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diff --git a/old/1245-0.txt b/old/1245-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 292575c..0000000 --- a/old/1245-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,18440 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Night and Day, by Virginia Woolf - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Night and Day - -Author: Virginia Woolf - -Release Date: March, 1998 [eBook #1245] -[Most recently updated: February 11, 2021] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Judy Boss and David Widger - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND DAY *** - - - - -Night and Day - -by Virginia Woolf - - - TO - VANESSA BELL - BUT, LOOKING FOR A PHRASE, - I FOUND NONE TO STAND - BESIDE YOUR NAME - - -Contents - - CHAPTER I. - CHAPTER II. - CHAPTER III. - CHAPTER IV. - CHAPTER V. - CHAPTER VI. - CHAPTER VII. - CHAPTER VIII. - CHAPTER IX. - CHAPTER X. - CHAPTER XI. - CHAPTER XII. - CHAPTER XIII. - CHAPTER XIV. - CHAPTER XV. - CHAPTER XVI. - CHAPTER XVII. - CHAPTER XVIII. - CHAPTER XIX. - CHAPTER XX. - CHAPTER XXI. - CHAPTER XXII. - CHAPTER XXIII. - CHAPTER XXIV. - CHAPTER XXV. - CHAPTER XXVI. - CHAPTER XXVII. - CHAPTER XXVIII. - CHAPTER XXIX. - CHAPTER XXX. - CHAPTER XXXI. - CHAPTER XXXII. - CHAPTER XXXIII. - CHAPTER XXXIV. - - - - -NIGHT AND DAY - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -It was a Sunday evening in October, and in common with many other young -ladies of her class, Katharine Hilbery was pouring out tea. Perhaps a -fifth part of her mind was thus occupied, and the remaining parts leapt -over the little barrier of day which interposed between Monday morning -and this rather subdued moment, and played with the things one does -voluntarily and normally in the daylight. But although she was silent, -she was evidently mistress of a situation which was familiar enough to -her, and inclined to let it take its way for the six hundredth time, -perhaps, without bringing into play any of her unoccupied faculties. A -single glance was enough to show that Mrs. Hilbery was so rich in the -gifts which make tea-parties of elderly distinguished people -successful, that she scarcely needed any help from her daughter, -provided that the tiresome business of teacups and bread and butter was -discharged for her. - -Considering that the little party had been seated round the tea-table -for less than twenty minutes, the animation observable on their faces, -and the amount of sound they were producing collectively, were very -creditable to the hostess. It suddenly came into Katharine’s mind that -if some one opened the door at this moment he would think that they -were enjoying themselves; he would think, “What an extremely nice house -to come into!” and instinctively she laughed, and said something to -increase the noise, for the credit of the house presumably, since she -herself had not been feeling exhilarated. At the very same moment, -rather to her amusement, the door was flung open, and a young man -entered the room. Katharine, as she shook hands with him, asked him, in -her own mind, “Now, do you think we’re enjoying ourselves -enormously?”... “Mr. Denham, mother,” she said aloud, for she saw that -her mother had forgotten his name. - -That fact was perceptible to Mr. Denham also, and increased the -awkwardness which inevitably attends the entrance of a stranger into a -room full of people much at their ease, and all launched upon -sentences. At the same time, it seemed to Mr. Denham as if a thousand -softly padded doors had closed between him and the street outside. A -fine mist, the etherealized essence of the fog, hung visibly in the -wide and rather empty space of the drawing-room, all silver where the -candles were grouped on the tea-table, and ruddy again in the -firelight. With the omnibuses and cabs still running in his head, and -his body still tingling with his quick walk along the streets and in -and out of traffic and foot-passengers, this drawing-room seemed very -remote and still; and the faces of the elderly people were mellowed, at -some distance from each other, and had a bloom on them owing to the -fact that the air in the drawing-room was thickened by blue grains of -mist. Mr. Denham had come in as Mr. Fortescue, the eminent novelist, -reached the middle of a very long sentence. He kept this suspended -while the newcomer sat down, and Mrs. Hilbery deftly joined the severed -parts by leaning towards him and remarking: - -“Now, what would you do if you were married to an engineer, and had to -live in