She sat up on her bed; moved back to her glass. She bathed her face,
slipped on her dress, and went downstairs.
They were a family party at dinner, but, of course, without Falk. He was
always out in the evening now.
Joan talked, chattered on. The meal was soon over. The Archdeacon went to
his study, and the two women sat in the drawing-room, Joan by the window,
Mrs. Brandon, hidden in a high arm-chair, near the fireplace. The clock
ticked on and the Cathedral bells struck the quarters. Joan's white dress,
beyond the circle of lamp-light was a dim shadow. Mrs. Brandon turned the
pages of her book, her ears straining for the sound of Falk's return.
As she sat there, so inattentively turning the pages of her book, the
foreboding sense of some approaching drama flooded the room. For how many
years had she lived from day to day and nothing had occurred--so long that
life had been unconscious, doped, inert. Now it had sprung into vitality
again with the sudden frantic impertinence of a Jack-in-the-Box. For
twenty years you are dry on the banks, half-asleep, stretching out lazy
fingers for food, slumbering, waking, slumbering again.
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