“It is.”
“I suppose it is. But I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m married. I can’t believe Prissie’s ill. It doesn’t seem real with you sitting there.”
“Nothing’s changed, Robin, except that you’re more serious.”
“Nothing’s changed, except that I’m more serious than ever.... Do you still do the same things? Do you still sit in the curly chair, holding your work up to your chin with your little pointed hands like a squirrel? Do you still see the same people?”
“I don’t make new friends, Robin.”
He seemed to settle down after that, smiling at his own thoughts, appeased....
Lying in her bed in the spare room, Harriett heard the opening and shutting of Robin’s door. She still thought of Prissie’s paralysis as separating them, still felt inside her a secret, unacknowledged satisfaction. Poor little Prissie. How terrible. Her pity for Priscilla went through and through her in wave after wave. Her pity was sad and beautiful and at the same time it appeased her pain.
In the morning Priscilla told her about her illness. The doctors didn’t understand it. She ought to have had a stroke and she hadn’t had one. There was no reason why she shouldn’t walk except that she couldn’t. It seemed to give her pleasure to go over it, from her first turning round and round in the street (with helpless, shaking laughter at the queerness of it), to the moment when Robin bought her the wheel chair.... Robin ... Robin ...
“I minded most because of Robin. It’s such an awful illness, Hatty. I can’t move when I’m in bed. Robin has to get up and turn me a dozen times in one night.... Robin’s a perfect saint. He does everything for me.” Prissie’s voice and her face softened and thickened with voluptuous content.
“... Do you know, Hatty, I had a little baby. It died the day it was born.... Perhaps some day I shall have another.”