Manchester, Mr. Denham?” - -“Surely she could learn Persian,” broke in a thin, elderly gentleman. -“Is there no retired schoolmaster or man of letters in Manchester with -whom she could read Persian?” - -“A cousin of ours has married and gone to live in Manchester,” -Katharine explained. Mr. Denham muttered something, which was indeed -all that was required of him, and the novelist went on where he had -left off. Privately, Mr. Denham cursed himself very sharply for having -exchanged the freedom of the street for this sophisticated -drawing-room, where, among other disagreeables, he certainly would not -appear at his best. He glanced round him, and saw that, save for -Katharine, they were all over forty, the only consolation being that -Mr. Fortescue was a considerable celebrity, so that to-morrow one might -be glad to have met him. - -“Have you ever been to Manchester?” he asked Katharine. - -“Never,” she replied. - -“Why do you object to it, then?” - -Katharine stirred her tea, and seemed to speculate, so Denham thought, -upon the duty of filling somebody else’s cup, but she was really -wondering how she was going to keep this strange young man in harmony -with the rest. She observed that he was compressing his teacup, so that -there was danger lest the thin china might cave inwards. She could see -that he was nervous; one would expect a bony young man with his face -slightly reddened by the wind, and his hair not altogether smooth, to -be nervous in such a party. Further, he probably disliked this kind of -thing, and had come out of curiosity, or because her father had invited -him—anyhow, he would not be easily combined with the rest. - -“I should think there would be no one to talk to in Manchester,” she -replied at random. Mr. Fortescue had been observing her for a moment or -two, as novelists are inclined to observe, and at this remark he -smiled, and made it the text for a little further speculation. - -“In spite of a slight tendency to exaggeration, Katharine decidedly -hits the mark,” he said, and lying back in his chair, with his opaque -contemplative eyes fixed on the ceiling, and the tips of his fingers -pressed together, he depicted, first the horrors of the streets of -Manchester, and then the bare, immense moors on the outskirts of the -town, and then the scrubby little house in which the girl would live, -and then the professors and the miserable young students devoted to the -more strenuous works of our younger dramatists, who would visit her, -and how her appearance would change by degrees, and how she would fly -to London, and how Katharine would have to lead her about, as one leads -an eager dog on a chain, past rows of clamorous butchers’ shops, poor -dear creature. - -“Oh, Mr. Fortescue,” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery, as he finished, “I had -just written to say how I envied her! I was thinking of the big gardens -and the dear old ladies in mittens, who read nothing but the -“Spectator,” and snuff the candles. Have they _all_ disappeared? I told -her she would find the nice things of London without the horrid streets -that depress one so.” - -“There is the University,” said the thin gentleman, who had previously -insisted upon the existence of people knowing Persian. - -“I know there are moors there, because I read about them in a book the -other day,” said Katharine. - -“I am grieved and amazed at the ignorance of my family,” Mr. Hilbery -remarked. He was an elderly man, with a pair of oval, hazel eyes which -were rather bright for his time of life, and relieved the heaviness of -his face. He played constantly with a little green stone attached to -his watch-chain, thus displaying long and very sensitive fingers, and -had a habit of moving his head hither and thither very quickly without -altering the position of his large and rather corpulent body, so that -he seemed to be providing himself incessantly with food for amusement -and reflection with the least possible expenditure of energy. One might -suppose that he had passed the time of life when his ambitions were -personal, or that he had gratified them as far as he was likely to do, -and now employed his considerable acuteness rather to observe and -reflect than to attain any result. - -Katharine, so Denham decided, while Mr. Fortescue built up another -rounded structure of words, had a likeness to each of her parents, but -these elements were rather oddly blended. She had the quick, impulsive -movements of her mother, the lips parting often to speak, and closing -again; and the dark oval eyes of her father brimming