“Dear, even the past is drawn into the dark design of an event that sweeps us. Philip was rich——?”
“I know.” She did not like my reasoning. “I am dazed. I want to go to bed ... and to sleep. Leave me, John.”
Still her eyes kept from my own. She had been glorious in my need of her. Now shattered and distraught with the shadow on her fragrance, she was almost ugly. Her arms were thin as she twisted her hands together and her neck was long: and her eyes drooped heavy down.
—Why is she ugly? I did not love her less. The ugliness I felt was a pain added to the joy of loving her. And then, a dim sense came. It was to grow ever less dim.—She is befouled with a thought! And that thought is my own. She has been fair like a dawn with the dawn of my love and now my thought clouds her.
—Why is she dark? Because this murder will concern me!... So much I knew an instant, and forgot. I left her.
e
I AM home. The lamp reveals my study, sharp: a changeling! White curtains in the deep-set latticed windows, shelves of books, the couch right angle to the open hearth, the low gray ceiling ... nothing is moved yet everything is changed. A glow like fever hushes in the shadow, the dull familiar things swell with vibrance into a dimension new like an omen.
I sit down, carefully folding my coat.—No wonder. What a shock! What a night. I huddle in my dressing gown and greet the smoke of my pipe.—No wonder. I take my book.
—Better read.
Above my shoulder, as I sit with the lamp close on the plain pine table is a separate shelf: books on astrology. The book I hold is bound in ivory parchment, cracked: the Gothic type stands bold on the soft paper.