He sat very still wondering how the devil they were to go on without explosions now that they had put the spark to the powder. He had a fierce craving to carry her out to the launch and take her home with him.
Presently her eyes fell on the neglected proofs. They stimulated her to come back to earth and the compelling present.
“You must go, please. I have an hour’s work at least, and it cannot wait till the morning. I should have let Jimmy stay.”
“I’m Jimmy for the rest of the evening. Yes, come on, dear. I’ll read them with you. No, you must not look at me like that. I can’t stand it. What the devil do you think a man is? If I’m to stay good you’ve got to be an angel too.”
And then Valerie laughed.
And never in the history of spring show catalogues were dull pages of entries for sheep and cattle, and dairy produce and vegetables, and home-made cakes and jams and fancy-work treated with such alternate absorption and indifference as they were in the office of the News that night. And it must be confessed that the resolutions with which they began the proof-reading suffered considerably from lack of nourishment in the following hour. But with each pause, with each kiss, with each wondering gaze eye to eye they grew gayer, and laughed more at themselves and each other. Without putting it into words they took this evening as they felt it knowing they would come to sober ways upon the morrow.
It was nearly eleven when they finished the proofs. Valerie looked at her watch, and thought again of Bob, and wondered with a little catch at her breath if he were still upon the earth. And she had a sudden revulsion of feeling against the mad happiness of the last hour.
