She waited.
Mamma and Mark had turned their backs to her as they clung together. But
there was his sparrow-brown hair, clipped close into the nape of his
red-brown neck. If only Mamma wouldn't cry like that--
"Mark--"
"Is that Minky?"
They held each other and let go in one tick of the clock, but she had
stood a long time seeing his eyes arrested in their rush of recognition.
Disappointed.
The square dinner-table stretched itself into an immense white space
between her and Mark. It made itself small again for Mark and Mamma.
Across the white space she heard him saying things: about Dan meeting him
at Tilbury, and poor Victor coming to Liverpool Street, and Cox's. Last
night he had stayed at Ilford, he had seen Bella and Edward and Pidgeon
and Mrs. Fisher and the Proparts. "Do you remember poor Edward and his
sheep? And Mary's lamb!"
Mark hadn't changed, except that he was firmer and squarer, and thinner,
because he had had fever. And his eyes--He was staring at her with his
disappointed eyes.