Dark nights drawing in, they’d say, and he could never see why it was worth mentioning, because there was always something to do, dark or light, and food appeared at the same times. Now, he could see how the quality of light mattered so much and how it changed between noon and three, and how by five in the afternoon it was perceptibly duller because of the longer shadows. And also how he was a little duller himself, tired by the fiddly bits of soft wire, and the reflection and the interruptions in the shop. Customers saying “What is he doing?” as if it were not perfectly obvious and Audrey saying, “Enough, enough,” but he was mesmerized. As well as proud. “If you use your eyes for different purposes,” Donald told him, “it gives them a break. They come back into focus, good as new, but they like a change.” His eyes had been fine the night before, when Matthew was looking in the book Audrey had given him. A new book, nice to the touch, with little enough to read and plenty of pictures of Some Famous Gems.
