ATDTDA (10): Pay attention, 277-278

[Paul Nightingale]

Upon meeting Frank, Wren said her interest in Denver Row was
"[a]nthropological as can be" (275). Their relationship, given her decision
("[t]o Frank's delight") to split from "college acquaintances", is therefore
predicated on this curiosity, one framed at the outset by the ironic tone in
which she speaks. All Frank can pay attention to is the opportunity he has
to separate her from her colleagues ('friends' doesn't seem appropriate). In
the current section their relationship develops in the context of her
"search for Aztlan, the mythic ancestral home of the Mexican people" (277).
For his part, Frank has "not much notion of [the land's] ancient past". When
speaking with her, "whatever it was there in her eyes now, he wished he'd
seen it sooner". And:  ". her face showing the onset of a sorrow he knew he
couldn't help much with" (278). The House of Mirrors interlude is now over;
forward to the payoff.

And then: "It was all he could do not to reach for her ." etc. Again, going
back to the scene with Linnet, he notices there, in her features, "the
beginnings of some weathering in, desert influence, no doubt" (204). She has
"a square handshake that didn't choose to linger. Or, he guessed, loiter."
Finally, "he felt content to just sit there and shell peas, without much
need to be chinning away".

In the current section there is no "shell[ing of] peas" and much "chinning
away". With Linnet the domestic labour was a facilitator; if anything he is
deterred by her features and handshake ("no doubt" and "he guessed" are
judgemental). With Wren he is again deterred by her lack of, to his mind,
proper, that is to say 'passive', femininity: "But the moisture in her eyes
was shining like steel, not dew, and nothing about her trembled." (278)

She mocks the way she thinks she must appear to others ("they knew enough by
now not to pay any attention to hysterical girl graduates"). Earlier, she
separated from "college acquaintances" who want to do the tourist thing
(275); possibly she wanted to shed her own history here, to distance herself
from those who judge her a "hysterical girl graduate". Her dismissal of them
indicates an intellectual confidence, and here Frank "recognis[es] in her
hazel eyes a spark that he should know better by now than to be encouraging,
and behind which was an indication to shadow he could've even then been
paying more attention to."

Note the repetition/echo of "paying more attention to" in "pay any attention
to" (278).

And, in the context of her ironic self-reference as a "hysterical girl
graduate", cf. ". one of those looks of insincere dismay you saw in erotic
illustrations from time to time." Or: ". the kohl around her eyes had run
down here and there, as if from tears." (Both 276)