In the beginning, when they could not understand each other, they forgot it in an embrace. Later on, the weak, helpless cry of a baby in the next room was enough to remove everything from their minds and to make them run to it side by side; before they had reached the door they had grasped each other’s hands.
On this occasion each of them remained alone. The words he had spoken weighed cold on Anne’s memory; those he had kept back made her anxious. She played with her little son absent-mindedly. She fumbled idly in her work-table’s drawers. She gave that up too. She wanted to go to her husband, lean her head against his shoulders, and ask and answer till there remained nothing between them that was obscure and uncertain.
But Thomas had visitors. From the green room the voice of gentlemen reached the dining room and the smoke of their pipes pervaded the place. They talked of the reconciliation of the King and the country, of the coronation, of those who performed it, of Parliament, of great national transformations.
Since the constitution had been re-established, Illey had entered the service of the State; he worked in the Ministry of Agriculture. Anne heard him in the adjoining room make some remarks on intensive culture.
How coolly and intelligently Thomas spoke, while her own heart was still heavy and sore. Suddenly her husband’s laughter reached her ears through the closed door. Her eyebrows stiffened and straightened, as if she had been hurt....
It was about this time that Thomas Illey began to go shooting more often. His friends who owned property in the country invited him. Down there in Ille, in his swampy wood, game was plentiful. When he was free from his office he took his gun and was off. Then he came home again happy, with a sunburnt face.
In the green room arms stood in the old cupboard where Ulwing the builder used to keep his plans. Above the couch the portrait of the architects Fischer von Erlach and Mansard were replaced by English prints of hunting scenes. Cartridges were kept in the small recesses of the writing table with the many drawers. A finely wrought hunting knife lay in front of the marble clock.
Anne sometimes felt that Thomas did not love the old house or the green room or the cosy, well-padded good old furniture.
“I say, Anne, these chairs here stand round the table like fat middle-class women in the market. They hold their arms akimbo and are nearly bursting with health.”
He laughed quietly.