kisses brushing her face for its sweetness, with
quick, hard kisses that hurt, with slow, deep kisses that stayed where
they fell; kisses remembered and unremembered, longed for, imagined and
unimaginable.

The church bell began ringing for service, short notes first, tinkling
and tinkling; then a hurrying and scattering of sounds, sounds falling
together, running into each other, covering each other; one long
throbbing and clanging sound; and then hard, slow strokes, measuring out
the seconds like a clock. They waited till the bell ceased.

The dusk gathered. It spread from the corners to the middle of the room.
The tall white arch of the chimney-piece jutted out through the dusk.

Anne stirred slightly.

"I say, how dark it's getting."

"Yes. I like it. Don't get the lamp."

They sat clinging together, waiting for the dark.

The window panes were a black glimmer in the grey. He got up and drew
the curtains, shutting out the black glimmer of the panes. He came to
her and lifted her in his arms and carried her to the couch and laid her
on it.

She shut her eyes and waited.

XIV

MAISIE

i

He didn't know what he was going to do about Maisie.

On a fine, warm day in April Maisie had come home. He had motored her up
from the station, and now the door of the drawing-room had closed on
them and they were alone together in there.

"Oh, Jerrold--it _is_ nice--to see you--again."

She panted a little, a way she had when she was excited.

"Awfully nice," he said, and wondered what on earth he was going to do
next.

He had been all right on the station platform where their greetings had
been public and perfunctory, but now he would have to do something
intimate and, above all, spontaneous, not to stand there like a stick.

They looked at each other and he took again the impression she had
always given him of delicate beauty and sweetness. She was tall and her
neck bent slightly forward as she walked; this gave her the air of
bowing prettily, of offering you something with a charming grace. Her
shoulders and her hips had the same long, slenderly sloping curves. Her
hair was mole brown on the top and turned back in an old-fashioned way
that uncovered its hidden gold. Her face was white; the thin bluish
whiteness of skim milk. Her mauve blue eyes looked larger than they were
because of their dark brows and lashes, and the faint mauve smears about
their lids. The line of her little slender nose went low