The Common Law

Excerpt-The colour began to come back into her face--swifter, more swiftly: the vast blank window with its amber curtains stared at her; she lifted her tragic gaze and saw the sheet of glass above swimming in crystal light. Through it clouds were dissolving in the bluest of skies; against it a spiderweb of pendant cords drooped from the high ceiling; and she saw the looming mystery of huge canvases beside which stepladders rose surmounted by little crow's-nests where the graceful oval of palettes curved, tinted with scraped brilliancy.
"What a dreamer you are!" he called across the studio to her. "The light is fine, now. Hadn't we better take advantage of it?"
She managed to find her footing; contrived to rise, to move with apparent self-possession toward the folding doors.