The hour was very still. In the west, on the faint azure, some smears of flame colour lingered; then, while he stared out, faded, and hung in the sky like curls of violet smoke. Over the myriad tints of green came the low whinny of a horse. His wife sat sewing by the table, and, turning, he watched the rhythmical movement of her hand. A passionate longing assailed him to free his tongue from the weight that hampered it and cry to her he loved her, though she might not care to hear. He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and sauntered nearer.
"Aren't you going to smoke any more?" she said.
"Not now; I've been smoking all day."
"You should try to write without."
"I ought to—but I never could."
He touched the muslin on her lap diffidently—it was on her lap.
"What are you making—another pinafore?"
"Yes. Do you think it's pretty?"
His hand lay close to her own; but she held the garment up to him, and perforce he drew back.
It was not so easy to voice emotion as to feel it. Half an hour crept away; shadows filled the room, and a grey peace brooded over the grass outside. The tones deepened, and beyond a ridge of blackened boughs the moon swam up. He decided that he would speak after supper. But after supper, when she resumed her sewing, he felt that it would be useless. He sat by the hearth, holding a paper that he did not read. Presently the landlady was heard slipping the bolt in the passage, and Cynthia pushed her basket from her, preparing to retire. With her change of position, a reel escaped and rolled to the fender. Kent had not noticed where it fell, but he became conscious, with a tremor, that she was stooping by his side. In rising, it seemed to him that her figure brushed his arm as if with a caress. She had drawn apart from him before he could do more than wonder if it had been accidental, but now he watched her with a curious intentness. She wandered about the room a little aimlessly, righting a photograph, settling a flower in a glass on the shelf. Having gathered up her work, she hesitated, and sought some books; when she had chosen them, her arms were full and she could not give him her hand.