ET DONA FERENTES
1001
and placed it on a large white stone by the edge of the stream. Then
she sat down and rippled her fingers through the water. Every now
and again she dabbed her forehead or smoothed her eyelids with her
wet fingers. The afternoon had become intensely hot, there seemed
to be no breath of air anywhere. Overhead, mosquitoes and midges
hummed so that she was forced to pluck some wild mint from the
stream to attempt to drive them away. The mint grew so shallowly
that the whole plant came away suddenly as she touched it, and mud
from the roots splashed over her white dress. Everything seemed dis–
cordant to her- the yellow green of her coat against the emerald grass,
the crimson ribbons of the large straw hat which lay at her side
against a clump of pink campion. Suddenly she saw a creature slither–
ing up the trunk of an old tree, a creature brown-grey like the tree
itself-it was a tree-creeper, but for a moment the little bird seemed
to her like a rat. The rusty bullocks further up the stream stamped
and swished their tails as they tried to drive the horseflies from their
dung-caked flanks. There were always creatures like that who lived
upon dirt, who nosed it out and unearthed it, however deeply it was
hidden, however long, yes, even though all trace of it seemed vanished
for twenty years, she thought. A shallow, vain, egocentric creature like
that, with those untrustworthy, mocking eat's eyes. Twenty years ago,
when they were first married and Edwin had told her, she had been
so anxious to help. There had been incidents, it was true, but they
had been so unimportant and they had become closer through fight–
ing them together. But now after twenty years she felt she could do
nothing; her pride was too hurt. All this fortnight, since the holiday
began, she had been telling herself it could not be true and yet she
knew she was not mistaken, to-day especially she felt sure of it. What
could have altered things to make it possible? she reflected.
It
was
true that she had been a bit uncertain in her feelings herself this year,
but Edwin had understood so well that it was change of life that was
coming to her early. Change of life had such strange results, that
must be it-she seized on the idea eagerly-it was all fancy. How
horrible that anything purely physical could make one believe such
things and how cruel to Edwin that she had indulged them. How
cruelly she had behaved, even it it was true, and somehow she felt
again that it was. She had withdrawn her sympathy at the very
moment Edwin needed it most : it was easy enough to realize that
