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Being really happy or really miserable makes people like you and like being with you. They need not know the cause. Someone will speak now, in a moment.... Miriam tried to return to the falling rain, the soft light in it, the soft light on the greenery, the intense green glow everywhere ... misty green glow. But her eyes fell and her thoughts went on. They would have seen. Her face must be speaking of their niceness in coming out on the dull day so that she might drive about once more in Lord Lansdowne’s estate. Someone will speak. Perhaps they had not found forgetfulness in the green through the rain under the grey. Moments came suddenly in the lanes between the hedges, like that moment that always came where the lane ran up and turned and the fields spread out in the distance. But usually you could not forget the chaise and the donkey and the people. In here amongst the green something always came at once and stayed. Perhaps they did not find it so, or did not know they found it, because of their thoughts about the “fine estate.” They seemed quite easy driving in the lanes, as easy as they ever seemed when one could not forget them. What were they doing when one forgot them? They knew one liked some things better than others; or suddenly liked everything very much indeed ... she said you were apathetic ... what does that mean ... what did she mean ... with her one could see nothing and sat waiting ... I said I don’t think so, I don’t think she is apathetic at all. Then they understood when one sat in a heap.... They had been pleased this morning because of one’s misery at going away. They did not know of the wild happiness in the garden before breakfast nor that the garden had been so lovely because the strain of the visit was over, and London was coming. They did not know that the happiness of being in amongst the greenery to-day, pouring out one’s heart in farewell to the great trees had grown so intense because the feeling of London and freedom was there. They could not see the long rich winter, the lectures and books, out of which something was coming....
“It’s a pity the rain came.”
Ah no, that is not rain. It is not raining. What is ‘raining’? What do people think when they say these things?
“We are like daisies, drenched in dew.” She pursed up her face towards the sky.
They laughed and silence came again. Heavy and happy.