Which part of this excerpt from William Dean Howells's "Editha" uses figurative language?
The air was thick with the war feeling, like the electricity of a storm which has not yet burst. Editha sat looking out into the hot spring afternoon, with her lips parted, and panting with the intensity of the question whether she could let him go. She had decided that she could not let him stay, when she saw him at the end of the leafless avenue, making slowly up, toward the house . . . .

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