The air grew cold beyond the open windows, but
the room was warm with the heat that the walls had stolen and stored from
the sun.
Joan sat with Jane D'Arcy and Betty Callender. She was very happy to be at
rest there; she felt secure and safe. Because in truth during these last
weeks life had been increasingly difficult--difficult not only because it
had become, of late, so new and so strange, but also because she could not
tell what was happening. Family life had indeed become of late a mystery,
and behind the mystery there was a dim sense of apprehension, apprehension
that she had never felt in all her days before. As she sank into the
tranquillity of the golden afternoon glow, with the soft white silk
passing to and fro in her bands, she tried to realise for herself what had
been occurring. Her father was, on the whole, simple enough. He was
beginning to suffer yet again from one of his awful obsessions. Since the
hour of her earliest childhood she had watched these obsessions and
dreaded them.
There had been so many, big ones and little ones. Now the Government, now
the Dean, now the Town Council, now the Chapter, now the Choir, now some
rude letter, now some impertinent article in a paper.
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