THE WINDOWrestful! All the odds and ends of the day stuck to thismagnet; her mind felt swept, felt clean. And thenthere it was, suddenly entire shaped in her hands,beautiful and reasonable, clear and complete, theessence sucked out of life and held rounded here —the sonnet.

But she was becoming conscious of her husband look-ing at her. He was smiling at her, quizzically, as if hewere ridiculing her gently for being asleep in broaddaylight, but at the same time he was thinking, Go onreading. You don’t look sad now, he thought. Andhe wondered what she was reading, and exaggeratedher ignorance, her simplicity, for he liked to thinkthat she was not clever, not book-learned at all. Hewondered if she understood what she was reading.Probably not, he thought. She was astonishingly beau-tiful. Her beauty seemed to him, if that were possible,to increase.Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,As with your shadow I with these did play,she finished.

‘Well?’ she said, echoing his smile dreamily, look-ing up from her book.As with your shadow I with these did play,she murmured putting the book on the table.

What had happened she wondered, as she took upher knitting, since she had last seen him alone? Sheremembered dressing, and seeing the moon; Andrewholding his plate too high at dinner; being depressedby something William had said; the birds in the trees;the sofa on the landing; the children being awake;143
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