g in despair,
Die because a woman’s fair?”
and seemed to make all the air in the room alive with a new influence. Lucy, always proud of what Stephen did, went toward the piano with laughing, admiring looks at him; and Maggie, in spite of her resistance to the spirit of the song and to the singer, was taken hold of and shaken by the invisible influence — was borne along by a wave too strong for her.
But, angrily resolved not to betray herself, she seized her work, and went on making false stitches and pricking her fingers with much perseverance, not looking up or taking notice of what was going forward, until all the three voices united in “Let us take the road.”
I am afraid there would have been a subtle, stealing gratification in her mind if she had known how entirely this saucy, defiant Stephen was occupied with her; how he was passing rapidly from a determination to treat her with ostentatious indifference to an irritating desire for some sign of inclination from her — some interchange of subdued word or look with her. It was not long before he found an opportunity, when they had passed to the music of “The Tempest.” Maggie, feeling the need of a footstool, was walking across the room to get one, when Stephen, who was not singing just then, and was conscious of all her movements, guessed her want, and flew to anticipate her, lifting the footstool with an entreating look at her, which made it impossible not to return a glance of gratitude. And then, to have the footstool placed carefully by a too self-confident personage [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] — not any self-confident personage, but one in particular, who suddenly looks humble and anxious, and lingers, bending still, to [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] ask if there is not some draught in that position between the window and the fireplace, and if he may not be allowed to move the work-table for her — these things will summon a little of the too ready, traitorous tenderness into a woman’s eyes, compelled as she is in her girlish time to learn her life-lessons in very trivial language. And to Maggie such things had not been every-day incidents, but were a new element in her life, and found her keen appetite for homage quite fresh. That tone of gentle solicitude obliged her to look at the face that was bent toward her, and to say, “No, thank you”; and nothing could prevent that mutual glance from [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] being delicious to both, as it had been the evening before.
It was but an ordinary [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] act of politeness in Stephen; it had hardly taken two [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] minutes; and Lucy, who was singing, scarcely noticed it. But to Philip’s mind, filled already with a vague anxiety that was likely to find a definite ground for itself in any trivial incident, this sudden eagerness in Stephen, and the change in Maggie’s face, which [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] was plainly reflecting a beam from [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] his, seemed so strong a contrast with the previous overwrought signs of indifference, as to be charged with painful meaning. Stephen’s voice, pouring in again, jarred upon his nervous susceptibility as if it had been the clang of sheet-iron, and he felt incl
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