At all costs she must keep him safe through
these next difficult weeks, and the best way to keep him safe was
herself to remain quietly at home.
Of all this she thought as she swallowed the hostile knobs of cheese
and drank the tepid, gritty coffee.
She followed her aunts upstairs, and was not at all surprised when
Aunt Elizabeth, with an agitated murmur, vanished into higher
regions. She followed Aunt Anne into the drawing-room.
Aunt Anne sat in the stiff-backed tapestry chair by the fire. Maggie
stood in front of her. She was disarmed at that all-important moment
by her desperate sensation of defenceless loneliness. It was as
though half of herself--the man-half of herself--had left her. She
tried to summon her pluck but there was no pluck there. She could
only want Martin, over and over again inside herself. Had any one
been, ever so hopelessly ALONE before?
"Maggie, I am angry," said Aunt Anne. She said it as though she
meant it. Amazing how human this strange aloof creature had become.
As though some coloured saint bright with painted wood and tinsel
before whom one stood in reverence slipped down suddenly and with
fingers of flesh and blood struck one's face.
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