THE WINDOW

little boy would be less well grown than
James.

" It's too short," she said, " ever so much
too short."

Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and
black, half-way down, in the darkness, in the shaft
which ran from the sunlight to the depths, perhaps
a tear formed; a tear fell; the waters swayed this
way and that, received it, and were at rest. Never
did anybody look so sad.

But was it nothing but looks ? people said.
What was there behind it—her beauty, her
splendour? Had he blown his brains out, they
asked, had he died the week before they were
married—some other, earlier lover, of whom
rumours reached one? Or was there nothing?
nothing but an incomparable beauty which she
lived behind, and could do nothing to disturb?
For easily though she might have said at some
moment of intimacy when stories of great passion,
of love foiled, of ambition thwarted came her
way how she too had known or felt or been
through it herself, she never spoke. She was
silent always. She knew then—she knew without
having learnt. Her simplicity fathomed what
clever people falsified. Her singleness of mind
made her drop plumb like a stone, alight exact as
a bird, gave hers naturally, this swoop and fall of
D 49