She dozed a little, she read a little, or lying on the comfortable sofa she let her thoughts wander.
She reflected on the part she was playing and the favourite parts she had played in the past.
She thought of Roger her son.
Pleasant reveries sauntered through her mind like lovers wandering in a green wood.
She was fond of French poetry, and sometimes she repeated to herself verses of Verlaine.
Punctually at half-past five Evie brought her in a card.
‘Mr Thomas Fennell’, she read.
‘Send him in and bring some tea.’
She had decided how she was going to treat him.
She would be amiable, but distant.
She would take a friendly interest in his work and ask him about his examination.
Then she would talk to him about Roger.
Roger was seventeen now and in a year would be going to Cambridge.
She would insinuate the fact that she was old enough to be his mother.
She would act as if there had never been anything between them and he would go away, never to see her again except across the footlights, half convinced that the whole thing had been a figment of his fancy.
But when she saw him, so slight, with his hectic flush and his blue eyes, so charmingly boyish, she felt a sudden pang.
Evie closed the door behind him.
She was lying on the sofa and she stretched out her arm to give him her hand, the gracious smile of Madame R?camier on her lips, but he flung himself on his knees and passionately kissed her mouth.
She could not help herself, she put her arms round his neck, and kissed him as passionately. (‘Oh, my good resolutions. My God, I can’t have fallen in love with him.’)
‘For goodness’ sake, sit down.
Evie’s coming in with the tea.’
‘Tell her not to disturb us.’
‘What do you mean?’
But what he meant was obvious.
Her heart began to beat quickly.
‘It’s ridiculous.
I can’t.
Michael might come in.’
‘I want you.’
‘What d’you suppose Evie would think?
It’d be idiotic to take such a risk.
No, no, no.’
There was a knock at the door and Evie came in with the tea.
Julia gave her instructions to put the table by the side of her sofa and a chair for the young man on the other side of the table.
She kept Evie with unnecessary conversation. She felt him looking at her.
His eyes moved quickly, following her gestures and the expression of her face; she avoided them, but she felt their anxiety and the eagerness of his desire.
She was troubled.
It seemed to her that her voice did not sound quite natural. (‘What the devil’s the matter with me? God, I can hardly breathe.’) When Evie reached the door the boy made a gesture that was so instinctive that her sensitiveness rather than her sight caught it. She could not but look at him.
His face had gone quite pale.
‘Oh, Evie,’ she said. ‘This gentleman wants to talk to me about a play.
See that no one disturbs me.
I’ll ring when I want you.’
‘Very good, miss.’
Evie went out and closed the door. (‘I’m a fool.
I’m a bloody fool.’) But he had moved the table, and he was on his knees, and she was in his arms.
She sent him away a little before Miss Phillips was due, and when he was gone rang for Evie.
‘Play any good?’ asked Evie.
‘What play?’
‘The play ’e was talkin’to you abaht.’
‘He’s clever.