This page needs to be proofread.
144
THE BOND

she felt the breath of a wider, vaguer horizon. The world was greater to her, more terrible, but more inspiring, because of this force that compelled her, to which her will submitted. But joy had always lain for her in the free expression of her will and the sense of her own power; her submission could not be joyous. Her face was that of a pensive Madonna. Its outline was fuller, and the narrow eyes had lost their gaiety, their hint of wildness. She did not think much about the child to come. It had not begun to seem an entity to her until, lately, she had made some clothes for it. A queer feeling of tenderness for it woke in her as she sewed real lace about the necks of its tiny dresses, and mysterious tears fell on the muslin.

She was thinking now about a night, just before their return to town, when another feeling about the child had come to her. It was a bright moonlight night, and she was walking on the verandah of their cottage, facing a little inlet of the Sound, that glittered restlessly as the tide came in and rocked the sailboat anchored some way from the land. Charles Page, the young architect, had come down to dine and spend the night, and he and Basil were in the living-room, smoking—Teresa now could not bear the smell of tobacco—and talking lazily, but interestedly. She glanced in now and then at them in the lamplight; they had forgotten her.