THE WINDOW

ware pot) seemed now for no special reason to
stay there like a smoke, like a fume rising upwards,
holding them safe together. Nothing need be
said; nothing could be said. There it was, all
round them. It partook, she felt, carefully
helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece,
of eternity; as she had already felt about some-
thing different once before that afternoon; there
is a coherence in things, a stability; something,
she meant, is immune from change, and shines
out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of
reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the
fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again
to-night she had the feeling she had had once
to-day already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments,
she thought, the thing is made that remains for
ever after. This would remain.

" Yes," she assured William Bankes, " there
is plenty for everybody."

" Andrew," she said, " hold your plate lower,
or I shall spill it." (The Boeuf en Daube was a
perfect triumph.) Here, she felt, putting the
<spoon down, was the still space that lies about the
Ifaeart of things, where one could move or rest;
•could wait now (they were all helped) listening;
rcould then, like a hawk which lapses suddenly
from its high station, flaunt and sink on laughter
easily, resting her whole weight upon what at the

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