England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; English fiction -- 20th century; Journalists -- Fiction
Sally looked at him inquiringly with her blue eyes under their thick
black lashes. Was he advanced, this plausible, intelligent-looking young
man, who was a friend of Arnold Denison’s and liked “The Penitent,” and,
indeed, everything else? Was he free and progressive and on the side of
the right things, or was he merely an amiable stick-in-the-mud like
Jimmy? She couldn’t gather, from his alert, expressive face and bright
hazel eyes and rather sensitive mouth: they chiefly conveyed a capacity
for reception, an openness to all impressions, a readiness to spread
sails to any wind. If he _were_ a person of parts, if he had a brain and
a mind and a soul, and if at the same time he were an ardent server of
the Church--that, Sally thought unconsciously, might be a witness in the
Church’s favour. Only here she remembered Jimmy’s friend at St.
Gregory’s, Bob Traherne; he was all that and more, he had brain and mind
and soul and an ardent fire of zeal for many of the right things (Sally,
a little behind the times here, was a Socialist by conviction), and yet
in spite of him one was sure that somehow the Church wouldn’t do,
wouldn’t meet all the requirements of this complex life. Sally had
learnt that lately, and was learning it more and more. She was proud of
having learnt it; but still, she had occasional regrets.
She made a hole in an orange, and put a lump of sugar in it and sucked
it.
“The great advantage of that way,” she explained, “is that all the juice
goes inside you, and doesn’t mess the plates or anything else. You see,
Mrs. Jones is rather old, and not fond of washing up.”
So they all made holes and put in sugar, and put the juice inside them.
Then Jane and Sally retired to exchange their cooking pinafores for
out-door things, and then they all rode to “Squibs” on the top of a bus.
They were joined at the pit door by one Billy Raymond, a friend of
theirs--a tall, tranquil young man, by trade a poet, with an attractive
smile and a sweet temper, and a gentle, kind, serenely philosophical
view of men and things that was a little like Jane’s, only more human
and virile. He attracted Eddy greatly, as his poems had already done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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