Читать книгу The Well of Loneliness - Marguerite Radclyffe Hall - Страница 23

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It was late when they reached the stables at last, and old Williams was waiting in the yard with a lantern.

‘Did you kill?’ he inquired, according to custom; then he saw Stephen’s trophy and chuckled.

Stephen tried to spring easily out of the saddle as her father had done, but her legs seemed to fail her. To her horror and chagrin her legs hung down stiffly as though made of wood; she could not control them; and to make matters worse, Collins now grew impatient and began to walk off to his loosebox. Then Sir Philip put two strong arms around Stephen, and he lifted her bodily as though she were a baby, and he carried her, only faintly protesting, right up to the door of the house and beyond it—right up indeed, to the warm pleasant nursery where a steaming hot bath was waiting. Her head fell back and lay on his shoulder, while her eyelids drooped, heavy with well-earned sleep; she had to blink very hard several times over in order to get the better of that sleep.

‘Happy, darling?’ he whispered, and his grave face bent nearer. She could feel his cheek, rough at the end of the day, pressed against her forehead, and she loved that kind roughness, so that she put up her hand and stroked it.

‘So dreadfully, dreadfully happy, Father,’ she murmured, ‘so—dreadfully happy—’