Aunt Anne's
aloofness was coloured now with a very human anger. Maggie realised
with surprise that she had never seen her angry before. She had been
indignant, disapproving, superior, forbidding, but never angry. The
eyes were hard now, not with religious reserve but simply with bad
temper. The mist of anger dimmed the room, it was in the potatoes
and the cold dry mutton, especially was it in the hard pallid knobs
of cheese. And Aunt Elizabeth, although she was frightened by her
sister's anger on this occasion, shared in it. She pursed her lips
at Maggie and moved her fat, podgy hand as though she would like to
smack Maggie's cheeks.
Maggie was frightened--really frightened. The line of bold
independence was all very well, but now risks were attached to it.
If she swiftly tossed her head and told her aunts that she would
walk out of the house they might say "Walk!" and that would
precipitate Martin's crisis. She knew from the way he had looked at
her that morning that his thoughts were with his father, and it
showed that she had travelled through the first stage of her
intimacy with him, that she could not trust him to put her before
his own family troubles.
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