because she knew it made him happy, she
would take off her hat and release the shimmer of her silvery gold hair,
a halo made of sunshine and moonlight, inextricably interwoven. She
always gave him a feeling of gold and silver and luminous whiteness, a
steady radiance that illuminated without blinding. And perhaps she would
sink her head back into a cushion and shut her eyes with a little
grateful sigh to these moments of respite, and he would watch her, proud
beyond measure to be able to give her these little patches of peace. And
between them there would be a fullness of silence. Sometimes she would
talk a little with a low, clear, echoless voice like a note without a
pedal. A still voice--monotonous, people called it--with almost
imperceptible modulations which seemed gradually deeply significant as
your ear became attuned to them, like a dim room in which you are able
to see everything when your eye is accustomed to the light.

It was one of the altogether satisfying things about her, this abundant
treasure of intimacy which could not be guessed at or even suspected by
the ordinary passer-by. "That is the woman with the lovely hair? I never
know what to talk to her about," he had heard people say, and
exultantly, reverently, he had pressed her image to his heart. She never
talked much. Seeing her in imagination to-day, he saw her leaning back,
everything about her drooping and relaxed, her arms, her hands, her
feet--they had all abdicated--only from the depths of her infinite
tiredness she was smiling faintly and her smile was the dedication of
this moment to him. Every now and then she would ask him a question and
he would answer--rather shortly--or she would make a statement which he
would seal with a monosyllable. There were never any comments between
them. In the absoluteness of their understanding, explanations and
amplifications had become impossible.

And she would get up slowly, giving herself a little shake to wake
herself up into reality while he gave her her hat, her hat-pins, her
veil, her gloves, her bag, one by one, and taking her hands, he would
kiss them first on the backs and then on the palms and then give them
too back to her.

And she would say, "Thank you," and look slowly all round the room, as
she always did, wanting to take it away with her without one detail
missing, for it was to this room that her soul retreated in its moments
of unbearable loneliness.

With difficulty, she would make h