Page:Twilight Sleep (Grosset).pdf/289

RV 281 mud because, at such a moment, he had believed himself to be dozing on a daisy bank at home

Since her talk with Aggie Heuston a sort of curare had entered into her veins. She was sharply aware of everything that was going on about her, but she felt unable to rouse herself. Even if anything that mattered ever did happen again, she questioned if she would be able to shake off the weight of her indifference. Was it really ten days now since that talk with Aggie? And had everything of which she had then been warned fulfilled itself without her lifting a finger? She dimly remembered having acted in what seemed a mood of heroic self-denial; now she felt only as if she had been numb. What was the use of fine motives if, once the ardour fallen, even they left one in the lurch?

She thought: "I feel like the oldest person in the world, and yet with the longest life ahead of me" and a shiver of loneliness ran over her.

Should she go and hunt up the others? What difference would that make? She might offer to write notes for her mother, who was upstairs plunged in her visiting-list; or look in on Lita, who was probably asleep after her hard gallop of the morning; or find her father, and suggest going for a walk. She had not seen her father since lunch; but she seemed to remember that he had ordered his new Buick brought round. Off again—he was as restless as the others. All of them were restless nowadays. Had he taken Lita with him, perhaps?