'Can't you stop a
bit longer? We can all be cosy today, there's nothing to do outdoors.'
And she laughed, showing her teeth oddly. She had a long chin.
I said I must go. The peacock uncoiled and coiled again his long blue
neck, as he lay on the hearth. Maggie still stood close in front of me,
so that I was acutely aware of my waistcoat buttons.
'Oh, well,' she said, 'you'll come again, won't you? Do come again.'
I promised.
'Come to tea one day--yes, do!'
I promised--one day.
The moment I went out of her presence I ceased utterly to exist for
her--as utterly as I ceased to exist for Joey. With her curious
abstractedness she forgot me again immediately. I knew it as I left her.
Yet she seemed almost in physical contact with me while I was with her.
The sky was all pallid again, yellowish. When I went out there was no
sun; the snow was blue and cold. I hurried away down the hill, musing on
Maggie. The road made a loop down the sharp face of the slope. As I went
crunching over the laborious snow I became aware of a figure striding
down the steep scarp to intercept me. It was a man with his hands in
front of him, half stuck in his breeches pockets, and his shoulders
square--a real farmer of the hills; Alfred, of course. He waited for me
by the stone fence.
'Excuse me,' he said as I came up.
I came to a halt in front of him and looked into his sullen blue eyes.
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