CHAPTER XXIIThey were drinking coffee after lunch in the vivid mauve and primrose room, when the telegram came.
Heavy woolly flakes of snow crept through the grey air, pressed themselves against the window-pane, and vanished into moisture.
The leafless trees of Kensington Gardens, black and bare, cut queer zigzags into the sky, holding squares and oblongs of pasty light between their tortured branches.
A flock of crocuses, orange and purple in a row of window boxes, caught Jean's eyes with relief. London, its slush and grease, its dull tumult and nipt ungracious air, had not touched the crocuses--all the spring shone in their lifted cups. Jean's eyes met Reggie's across the flowers and she put the telegram unopened into his hand. She didn't need to read it to know what it contained.
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