CHAPTER XXII
1
Sorrell was lying in a punt on a luxurious superfluity of red and blue cushions, his grey hat placed carefully beside him, a good cigar sending its perfume and blue smoke upwards into the trailing foliage of a weeping willow. The punt, propelled by Kit who sat and dipped a lazy paddle, had glided in under the willow and come to rest there. The evening was very warm and still; the soft sheen of the river between the bridges reflected many other punts and splashes of colour, reminding Sorrell of those brilliant and quaint little mosaics made of flower petals pressed upon brown paper under a piece of glass which a country girl had taught him to arrange with his childish fingers. He had dined in hall with Christopher. Like Calverley he felt that fate could not touch him. He lo
