Explore "Colin" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Colin was lying on the beach of the men's bathing-place at Capri after an hour's swim. A great wave of heat had swept over Europe, and now, though it was late in October, the conditions of summer still prevailed. It might have been June still, and he here with his father, quietly making the plans that had turned out so well. On this beach it was that he lay, pondering his reply to Violet's letter which told him she was engaged to Raymond. He had thought out his reply here, that congratulatory reply, saying how delightful her news was, and as for feeling hurt. That had been a thorn to Violet, which had pricked and stung her, as she had confessed. She had confessed it to him between dusk and dawn on their marriage-night.
He knew all about it; that casual kiss in the dusk of the yew-hedge the night before he and his father left for Italy had begun it; his indifference to her had made her ache, and his arrival back in England had made the ache intolerable. To be mistress at Stanier had become worthless to her, and to reward her sense of its worthlessness, had come the news that she would not be that only.