THE WINDOW

turned with a sigh and said, " Would it bore you
to come with me, Mr. Tansley? "

She had a dull errand in the town; she had a
letter or two to write; she would be ten minutes
perhaps; she would put on her hat. And, with
her basket and her parasol, there she was again,
ten minutes later, giving out a sense of being
ready, of being equipped for a jaunt, which, how-
ever, she must interrupt for a moment, as they
passed the tennis lawn, to ask Mr. Carmichael,
who was basking with his yellow cat's eyes ajar,
so that like a cat's they seemed to reflect the
branches moving or the clouds passing, but to
give no inkling of any inner thoughts or emotion
whatsoever, if he wanted anything.

For they were making the great expedition,
she said, laughing. They were going to the
town. " Stamps, writing-paper, tobacco? " she
suggested, stopping by his side. But no, he
wanted nothing. His hands clasped themselves
over his capacious paunch, his eyes blinked, as
if he would have liked to reply kindly to these
blandishments (she was seductive but a little
nervous) but could not, sunk as he was in a grey-
green somnolence which embraced them all3
without need of words, in a vast and benevolent
lethargy of well-wishing; all the house; all the
world; all the people in it, for he had slipped into

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