Homecomings by C.P. Snow

UP to 20 December there was no change that I noticed. As I lived through those days they seemed no more significant than others. Later, when I tried to remember each word she and I said, I remembered also the signs of distress she showed about January 1st, and the new job. She was still too proud to ask outright, but she was begging me to find an excuse to get her out of it.

Otherwise she had fits of activity, as capricious as they used to be. She put on a mackintosh, in weather that was already turning into bitter winter, walked all day along the river, down to the docks, past Greenwich, along the mud-flats. When she got home, flushed with the cold, she looked as she must have done as a girl, after a day's hunting. She was cheerful that night, full of the enjoyment of her muscles; she shared a bottle of wine with me and fell asleep after dinner, a little drunk and happily tired. I did not believe in those flashes of cheerfulness, but also I did not totally believe in her distress. It did not seem, as I watched her, to have the full weight of her nature behind it.