THE WINDOWwhole fabric fell in exhaustion upon itself, so thatshe had only strength enough to move her finger, inexquisite abandonment to exhaustion, across thepage of Grimm's fairy story, while there throbbedthrough her, like the pulse in a spring which hasexpanded to its full width and now gently ceasesto beat, the rapture of successful creation.

Every throb of this pulse seemed, as he walkedaway, to enclose her and her husband, and to giveto each that solace which two different notes, onehigh, one low, struck together, seem to give eachother as they combine. Yet, as the resonance died,and she turned to the Fairy Tale again, Mrs. Ram-say felt not only exhausted in body (afterwards,not at the time, she always felt this) but also theretinged her physical fatigue some faintly disagree-able sensation with another origin. Not that, as sheread aloud the story of the Fisherman's Wife, sheknew precisely what it came from; nor did she letherself put into words her dissatisfaction when sherealised, at the turn of the page when she stoppedand heard dully, ominously, a wave fall, how it camefrom this: she did not like, even for a second, to feelfiner than her husband; and further, could not bearnot being entirely sure, when she spoke to him, ofthe truth of what she said. Universities and peoplewanting him, lectures and books and their being of61
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