Scandal: A Novel

“April had come over the hill. And when Franklin crossed the road from the golf course vaulted the low wall of his garden and went up the path that was lined with regiments of crocuses he might have seen many changes made by long soft hours of sun and new born hope. But he was in no mood for these things. All he saw was the picture that he carried in his mind all day and for many days and which had flung him into tortures of anxiety being a man who knew nothing of women. Lying in one cane chair with her feet on another an unread book in her lap and a new light in her eyes was the girl whom he loved beyond the interpretation of words and was in terror about because she was going to have a baby. Of all girls this one sitting still in deliberate loneliness with her feet on a chair her face turned up to an early star and a smile on her lips that he had never seen before. Of all girls this one whose young slim beauty had enchanted his heart whose restless energy had been sufficient to turn a mill and drive the engines of a ship devise a hundred forms of dare deviltry and bring a horse home quivering with fatigue. Of all girls Beatrix sitting alone with her eyes on a star and that smile on her lips…and her feet on a chair. She turned sensing him and his love and waved her hand. And with a sort of stumble he went up and knelt at her side with his head in her lap. Oh God he said knowing nothing of women what have I done to you? What brutes men are. And she put her lips to his hair and laughed.