But--he had
been thinking so much of her since that day. Rose Arbuthnot. Such a
pretty name. And such a pretty creature--mild, milky, mothery in the
best sense; the best sense being that she wasn't his mother and
couldn't have been if she had tried, for parents were the only things
impossible to have younger than oneself. Also, he was passing so near.
It seemed absurd not just to look in and see if she were comfortable.
He longed to see her in his house. He longed to see it as her
background, to see her sitting in his chairs, drinking out of his cups,
using all his things. Did she put the big crimson brocade cushion in
the drawing-room behind her little dark head? Her hair and the
whiteness of her skin would look lovely against it. Had she seen the
portrait of herself on the stairs? He wondered if she liked it. He
would explain it to her. If she didn't paint, and she had said nothing
to suggest it, she wouldn't perhaps notice how exactly the moulding of
the eyebrows and the slight hollow of the cheek--
He told the fly to wait in Castagneto, and crossed the piazza,
hailed by children and dogs, who all knew him and sprang up suddenly
from nowhere, and walking quickly up the zigzag path, for he was an
active young man not much more than thirty, he pulled the ancient chain
that range the bell, and waited decorously on the proper side of the
open door to be allowed to come in.
Pages:
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267