Moving at will from one theatre to another, the two
spectators, so far from home themselves, had something of wistfulness
in their eyes as they watched a cat being stroked, a sleepy child
picked up and huddled off to bed, or a tired man stretch and knock out
his pipe on the end of a smouldering log.
But it was from one little window, with its blind drawn down, a mere
blank transparency on the night, that the sense of home and the little
curtained world within walls--the larger stressful world of outside
Nature shut out and forgotten--most pulsated. Close against the white
blind hung a bird-cage, clearly silhouetted, every wire, perch, and
appurtenance distinct and recognisable, even to yesterday's dull-edged
lump of sugar. On the middle perch the fluffy occupant, head tucked
well into feathers, seemed so near to them as to be easily stroked,
had they tried; even the delicate tips of his plumped-out plumage
pencilled plainly on the illuminated screen. As they looked, the
sleepy little fellow stirred uneasily, woke, shook himself, and raised
his head.
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