It must have been ebbing for a long time before she realized it because, hurried, absorbed, surrounded incessantly by small cares as she was, hustled and jostled in her role of mother and mistress-of-the-house in servantless America, with the primitive American need to do so much with her own hands, she had not even had the time to know the stupid, tragic thing that was happening to her . . . that she was turning into a slow, vegetating plant instead of a human being.  And now she understood the meaning of the strange dejection she had felt the day when little Mark went off to school with the others.  How curiously jaded and apprehensive she had felt that morning, and when she had gone downstairs to see the callers who arrived that day.  That was the first time she had felt that the tide was ebbing.

All this went through her mind with the cruel swiftness of a sword-flash.  And the first reaction to it, involuntary and reflex, was to crush it instantly down, lest the man walking at her side should be aware of it.  It had come to her with such loud precision that it seemed it must have been audible.

As she found herself still on the dark country road, cloaked and protected by the blackness of the starless night, she was struck with wonder, as though she had never thought of it before, at the human body, its opaque, inscrutable mystery, the locked, sealed strong-box of unimaginable secrets which it is.  There they were, the three of them, stepping side by side, brushing each other as they moved; and as remote from each other as though they were on different stars.  What were the thoughts, powerful, complex, under perfect control, which were being marshaled in that round, dark head?  She felt a little afraid to think; and turned from the idea to the other man with relief.  She knew (she told herself) as though she saw inside, the tired, gentle, simple, wistful thoughts that filled the white head on her other side.

With this, they were again at the house, where the children and Toucle had preceded them.  Paul was laughing and saying, “Elly’s the looniest kid!  She’s just been saying that Father is like . . .”  Elly, in a panic, sprang up at him, clapping her hand over his mouth, crying out, “No, Paul, you shan’t tell! Don’t!”

The older, stronger child pulled himself away and, holding her at arm’s length, continued, “She said Father was like the end of her hair that’s fastened into her head, and Mother was the end that flaps in the wind, and Mr. Marsh was like the Eagle Rock brook, swirly and hurrying the way it is in the spring.”

Elly, half crying, came to her mother.  “Mother, it’s nasty-horrid in Paul to tell when I didn’t want him to.”

Marise began taking off the little girl’s coat.  “It wasn’t very kind in Paul, but there was nothing in those funny little fancies to hide, dear.”

“I didn’t care about you and Father!” explained the child.  “Only . . .”  She looked at Mr. Marsh from under downbent brows.