She cut the first rose and held it to her lips, smelling
it. “Lovely. Who was your letter from,
Mark?”
He thought, “How on earth did she know?”
He had forgotten it himself. “How ever
did you know? From Lady Tybar. They’re
back.”
“I saw you from the window with the postman.
Lady Tybar! Whatever was she writing to you about?”
He somehow did not like this. Why “whatever”?
And being watched was rather beastly; he remembered
he had fiddled about with the letter,—half
put it in his pocket and then taken it out again.
And why not? What did it matter? But he
had a prevision that it was going to matter.
Mabel did not particularly like Nona. He said,
“Just to say they’re back. She wants
us to go up there.”
“An invitation? Whyever didn’t she
write to me?”
“Whyever” again!—“May
I see it?”
He took the letter from his pocket and handed it to
her. “It’s not exactly an invitation—not
formal.”
She did what he called “flicked” the letter
out of its envelope. He watched her reading it
and in his mind he could see as perfectly as she with
her eyes, the odd, neat script; in his mind he read
it with her, word by word.
Dear Marko—We’re
back. We’ve been from China to Peru almost.
Come
up one day and be bored
about it. How are you?
Nona.
His thought was, “Damn the letter!”
Mabel handed it back, without returning it to its
envelope. She said,
“No, it’s not formal.”
She snipped three roses with astonishing swiftness,—snip,
snip, snip!
Sabre sought about in his mind for something to say.
There was nothing in his mind to say. He had
an absurd vision of his two hands feeling about in
the polished interior of a skull, as one might fumble
for something in a large jar.
At the end of an enormous cavity of time he found
some slight remark about blight on the rose trees—the
absence of it this year—and ventured it.
He had again an absurd vision of dropping it into an
enormous cavern, as a pea into an immense bowl, and
it seemed to tinkle feebly and forlornly, as a pea
would. “No blight this year, eh?”
“No; is there?” agreed Mabel,—snip!
Nevertheless conversation arose from the forlorn pea
and was maintained. They moved about the garden
from flower bed to flower bed. In half an hour
the shallow basket was beautified with fragrant blooms
and Mabel thought she had enough.
“Well, that’s that,” said Sabre
as they reentered the morning room.
