She threw the book down, looked out of the window, turned away from the window, and relapsed into an arm-chair.
The morning was hot, and the exercise of reading left her mind contracting and expanding like the main-spring of a clock, and the small noises of midday, which one can ascribe to no definite cause, in a regular rhythm.

It was all very real, very big, very impersonal, and after a moment or two she began to raise her first finger and to let it fall on the arm of her chair so as to bring back to herself some consciousness of her own existence.

She was next overcome by the unspeakable queerness of the fact that she should be sitting in an arm-chair, in the morning, in the middle of the world.

Who were the people moving in the house--moving things from one place to another?
And life, what was that?
It was only a light passing over the surface and vanishing, as in time she would vanish, though the furniture in the room would remain.

Her dissolution became so complete that she could not raise her finger any more, and sat perfectly still, listening and looking always at the same spot.