with light upon a -basis of sadness, or, since she was too young to have acquired a -sorrowful point of view, one might say that the basis was not sadness -so much as a spirit given to contemplation and self-control. Judging by -her hair, her coloring, and the shape of her features, she was -striking, if not actually beautiful. Decision and composure stamped -her, a combination of qualities that produced a very marked character, -and one that was not calculated to put a young man, who scarcely knew -her, at his ease. For the rest, she was tall; her dress was of some -quiet color, with old yellow-tinted lace for ornament, to which the -spark of an ancient jewel gave its one red gleam. Denham noticed that, -although silent, she kept sufficient control of the situation to answer -immediately her mother appealed to her for help, and yet it was obvious -to him that she attended only with the surface skin of her mind. It -struck him that her position at the tea-table, among all these elderly -people, was not without its difficulties, and he checked his -inclination to find her, or her attitude, generally antipathetic to -him. The talk had passed over Manchester, after dealing with it very -generously. - -“Would it be the Battle of Trafalgar or the Spanish Armada, Katharine?” -her mother demanded. - -“Trafalgar, mother.” - -“Trafalgar, of course! How stupid of me! Another cup of tea, with a -thin slice of lemon in it, and then, dear Mr. Fortescue, please explain -my absurd little puzzle. One can’t help believing gentlemen with Roman -noses, even if one meets them in omnibuses.” - -Mr. Hilbery here interposed so far as Denham was concerned, and talked -a great deal of sense about the solicitors’ profession, and the changes -which he had seen in his lifetime. Indeed, Denham properly fell to his -lot, owing to the fact that an article by Denham upon some legal -matter, published by Mr. Hilbery in his Review, had brought them -acquainted. But when a moment later Mrs. Sutton Bailey was announced, -he turned to her, and Mr. Denham found himself sitting silent, -rejecting possible things to say, beside Katharine, who was silent too. -Being much about the same age and both under thirty, they were -prohibited from the use of a great many convenient phrases which launch -conversation into smooth waters. They were further silenced by -Katharine’s rather malicious determination not to help this young man, -in whose upright and resolute bearing she detected something hostile to -her surroundings, by any of the usual feminine amenities. They -therefore sat silent, Denham controlling his desire to say something -abrupt and explosive, which should shock her into life. But Mrs. -Hilbery was immediately sensitive to any silence in the drawing-room, -as of a dumb note in a sonorous scale, and leaning across the table she -observed, in the curiously tentative detached manner which always gave -her phrases the likeness of butterflies flaunting from one sunny spot -to another, “D’you know, Mr. Denham, you remind me so much of dear Mr. -Ruskin.... Is it his tie, Katharine, or his hair, or the way he sits in -his chair? Do tell me, Mr. Denham, are you an admirer of Ruskin? Some -one, the other day, said to me, ‘Oh, no, we don’t read Ruskin, Mrs. -Hilbery.’ What _do_ you read, I wonder?—for you can’t spend all your -time going up in aeroplanes and burrowing into the bowels of the -earth.” - -She looked benevolently at Denham, who said nothing articulate, and -then at Katharine, who smiled but said nothing either, upon which Mrs. -Hilbery seemed possessed by a brilliant idea, and exclaimed: - -“I’m sure Mr. Denham would like to see our things, Katharine. I’m sure -he’s not like that dreadful young man, Mr. Ponting, who told me that he -considered it our duty to live exclusively in the present. After all, -what IS the present? Half of it’s the past, and the better half, too, I -should say,” she added, turning to Mr. Fortescue. - -Denham rose, half meaning to go, and thinking that he had seen all that -there was to see, but Katharine rose at the same moment, and saying, -“Perhaps you would like to see the pictures,” led the way across the -drawing-room to a smaller room opening out of it. - -The smaller room was something like a chapel in a cathedral, or a -grotto in a cave, for the booming sound of the traffic in the distance -suggested the soft surge of waters, and the oval mirrors, with their -silver surface, were like deep pools trembling beneath starlight. But -the comparison to a religious temple of some kind was the more apt of -the two, for