I paid her little compliments, which she did not seem to hear. She
attended to me with a kind of sinister, witch-like graciousness, her dark
head ducked between her shoulders, at once humble and powerful. She was
happy as a child attending to her father-in-law and to me. But there was
something ominous between her eyebrows, as if a dark moth were settled
there--and something ominous in her bent, hulking bearing.
She sat on a low stool by the fire, near her father-in-law. Her head was
dropped, she seemed in a state of abstraction. From time to time she
would suddenly recover, and look up at us, laughing and chatting. Then
she would forget again. Yet in her hulked black forgetting she seemed
very near to us.
The door having been opened, the peacock came slowly in, prancing calmly.
He went near to her and crouched down, coiling his blue neck. She glanced
at him, but almost as if she did not observe him. The bird sat silent,
seeming to sleep, and the woman also sat hulked and silent, seemingly
oblivious. Then once more there was a heavy step, and Alfred entered. He
looked at his wife, and he looked at the peacock crouching by her. He
stood large in the doorway, his hands stuck in front of him, in his
breeches pockets. Nobody spoke. He turned on his heel and went out again.
I rose also to go. Maggie started as if coming to herself.
'Must you go?' she asked, rising and coming near to me, standing in front
of me, twisting her head sideways and looking up at me.
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