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She went down the road with a bale of art muslin over her shoulder and carrying a small bronze table-lamp with a pink silk shade. The bright bunchy green heads of the little lopped acacia trees bobbed against their background of red brick villa as she walked ... little moving green lampshades for Harriett’s life; they were like Harriett; like her delicate laughter and absurdity. The sounds of the footsteps of passers-by made her rejoice more keenly in her burdens. She felt herself a procession of sacred emblems, in the sunshine. The sunshine streamed about her from an immense height of blue sky. The sky had never been so high as it was above Harriett’s green acacias. It had gone soaring up to-day for them all; their sky.
That eldest Wheeler girl, going off to India, to marry a divorced man. Julia seemed to think it did not matter if she were happy. How could she be happy?... Coming home from the “Second Mrs. Tanqueray” Bennett had asked Sarah if she would have married a man with a past ... it was not only that his studies had kept him straight. It was himself ... and Gerald too. It was ... there were two kinds of men. You could tell them at a glance. Life was clean and fresh for Sarah and Harriett.... There were two kinds of people. Most of the people who were going about ought to be shut up, somehow, in prison.