Two Hours: Two Women
Between the Cotswold hills and the Severn river lies a widely-spreading town, with innumerable church spires rising from the midst of its glistening rows of white stucco villas and unimposing terraces. The more “fashionable” parts of this town are, in August, a great opportunity for the study of window-blinds, for at the end of July one house after another looks down on an agitation of departure in front of its door, and then seems with fatigued relief to drop its faded eyelids and bask tranquilly in the hot silence. In a month or six weeks’ time its pleasurable torpor will be rudely disturbed by rattling brooms and buckets, and then, with its stair carpets in new creases and its window-boxes run to seed, it will stand ready to endure for another spell the life that will presently pour back into it.
Number 50, however, was not entirely deserted; it was completely noiseless, but the front door was open and the gas was alight in the dining-room. On the stairs, at the top of the second landing, there was sitting in the dusk a very tiny boy in his nightshirt; his small arms were clasped tightly round his spare knees, and his little outstretched ears had the funny aspect of being "cocked" like those of a terrier; he was tensely listening to the profound stillness.
