Mrs. Brandon said nothing. She had made in herself the horrible discovery, after reading Falk's letter, that her thoughts were not upon Falk at all, but upon Morris. Falk had flouted her; not only had he not wanted her, but he had gone off with a common girl of the town. She had suddenly no tenderness for him, no anger against him, no thought of him except that his action had removed the last link that held her.
She was gazing now at Morris with all her eyes. Her brain was fastened upon him with an intensity sufficient almost to draw him, hypnotised, there to her feet. Her husband, her home, Polchester, these things were like dim shadows.
"So you will do nothing?" she said.
"I must wait," he said, "I know that when I act hastily I act badly...." He paused, looked at her doubtfully, then with great hesitation went on: "We are together in this, Amy. I've been--I've been--thinking of myself and my work perhaps too much in the past. We've got to see this through together."
"Yes," she answered, "together." But she was thinking of Morris.
Chapter VIII
The Wind Flies Over the House
Later, that day, she went from the house. It was a strange evening. Two different weathers seemed to have met over the Polchester streets. First there was the deep serene beauty of the May day, pale blue faintly fading into the palest yellow, the world lying like an enchanted spirit asleep within a glass bell, reflecting the light from the shining surface that enfolded it. In this light houses, grass, cobbles lay as though stained by a painter's brush, bright colours like the dazzling pigment of a wooden toy, glittering under the shining sky.
This was a normal enough evening for the Polchester May, but across it, shivering it into fragments, broke a stormy and blustering wind, a wind that belonged to stormy January days, cold and violent, with the hint of rain in its murmuring voice. It tore through the town, sometimes carrying hurried and, as it seemed, terrified clouds with it; for a while the May light would be hidden, the air would be chill, a few drops like flashes of glass would fall, gleaming against the bright colours--then suddenly the sky would be again unchallenged blue, there would be no cloud on the horizon, only the pavements would glitter as though reflecting a glassy dome. Sometimes it would be more than one cloud that the wind would carry on its track--a company of clouds; they would appear suddenly above the horizon, like white-faced giants peering over the world's rim, then in a huddled confusion they would gather together, then start their flight, separating, joining, merging, dwindling and expanding, swallowing up the blue, threatening to encompass the pale saffron of the lower sky, then vanishing with incredible swiftness, leaving warmth and colour in their train.
Amy Brandon did not see the enchanted town. She heard, as she left the house, the clocks striking half-past six. Some regular subconscious self, working with its accustomed daily duty, murmured to her that to-night her husband was dining at the Conservative Club and Joan was staying on to supper at the Sampsons' after the opening tennis party of the season. No one would need her--as so often in the past no one had needed her. But it was her unconscious self that whispered this to her; in the wild stream into whose current during these last strange months she had flung herself she was carried along she knew not, she cared not, whither.