Book II
30. Chapter XXX.
(continued)
Seeing that he had chosen history she fetched her
workbasket, drew up an arm-chair to the green-shaded
student lamp, and uncovered a cushion she was
embroidering for his sofa. She was not a clever needle-woman; her large capable hands were made for riding,
rowing and open-air activities; but since other wives
embroidered cushions for their husbands she did not
wish to omit this last link in her devotion.
She was so placed that Archer, by merely raising his
eyes, could see her bent above her work-frame, her
ruffled elbow-sleeves slipping back from her firm round
arms, the betrothal sapphire shining on her left hand
above her broad gold wedding-ring, and the right hand
slowly and laboriously stabbing the canvas. As she sat
thus, the lamplight full on her clear brow, he said to
himself with a secret dismay that he would always
know the thoughts behind it, that never, in all the years
to come, would she surprise him by an unexpected
mood, by a new idea, a weakness, a cruelty or an
emotion. She had spent her poetry and romance on
their short courting: the function was exhausted
because the need was past. Now she was simply ripening
into a copy of her mother, and mysteriously, by the
very process, trying to turn him into a Mr. Welland.
He laid down his book and stood up impatiently; and
at once she raised her head.
"What's the matter?"
"The room is stifling: I want a little air."
He had insisted that the library curtains should draw
backward and forward on a rod, so that they might be
closed in the evening, instead of remaining nailed to a
gilt cornice, and immovably looped up over layers of
lace, as in the drawing-room; and he pulled them back
and pushed up the sash, leaning out into the icy night.
The mere fact of not looking at May, seated beside his
table, under his lamp, the fact of seeing other houses,
roofs, chimneys, of getting the sense of other lives
outside his own, other cities beyond New York, and a
whole world beyond his world, cleared his brain and
made it easier to breathe.
After he had leaned out into the darkness for a few
minutes he heard her say: "Newland! Do shut the
window. You'll catch your death."
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