So she stood in the sunshine on the little platform, old and yet like
the morning, erect and solitary, sun-coloured, sun-discoloured, whilst I
at her elbow, like a piece of night and moonshine, stood smiling into
her eyes, afraid lest she should deny me existence.
Which she did. She had stopped talking, did not look at me any more, but
went on with her spinning, the brown shuttle twisting gaily. So she
stood, belonging to the sunshine and the weather, taking no more notice
of me than of the dark-stained caper-bush which hung from the wall above
her head, whilst I, waiting at her side, was like the moon in the
daytime sky, overshone, obliterated, in spite of my black clothes.
'How long has it taken you to do that much?' I asked.
She waited a minute, glanced at her bobbin.
'This much? I don't know. A day or two.'
'But you do it quickly.'
She looked at me, as if suspiciously and derisively. Then, quite
suddenly, she started forward and went across the terrace to the great
blue-and-white checked cloth that was drying on the wall. I hesitated.
She had cut off her consciousness from me.
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