were not _alive_ as they had been alive when
they had clung to each other, there on that age-old rock, and felt the
tide of all the ages lift them high.

It must have been ebbing for a long time before she realized it because,
hurried, absorbed, surrounded incessantly by small cares as she was,
hustled and jostled in her role of mother and mistress-of-the-house in
servantless America, with the primitive American need to do so much with
her own hands, she had not even had the time to know the stupid, tragic
thing that was happening to her . . . that she was turning into a slow,
vegetating plant instead of a human being. And now she understood the
meaning of the strange dejection she had felt the day when little Mark
went off to school with the others. How curiously jaded and apprehensive
she had felt that morning, and when she had gone downstairs to see the
callers who arrived that day. That was the first time she had _felt_
that the tide was ebbing.

All this went through her mind with the cruel swiftness of a
sword-flash. And the first reaction to it, involuntary and reflex, was
to crush it instantly down, lest the man walking at her side should be
aware of it. It had come to her with such loud precision that it seemed
it must have been audible.

As she found herself still on the dark country road, cloaked and
protected by the blackness of the starless night, she was struck with
wonder, as though she had never thought of it before, at the human body,
its opaque, inscrutable mystery, the locked, sealed strong-box of
unimaginable secrets which it is. There they were, the three of them,
stepping side by side, brushing each other as they moved; and as remote
from each other as though they were on different stars. What were the
thoughts, powerful, complex, under perfect control, which were being
marshaled in that round, dark head? She felt a little afraid to think;
and turned from the idea to the other man with relief. She knew (she
told herself) as though she saw inside, the tired, gentle, simple,
wistful thoughts that filled the white head on her other side.

With this, they were again at the house, where the children and Toucle
had preceded them. Paul was laughing and saying, "Elly's the looniest
kid! She's just been saying that Father is like . . ." Elly, in a panic,
sprang up at him, clapping her hand over his mouth, crying out, "No,
Paul, you shan't tell! _Don't!_"

The older, stronger child pulled himself away