The Third Window

. This view is even lovelier." She stopped at the end of the long room, and the young man with the pale face and the lim

all looked out

see what I mean

of a drawl, unimpressed, apparently, by her antipathy and putting up t

silvery; one gets the walled gar

e as a happy dream. It's all like a happy drea

e walled garden beneath to fix themselves with a rather sad attentiveness upon the head of the young woman. Her dark hair wa

so near, and his eyes on hers. She, too, was pale and tall; but all in her was soft, splendid, and almost opulent, while

if he felt any nervousness it showed itself only in the slight gesture of his forefinger passing meditatively along the e

urned. He had, appar

nce-if anything so soft could so be called-walking away to an easy-c

ly?

the window.

r reflections showing as if through a film of sea-water in the ancient mirror behind them. There had been white fritillaries among the flagged paths of the wall

repeated his former suggestion. "It would rather spoil the room. But I wouldn'

laughed, a little sadly, if

hat,

cious posing. Of induced emotions ge

hey are like the colour of a pomegranate or the taste of a mulberry or the smell of

't take it as

id I liked it in you; and if I do it

eek. It could hardly be called a response. It was merely an awareness. And after a moment she said, still with

arm as he lowered himself with some little awkwardness. He was not yet accustomed to the complicat

hough indeed their very shape-the outer corners drooping, a line of white showing under the ful

was sunny, it was sharp. On a bed of ashes the log-fire burned softly and clear

l, and the embroidery there, with tangled skeins, it was an impersonal room, an object calmly and confidently awaiting appraisal rather than a long-memoried presence, making beauty forgotten in significance. It was not a room expressive of the young woman sunken in the deep chair. Appointed elaborately as she was, in her dense or transparent blacks,

ly else unblemished fruit; her pale cheek; her childlike forehead; her hand, beautiful and indolent, with its wedding-ring. He dwelt on all these appearances with a still absorption, and whether with more delight or irony he could not have told; but it was an irony at his own expense, not at hers; for he had always been a young man aloof from appearances, tolerant yet contemptuous of their appeal, and he knew that they absorbed him now because he was in love with her, and he sometimes even wondered if he was in love with her because of them. He did not, however, wonder much. Before the war he would have computed, analyzed, perhaps done away with his

, he knew that the theme was the one to which she had intended to bring him. But it hadn't been deviously; for all her shifting shadows and eddies she was o

d you? Oh-since before Mal

e saw that, and that it hurt

guessed,"

er not! How could

o-these

than other women, then, or

ps; another evidence of that straightness in her. She was willing to smile, even though smiling

" he assured her. "Far. But

!" she exclaimed, and he

t crossed his mind, oddly, at the moment of thinking it, that this could not have been said of Antonia and Malcolm. Their relation had been that, specially, of man and woman, lover and beloved. He doubted, really, whether Antonia would have cared much about Malcolm had he not been a man and

there. I knew it for the first time when I was ordered to France; that

yes," she murmured. "I remember that day. I was horribly frightened o

been a presentiment.

m as she said: "Of course. I mean presentiment of what came after that. What had to come. Don't you

indly. "However, I don't want to talk about it,

ut now a little ironic, though irony was n

m

ike declarin

declar

like talkin

see them displayed. I quite understand that in you. Perhaps it's what's needed to bring you round. But I'm not that sort of person. I couldn

"I don't exactly miss it. I know it's there. It's merely that

ize that it's there,

ky, made a distant background to her head. Like a Renaissance portrait, sombre, serene, splendid in tone, the picture she made was before him; an allegorical

e until we married. But we visited his mother, often, and I never thought about the window then. It was only aft

ived here, hasn't she?" Ca

, I shrank, I couldn't tell why, from looking out of the third; the end one." Antonia turned herself still farther in her chair, leaning both elbows on the wide arm. "I shrank from it, yet it drew me, too. And when I yielded, and loo

tonhall nodded. "That wa

nat

ghts were full of him. The place is full

elevant. "But why the third window? Why only that one? Why not

edar tree is obviously a more suitable pl

in ghosts and ap

here's a good deal of evidence for them. But I don't believe they embody any consciousness. It's

righten you dreadfully to

t might be very

frighten me, but it would mean such rapture, too. I should kno

red, rather awkwardly. "Yes. Of course

dly expresse

ke it was still with the slight awkwardness. "But then, if that's what you ne

l again along her sides, while, sunken, extended, she seemed to abandon to him the avowal of her own perple

with a bleached face and bleached hair; a straight, old-fashioned little fringe showing under her hat. She paused at once on the

he began to fill the bowls and vases that she had evidently placed there in readiness. Her entry and her presence, which might be prolonged, were, he felt, very inopportune; yet Antonia showed no impatience of the interruption. Perhaps, indeed, Miss Latimer's presence was a relief to her, since she had really no answer to give to his rather arid and even provocative logic. It had been a little vicious of him to put it to her

all her silence, of taking everything in. Her small face, peaked and pinched rather than delicate, would have been childish, like her voice, were it not for her eyes. He reflected now, watching her move quietly among her flowers, that it was really because of her eyes he had

shallow white earthenware, the windflowers in glasses that showed their thin, rosy stems, and when Cice

lar little pers

came back to him from far distances. Or, were they far, those distan

n, did you tell

swered that first. "She's a great dear, not singular at all. Yes;

always li

you know, when they were first married, and Cicely came

d is sh

er secure youth computed. "She was older, a g

l in mourni

h an added sadness. "It's not yet two years, Bevis. An

xpect a cousin to wear mourning as long as a widow.

hing. He told her all about me when he first

on living w

f it as the trees and hills. She came to me at once, all the same, after everything happened, and said she would perfectly understand if I would rather start anew, quite by myself. There wasn't a quaver or an appeal. She was, I saw, quite ready. She is the sort of person who is

igarette-case. "It's lucky you are so much attach

eas

"You can't give yourself these luxuries of convention," she smiled, rather as if at an unruly patient. "You must let me wait

unsteady fingers, leaned still nearer to light his cigarette from hers. But, gently, he laid his

ought an element of mirth into their gravity she sought no refuge in it. Half leaning, half kneeling beside him, she made no attempt to draw away and

I do. You love me." He had laid his hold again

u must let me wait. Y

but go on waiting. I'm ready for it. But

cruel. Please beli

day after day, month after month, as I did in London. I understand it all. You keep him like that, and

. Yet-no, that's not all there is to it. Give me time to think. I told you that I should think

you if you didn't. You'll go on loving him. And it will hurt sometimes. It will hurt me, too. People are made up of these irreconcilable knots. It can't be helped. We're here in life together, and we belong to each other, and there's nothing

ardour of his conviction, he saw his light flash back to him from her, so that dropping his hands from her

ed, aghast, yet, in her yiel

stood for a moment, while he saw that the colour bathed her face and neck. Then he saw that the tears rained down. He had, strangely,

Tony-fo

pt, "it's no

t ask me to regre

t," she repeated. And she b

had drawn himself up in his

give you. I can'

t as bad. M

'll try to think. I'll try to unders

ad not turned her face to him again. "Don