II

It was too late to go back. She could only rush on reaffirming her assertion, shouting in a din that must be reaching up and down the house and echoing out into the street the thing that was stronger than the feeling that had prompted her appeal for sympathy. It was the everlasting parting of the ways, the wrenching away that always came.⁠ ⁠… The Baileys were going on downstairs with their planning, the Norwegian busy with his cold watchful grappling with England; all of them far away, flouted. The room became a background indistinguishable from any other indifferent background. All round her was height and depth, a sense of vastness and grandeur beyond anything to be seen or heard, yet stretching back like a sheltering wing over the past to her earliest memories and forward ahead out of sight. The piano had changed. It gave out a depth and fullness of tone. By careful management she could avoid the abrupt contrast between the action of the pedals. Presently the glowing and aching of the muscles of her forearms forced her to leave off. She swung round. The forgotten room was filled with friendly light. Triumphant echoes filled its wide spaces, pressed against the windows, filtered out into the quiet street out and away into London. When the room was still there was an unbroken stillness in the house and the street. Striking thinly across it came the tones of the solitary unaccompanied violin.