Джорджетт Хейер - A Civil Contract

She felt his hand lightly stroking her hair, and lifted her head. He was looking gravely at her, aware that she was troubled, yet not wholly understanding the cause. She gave him a hug, smiling reassuringly at him. She thought, and was comforted, that though she was not the wife of his dreams it was with her, not with Julia, that he shared life’s little, foolish jokes. Her eyes narrowed, twinkling, as she disclosed the latest of these to him.

“I wouldn’t tell you till we were alone, but your mama writes that it is exactly as she foretold!”

The hint of anxiety in his face disappeared. Amusement took its place; he exclaimed appreciatively: “Charlotte’s child favours Lambert!”

She nodded, chuckling. “Yes, and she says the poor little thing is positively gross, and quite undistinguished, besides having, already, a — a decided air of self-consequence!”

He gave a shout of laughter; and the pain in her heart was eased. After all, life was not made up of moments of exaltation, but of quite ordinary, everyday things. The vision of the shining, inaccessible peaks vanished; Jenny remembered two pieces of domestic news, and told Adam about them. They were not very romantic, but they were really much more important than grand passions or blighted loves: Giles Jonathan had cut his first tooth, and Adam’s best cow had given birth to a fine heifer-calf.