Chapter 30 - Page 2

acquaintance. And even if he
weren't strong enough...

"What time do you think the telegram will arrive?" asked Mary
suddenly, thrusting in upon him over the top of the paper.

Denis started guiltily. "I don't know at all," he said.

"I was only wondering," said Mary, "because there's a very good
train at 3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it,
wouldn't it?"

"Awfully nice," he agreed weakly. He felt as though he were
making arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo
3.27. No flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he'd let
himself be hurried down to the Necropolis like this. He was
blowed. The sight of Mr. Scogan looking out, with a hungry
expression, from the drawing-room window made him precipitately
hoist the "Times" once more. For a long while he kept it
hoisted. Lowering it at last to take another cautious peep at
his surroundings, he found himself, with what astonishment!
confronted by Anne's faint, amused, malicious smile. She was
standing before him,--the woman who was a tree,--the swaying
grace of her movement arrested in a pose that seemed itself a
movement.

"How long have you been standing there?" he asked, when he had
done gaping at her.

"Oh, about half an hour, I suppose," she said airily. "You were
so very deep in your paper--head over ears--I didn't like to
disturb you."

"You look lovely this morning," Denis exclaimed. It was the
first time he had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark
of the kind.

Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. "Don't
bludgeon me, please." She sat down on the bench beside him. He
was a nice boy, she thought, quite charming; and Gombauld's
violent insistences were really becoming rather tiresome. "Why
don't you wear white trousers?" she asked. "I like you so much
in white trousers."

"They're at the wash," Denis replied rather curtly. This white-
trouser business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just
preparing a scheme to manoeuvre the conversation back to the
proper path, when Mr. Scogan suddenly darted out of the house,
crossed the terrace with clockwork rapidity, and came to a halt
in front of the bench on which they were seated.

"To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos," he
began, "I become more and more convinced that the various parts
of the concern are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind,
Denis, moving a shade to your right?" He wedged himself between
them on the bench. "And if you would shift a few inches to the
left, my dear Anne...Thank you. Discrete, I think, was what I
was saying."

"You were," said Anne. Denis was speechless.

They were taking their after luncheon coffee in