She stood for
a moment turning it over, and the extraordinary and mournful beauty
of her attitude struck Terence in the way things struck him now--as
something to be put away in his mind and to be thought about afterwards.
They scarcely spoke, the argument between them seeming to be suspended
or forgotten.
Now that the afternoon sun had left the front of the house, Ridley paced
up and down the terrace repeating stanzas of a long poem, in a subdued
but suddenly sonorous voice. Fragments of the poem were wafted in at the
open window as he passed and repassed.
Peor and Baalim
Forsake their Temples dim,
With that twice batter'd God of Palestine
And mooned Astaroth--
The sound of these words were strangely discomforting to both the young
men, but they had to be borne. As the evening drew on and the red
light of the sunset glittered far away on the sea, the same sense of
desperation attacked both Terence and St. John at the thought that the
day was nearly over, and that another night was at hand. The appearance
of one light after another in the town beneath them produced in Hirst a
repetition of his terrible and disgusting desire to break down and sob.
Then the lamps were brought in by Chailey. She explained that Maria, in
opening a bottle, had been so foolish as to cut her arm badly, but she
had bound it up; it was unfortunate when there was so much work to be
done.
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