So the morning hummed along; luncheon-time came, the silver was all
cleaned, the stockings changed, and there was roast chicken. Thomas,
with his wicked eyes, came slowly, majestically upon the scene--but
even he was not sinister to-day, being interested in his own greed
rather than other persons' sins.
All this time Maggie refused to think. Martin would come, then she
would see.
Martin . . . Martin . . . Martin . . . She went up into her
bedroom and whispered the name over and over to herself whilst she
tried to mend her stocking. She flung the stocking down and gazed
out of the window on to a world that was all golden cloud and racing
watery blue. The roofs swam like floating carpets in the sun,
detached from the brick and mortar beneath them, carried by the
racing clouds. It was only at that sudden gaze that she realised
that she was a prisoner. All her alarm came back to her.
"Why can't I go out? I'll put on my hat and just walk out. No one
can stop me. No one . . ."
But she knew that she could not. Something more must happen first.
She turned from the window with a little shudder, finished very
clumsily her stocking, and as the cuckoo clock struck halfpast three
went down to the drawing-room.
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