The Duchess opened her heart, her private heart,
gaped wide. Rosalind had still to get usedto the fact that she was Mrs.
Without that world, how, Rosalind wondered, that
winter could she havelived at all?
And he waited there, flattened against the wall.
Shots rang out inthe wood under the window. The grey mist had thickened in the
carriage. But his voice was weak, as ifhe shouted against a wind. This, then, was
the truffle he had routed out of the earth!
For, he murmured, laying the palms of his hands
together, it is to bea long week-end.
She dipped her spoon in a plate of cleargolden
fluid.
He felt that these people whomhe despised made him
stand and deliver and justify himself.
Good rabbit, nice rabbit, she said, patting him, as
she used to pather tame rabbit at home.
She would waitfor ten minutes on a chair at the
counter. And he stood beneath the picture of an old lady on the mantelpiece
andraised his hands. Dalloway was married, gave parties; wasnt his sort at
all.
The butler and the footmanstood watching, like
servers at a feast. One tree waved sixgreen leaves, for it was June.
The men of our house, began Miss Rashleigh. But
even though he snored, his nose remainedperfectly still.
The grey mist had thickened in the carriage.
Another caught old Miss Rashleigh on the cheek. Certainly helooked handsome and she
looked shy. His one and only extravagance was hislittle yacht on the Norfolk Broads.
All safe, shining, cool, yetburning, eternally, with their own compressed
light.
Then the flame sank andshe stitched again. Light
faded in their eyes, too, as they satby the white ashes listening. And he went in
and shut the door of hisprivate room behind him. All the same, their territories
touched; they wereKing and Queen. Feet could be heardtrampling, yet shuffling, along
the corridor towards the gallery.
In another moment he was sound asleep and snoring.
She felt as if her body had shrunk; it had grown small, and black
andhard.
There were the wood in which they livedand the
outlying prairies and the swamp. His nose twitched veryslightly when he ate. Old
friend, he repeated, old friend, as if he licked the words.
He paused; struck a match, and twitchedagain. As
for herself, she had never even madean apple-pie bed. As for herself, she had never
even madean apple-pie bed.
He drew his cheque book towards him;he took out his
pen.