If at the end of all this she should lose
Martin! . . .
There was the stranger who had come to her now and would not again
depart. She recognised the sharp pain, the almost unconscious
pulling back on the sudden edge of a dim pit, as something that
would always be with her now--always. One knows that in the second
stage of a great intimacy one's essential loneliness is only
redoubled by close companionship. One asks for so much more, and
then more and more, but that final embrace is elusive and no
physical contact can surrender it. But she was young and did not
know that yet. All she knew was that she would have to face these
immediate troubles alone, that she would not see him for perhaps a
week, that she would not know what his people at home were doing,
and that she must not let any of these thoughts come up into her
brain. She must keep them all back: if she did not, she would tumble
into some foolish precipitate action.
When she reached home she was obstinate and determined. At once she
found that something was the matter. During luncheon the two aunts
sat like statues (Aunt Elizabeth a dumpy and squat one).
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