"I was just by Sharps' when I remembered that I'd said nothing to Nixon
about those extra seats at the back off the nave, so I had to go all the
way round----"
Joan came in. His especial need of some one that night, rejected as it had
been at once by his wife, turned to his daughter. How pretty she was, he
thought, as she came across the room sunlit with the deep evening gold
that struck in long paths of light into the darkest shadows and corners.
That moment seemed suddenly the culmination of the advance that they had
been making towards one another during the last six months. When she came
close to him, he, usually so unobservant, noticed that she, too, was in
distress.
She was smiling but she was unhappy, and he suddenly felt that he had been
neglecting her and letting her fight her battles alone, and that she
needed his love as urgently as he needed hers. He put his arm around her
and drew her to him. The movement was so unlike him and so unexpected that
she hesitated a little, then happily came closer to him, resting her head
on his shoulder. They had both, for a moment, forgotten Mrs.
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