There were consultations about the present Aunt Victoria
was to send from them both, a wonderfully expensive, newly patented,
leather traveling-case for a car, guaranteed to hold less to the
square inch and pound than any other similar, heavy, gold-mounted
contrivance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith told Morrison frankly, in this
connection, that she had tried to select a present which Molly herself
would enjoy.
"Am I not to have a present myself?" asked Morrison. "Something that
you selected expressly for me?"
"No," said Sylvia, dropping the sugar into his tea with deliberation.
"You are not to have any present for yourself."
She was guiltily conscious that she was thinking of a certain scene in
"The Golden Bowl," a scene in which a wedding present figures largely;
and when, a moment later, he said, "I have a new volume of Henry James
I'd like to loan you," she knew that the same scene had been in his
head. She would not look at him lest she read in his eyes that he had
meant her to know. As she frequently did in those days, she rose, and
making an excuse of a walk in the park, took herself off.
She was quite calm during this period, her mind full of trivial
things. She had the firm conviction that she was living in a dream,
that nothing of what was happening was irrevocable. And besides, as at
Lydford, for much of the day, she was absorbed in the material details
of her life, being rubbed and dressed and undressed, and adorned and
fed and catered to.
Pages:
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487