Marion's faces. "Where?"
asked Poppy. It was the first time she had spoken directly to Ellen.
"There! There! Among the cushions," she answered, and rose and went
round the table to pick it up herself. Richard came and helped her.

Roger seemed a little annoyed when Richard and Ellen found the cap for
him among the cushions. Having to thank them spoiled, it could be seen,
some valedictory effect which he had planned. He stood by while they
shook hands with Poppy, who turned her head away as if to hide some
scar, and when she had gone across to Marion tried to get in his
designed tremendousness. By the working of his face, which made even
his ears move a little, they knew they must endure something very
characteristic of him. But into his weak eyes there bubbled a spring of
joyful tenderness so bright, so clear, so intense that, though it would
have seemed more fitting on the face of a child than of a man, it yet
was dignified.

"You make a handsome couple, you two!" he said.

"Richard, you're a whole lot taller than me. When I'm away from you I
forget what a difference there is between us. And the young lady, she's
fine, too."

"Come on! Come on!" said Poppy from the door.

He drew wistfully away from them. "I do hope you both come to Jesus," he
murmured, and smiled sweetly over his shoulder. "Yes, Poppy, I'm quite
ready. Why, you aren't cross with me over anything, are you, dear? Well,
good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Roger. And we'll come to the meeting. I'll let you out
myself, my dears."

Very pleased that she and Richard were at last alone together, Ellen sat
down on one of the armchairs at the hearth and smiled up at him. But he
would not come to her. He smiled back through the closed visor of an
overmastering preoccupation, and moved past her to the fireplace and
stood with his elbow on one end of the mantelpiece, listening to the
sounds that came in from the parlour through the half-open door:
Marion's urbane voice, thin and smooth like a stretched membrane, the
click of the front-door handle, the last mounting squeal from Roger,
which was cut short by a gruff whine from Poppy, and, loudest of all,
the silence that fell after the banging of the door. They heard the turn
of the electric switch. Marion must be standing out there in the dark.
But Ellen doubted that even if he had been with her in soul as in body,
and had spoken to her the words she wished, she could have answered him
as she ought, for a part