the men. I paid her little compliments, which she did not seem to hear.
She attended to me with a kind of sinister, witch-like gracious-ness,
her dark head ducked between her shoulders, at once humble and powerful.
She was happy as a child attending to her father-in-law and to me. But
there was something ominous between her eyebrows, as if a dark moth were
settled there--and something ominous in her bent, hulking bearing.

She sat on a low stool by the fire, near her father-in-law. Her head
was dropped, she seemed in a state of abstraction. From time to time she
would suddenly recover, and look up at us, laughing and chatting. Then
she would forget again. Yet in her hulked black forgetting she seemed
very near to us.

The door having been opened, the peacock came slowly in, prancing
calmly. He went near to her, and crouched down, coiling his blue neck.
She glanced at him, but almost as if she did not observe him. The bird
sat silent, seeming to sleep, and the woman also sat huddled and silent,
seeming oblivious. Then once more there was a heavy step, and Alfred
entered. He looked at his wife, and he looked at the peacock crouching
by her. He stood large in the doorway, his hands stuck in front of him,
in his breeches pockets. Nobody spoke. He turned on his heel and went
out again.

I rose also to go. Maggie started as if coming to herself.

"Must you go?" she asked, rising and coming near to me, standing in
front of me, twisting her head sideways and looking up at me. "Can't
you stop a bit longer? We can all be cosy to-day, there's nothing to
do outdoors." And she laughed, showing her teeth oddly. She had a long
chin.

I said I must go. The peacock uncoiled and coiled again his long blue
neck as he lay on the hearth. Maggie still stood close in front of me,
so that I was acutely aware of my waistcoat buttons.

"Oh, well," she said, "you'll come again, won't you? Do come again."

I promised.

"Come to tea one day--yes, do!"

I promised--one day.

The moment I was out of her presence I ceased utterly to exist for
her--as utterly as I ceased to exist for Joey. With her curious
abstractedness she forgot me again immediately. I knew it as I left her.
Yet she seemed almost in physical contact with me while I was with her.

The sky was all pallid again, yellowish. When I went out there was no
sun; the snow was blue and cold. I hurried away down the hill, musing on
Maggie. The road made a loop down the sharp face