She stood at the five roads, swinging her stick, undecided.
The long line of the beeches drew her, their heads bowed to the north as the south wind had driven them. The blue-white road drew her, rising, dipping and rising; between broad green borders under grey walls.
She walked. She could feel joy breaking loose in her again, beating up and up, provoked and appeased by the strong, quick movement of her body. The joy she had gone to her lover for, the pure joy he couldn't give her, coming back out of the time before she knew him.
Nothing mattered when your body was light and hard and you could feel the ripple and thrill of the muscles in your stride.
She wouldn't have to think of him again. She wouldn't have to think of any other man. She didn't want any more of that again, ever. She could go on and on like this, by herself, without even Gwinnie; not caring a damn.
If she had been cruel—if she had wanted to hurt Effie. She hadn't meant to hurt her.
She thought of things. Places she had been happy in. She loved the high open country. Fancy sitting with Gibson in his stuffy office, day after day, for five years. Fancy going to Glasgow with him. Glasgow—
No. No.
She thought: "I can pretend it didn't happen. Nothing's happened. I'm myself. The same me I was before."
Suddenly she stood still. On the top of the ridge the whole sky opened, throbbing with light, immense as the sky above a plain. Hills—thousands of hills. Thousands of smooth curves joining and parting, overlapping, rolling together.