She seemed very tired and very white. Her hair was not done as tidily,
her lace cuffs were less fresh than they had used to be. About her whole
presence there was a troubling hint of let-down, something obscurely
slovenly, a kind of awkward and unlovely nakedness.
She really spoke to him for the first time at the Junction, when he
stood before her, slim and uncouth under the huge burden of "Ugo,"
fumbling through his leave-taking.
"Christopher," she said, "try not to think of me--always--as--as--well,
when you're older, Christopher, you'll know what I mean."
That was the last time he ever heard her speak. He saw her once again,
but the telegram was delayed and his train was late, and when he came
beside her bed she said nothing. She looked into his eyes searchingly,
for a long while, and died.
* * * * *
That space stands for the interval of silence that fell after
Christopher had told me the story. I thought he had quite finished. He
sat motionless, his shoulders fallen forward, his eyes fixed in the
heart of the incandescent globe over the dressing-table, his long
fingers wrapped around the neck of the 'cello.
"And so she got me through those years," he said. "Those nip-and-tuck
years that followed. By her lie.
"Insanity is a queer thing," he went on, still brooding into the light.
"There's more of it about than we're apt to think. It works in so many
ways. In hobbies, arts, philosophies. Music is a kind of insanity.
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