Now, most strangely, in that early light, she felt a great tenderness for him, the tenderness of the mother for the child.She put out her hand, touched his shoulder, stroked it with her hand, laid her head against it.He, murmuring in his sleep, turned towards her, put his arm around her and so, in the shadow of his heart, she fell into deep, dreamless slumber.
At breakfast that morning she felt with him a strange shyness and confusion.She had never been shy with him before.At the very first she had been completely at her ease; that had been one of his greatest attractions for her.But now she realised that she would be for a whole fortnight alone with him, that she did not know him in the least, and that he himself was strangely embarrassed by his own discoveries that he was making.
So they, both of them, took the world that was on every side of them, put it in between them and left their personal relationship to wait for a better time.
Maggie was childishly excited.She had, for the first time in her life, a house of her own to order and arrange; by the middle of that first afternoon she had forgotten that Paul existed.
She admitted to herself at once, so that there should be no pretence about the matter, that the house was hideous."Yes, it's hideous,"she said aloud, standing in the middle of the dining-room and looking about her.It never could have been very much of a house, but they (meaning Paul and Grace) had certainly not done their best for it.
Maggie had had no education, she had not perhaps much natural taste, but she knew when things and people were sympathetic, and this house was as unsympathetic as a house could well be.To begin with, the wall-papers were awful; in the dining-room there was a dark dead green with some kind of pink flower; the drawing-room was dressed in a kind of squashed strawberry colour; the wall-paper of the staircases and passages was of imitation marble, and the three bedrooms were pink, green, and yellow, perfect horticultural shows.