Slide to View Image: Opacity 0%
 
THE WINDOWillumination in to his heart, Bankes had thoughtit, which showed his simplicity, his sympathywith humble things; but it seemed to him asif their friendship had ceased, there, on that stretchof road. After that, Ramsay had married. Afterthat, what with one thing and another, the pulphad gone out of their friendship. Whose fault it washe could not say, only, after a time, repetition hadtaken the place of newness. It was to repeat thatthey met. But in this dumb colloquy with the sanddunes he maintained that his affection for Ramsayhad in no way diminished; but there, like the bodyof a young man laid up in peat for a century, withthe red fresh on his lips, was his friendship, in itsacuteness and reality, laid up across the bay amongthe sandhills.

He was anxious for the sake of this friendship andperhaps too in order to clear himself in his own mindfrom the imputation of having dried and shrunk—for Ramsay lived in a welter of children, whereasBankes was childless and a widower—he wasanxious that Lily Briscoe should not disparage Ram-say (a great man in his own way) yet should under-stand how things stood between them. Begun longyears ago, their friendship had petered out on aWestmorland road, where the hen spread her wingsbefore her chicks; after which Ramsay had married,35