"Why should you both have made a mystery
of that?"
"I've told you the idea was not mine." He cast about. "She
may have been afraid that Owen----"
"But that was not a reason for her asking you to tell me
that you hardly knew her--that you hadn't even seen her for
years." She broke off and the blood rose to her face and
forehead. "Even if SHE had other reasons, there could
be only one reason for your obeying her----"
Silence fell between them, a silence in which the room
seemed to become suddenly resonant with voices. Darrow's
gaze wandered to the window and he noticed that the gale of
two days before had nearly stripped the tops of the lime-
trees in the court. Anna had moved away and was resting her
elbows against the mantel-piece, her head in her hands. As
she stood there he took in with a new intensity of vision
little details of her appearance that his eyes had often
cherished: the branching blue veins in the backs of her
hands, the warm shadow that her hair cast on her ear, and
the colour of the hair itself, dull black with a tawny
under-surface, like the wings of certain birds. He felt it
to be useless to speak.
After a while she lifted her head and said: "I shall not see
her again before she goes."
He made no answer, and turning to him she added: "That is
why she's going, I suppose? Because she loves you and won't
give you up?"
Darrow waited.
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