the little room was crowded with relics. - -As Katharine touched different spots, lights sprang here and there, and -revealed a square mass of red-and-gold books, and then a long skirt in -blue-and-white paint lustrous behind glass, and then a mahogany -writing-table, with its orderly equipment, and, finally, a picture -above the table, to which special illumination was accorded. When -Katharine had touched these last lights, she stood back, as much as to -say, “There!” Denham found himself looked down upon by the eyes of the -great poet, Richard Alardyce, and suffered a little shock which would -have led him, had he been wearing a hat, to remove it. The eyes looked -at him out of the mellow pinks and yellows of the paint with divine -friendliness, which embraced him, and passed on to contemplate the -entire world. The paint had so faded that very little but the beautiful -large eyes were left, dark in the surrounding dimness. - -Katharine waited as though for him to receive a full impression, and -then she said: - -“This is his writing-table. He used this pen,” and she lifted a quill -pen and laid it down again. The writing-table was splashed with old -ink, and the pen disheveled in service. There lay the gigantic -gold-rimmed spectacles, ready to his hand, and beneath the table was a -pair of large, worn slippers, one of which Katharine picked up, -remarking: - -“I think my grandfather must have been at least twice as large as any -one is nowadays. This,” she went on, as if she knew what she had to say -by heart, “is the original manuscript of the ‘Ode to Winter.’ The early -poems are far less corrected than the later. Would you like to look at -it?” - -While Mr. Denham examined the manuscript, she glanced up at her -grandfather, and, for the thousandth time, fell into a pleasant dreamy -state in which she seemed to be the companion of those giant men, of -their own lineage, at any rate, and the insignificant present moment -was put to shame. That magnificent ghostly head on the canvas, surely, -never beheld all the trivialities of a Sunday afternoon, and it did not -seem to matter what she and this young man said to each other, for they -were only small people. - -“This is a copy of the first edition of the poems,” she continued, -without considering the fact that Mr. Denham was still occupied with -the manuscript, “which contains several poems that have not been -reprinted, as well as corrections.” She paused for a minute, and then -went on, as if these spaces had all been calculated. - -“That lady in blue is my great-grandmother, by Millington. Here is my -uncle’s walking-stick—he was Sir Richard Warburton, you know, and rode -with Havelock to the Relief of Lucknow. And then, let me see—oh, that’s -the original Alardyce, 1697, the founder of the family fortunes, with -his wife. Some one gave us this bowl the other day because it has their -crest and initials. We think it must have been given them to celebrate -their silver wedding-day.” - -Here she stopped for a moment, wondering why it was that Mr. Denham -said nothing. Her feeling that he was antagonistic to her, which had -lapsed while she thought of her family possessions, returned so keenly -that she stopped in the middle of her catalog and looked at him. Her -mother, wishing to connect him reputably with the great dead, had -compared him with Mr. Ruskin; and the comparison was in Katharine’s -mind, and led her to be more critical of the young man than was fair, -for a young man paying a call in a tail-coat is in a different element -altogether from a head seized at its climax of expressiveness, gazing -immutably from behind a sheet of glass, which was all that remained to -her of Mr. Ruskin. He had a singular face—a face built for swiftness -and decision rather than for massive contemplation; the forehead broad, -the nose long and formidable, the lips clean-shaven and at once dogged -and sensitive, the cheeks lean, with a deeply running tide of red blood -in them. His eyes, expressive now of the usual masculine impersonality -and authority, might reveal more subtle emotions under favorable -circumstances, for they were large, and of a clear, brown color; they -seemed unexpectedly to hesitate and speculate; but Katharine only -looked at him to wonder whether his face would not have come nearer the -standard of her dead heroes if it had been adorned with side-whiskers. -In his spare build and thin, though healthy, cheeks, she saw tokens of -an angular and acrid soul. His voice, she noticed, had a slight -vibrating or creaking sound in it, as he laid down