Then he looked at her: the pointed arch her mouth went into when she smiled; the beautiful oval teeth, the dark, rather weary eyes, for the moment a tender, slightly quizzical smile lurking in their corners ... oh! he wanted this creature for his own; he _must_ get her.
“What about this thing you’re writing?” he asked with a little gulp.
“Concha said you were writing something. What is it ... a ‘strong’ novel?”
“Oh, no!” and she shrank back, as if he had threatened to strike her.
“Of course it must be acted; it’s _much_ better than having to struggle with publishers, that’s the devil—cracking one’s knuckles against the Bodley Head, tilting with Mr. Heinemann’s Windmill, foundering in Mr. Murray’s Ship ... it’s....”
“But nothing would induce me to have it either published or acted. It’s just for myself.”
“Oh, but you’ll change your mind when it’s finished—it’s biological, one can’t help it; the act of parturition isn’t complete till the thing is published or produced—you’ll see. I was up at Cambridge with the chap who has started this company of strolling players—they’re very ‘cultured’ and ‘pure’ and all that sort of thing, but they don’t act badly. If you send it to him, I’ll tell him he must produce it. They might come and do it here—on the lawn.”
“No! no! no!” she cried in terror, “I couldn’t bear it. I don’t want it acted at all.”
He looked at her, a little impishly: “You mark my words, it _will_ be acted ... here on the lawn.”
It was the eve of Concha’s wedding; the house was full, and overflowing into Rudge’s cottage, into Rendall’s cottage, and into the houses of neighbours: there were Guy and his parents, Sir Roger and Lady Cust, there was Colonel Dundas, there was “Crippin” Arbuthnot, Rory’s major who was to be best man, and Elfrida Penn, who was to be chief bridesmaid, and Harry Sinclair and his children, and Hugh Mallam and Dick’s cousin and partner, Edward Lane.
A wedding is a _thing_—as concrete and compact as a gold coin stamped with a date and a symbol; for, though of the substance of Time, it has the qualities of Matter; colour, shape, tangibleness. Or rather, perhaps it freezes Time into the semblance of Eternity, but does not rob it of its colours: these it keeps as Morris’s gods did theirs in the moonlight.