He lay looking at me for some time. Then he said:

      “I don’t suppose I shall have above twenty pounds left when we’ve sold up — but she’s got plenty of money to start with — if she has me — in Canada. I could get well off — and she could have — what she wanted — I’m sure she’d have what she wanted.”

      He took it all calmly as if it were realised. I was somewhat amused.

      “What frock will she have on when she comes to meet me?” he asked.

      “I don’t know. The same as she’s gone to Nottingham in, I suppose — a sort of gold-brown costume with a rather tight-fitting coat. Why?”

      “I was thinking how she’d look.”

      “What chickens are you counting now?” I asked.

      “But what do you think I look best in?” he replied.

      “You? Just as you are — no, put that old smooth cloth coat on — that’s all.” I smiled as I told him, but he was very serious. “Shan’t I put my new clothes on?”

      “No — you want to leave your neck showing.”

      He put his hand to his throat, and said naïvely:

      “Do I?”— and it amused him.

      Then he lay looking dreamily up into the tree. I left him, and went wandering round the fields finding flowers and bird’s nests.

      When I came back, it was nearly four o’clock. He stood up and stretched himself. He pulled out his watch.

      “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.”

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