the manuscript and -said: - -“You must be very proud of your family, Miss Hilbery.” - -“Yes, I am,” Katharine answered, and she added, “Do you think there’s -anything wrong in that?” - -“Wrong? How should it be wrong? It must be a bore, though, showing your -things to visitors,” he added reflectively. - -“Not if the visitors like them.” - -“Isn’t it difficult to live up to your ancestors?” he proceeded. - -“I dare say I shouldn’t try to write poetry,” Katharine replied. - -“No. And that’s what I should hate. I couldn’t bear my grandfather to -cut me out. And, after all,” Denham went on, glancing round him -satirically, as Katharine thought, “it’s not your grandfather only. -You’re cut out all the way round. I suppose you come of one of the most -distinguished families in England. There are the Warburtons and the -Mannings—and you’re related to the Otways, aren’t you? I read it all in -some magazine,” he added. - -“The Otways are my cousins,” Katharine replied. - -“Well,” said Denham, in a final tone of voice, as if his argument were -proved. - -“Well,” said Katharine, “I don’t see that you’ve proved anything.” - -Denham smiled, in a peculiarly provoking way. He was amused and -gratified to find that he had the power to annoy his oblivious, -supercilious hostess, if he could not impress her; though he would have -preferred to impress her. - -He sat silent, holding the precious little book of poems unopened in -his hands, and Katharine watched him, the melancholy or contemplative -expression deepening in her eyes as her annoyance faded. She appeared -to be considering many things. She had forgotten her duties. - -“Well,” said Denham again, suddenly opening the little book of poems, -as though he had said all that he meant to say or could, with -propriety, say. He turned over the pages with great decision, as if he -were judging the book in its entirety, the printing and paper and -binding, as well as the poetry, and then, having satisfied himself of -its good or bad quality, he placed it on the writing-table, and -examined the malacca cane with the gold knob which had belonged to the -soldier. - -“But aren’t you proud of your family?” Katharine demanded. - -“No,” said Denham. “We’ve never done anything to be proud of—unless you -count paying one’s bills a matter for pride.” - -“That sounds rather dull,” Katharine remarked. - -“You would think us horribly dull,” Denham agreed. - -“Yes, I might find you dull, but I don’t think I should find you -ridiculous,” Katharine added, as if Denham had actually brought that -charge against her family. - -“No—because we’re not in the least ridiculous. We’re a respectable -middle-class family, living at Highgate.” - -“We don’t live at Highgate, but we’re middle class too, I suppose.” - -Denham merely smiled, and replacing the malacca cane on the rack, he -drew a sword from its ornamental sheath. - -“That belonged to Clive, so we say,” said Katharine, taking up her -duties as hostess again automatically. - -“Is it a lie?” Denham inquired. - -“It’s a family tradition. I don’t know that we can prove it.” - -“You see, we don’t have traditions in our family,” said Denham. - -“You sound very dull,” Katharine remarked, for the second time. - -“Merely middle class,” Denham replied. - -“You pay your bills, and you speak the truth. I don’t see why you -should despise us.” - -Mr. Denham carefully sheathed the sword which the Hilberys said -belonged to Clive. - -“I shouldn’t like to be you; that’s all I said,” he replied, as if he -were saying what he thought as accurately as he could. - -“No, but one never would like to be any one else.” - -“I should. I should like to be lots of other people.” - -“Then why not us?” Katharine asked. - -Denham looked at her as she sat in her grandfather’s arm-chair, drawing -her great-uncle’s malacca cane smoothly through her fingers, while her -background was made up equally of lustrous blue-and-white paint, and -crimson books with gilt lines on them. The vitality and composure of -her attitude, as of a bright-plumed bird poised easily before further -flights, roused him to show her the limitations of her lot. So soon, so -easily, would he be forgotten. - -“You’ll never know anything at first hand,” he began, almost savagely. -“It’s all been done for you. You’ll never know the pleasure of buying -things after saving up for them, or reading books for the first time, -or making discoveries.” - -“Go on,” Katharine observed, as he paused, suddenly doubtful, when he -heard his voice proclaiming aloud these facts, whether there was any -truth in them. - -“Of course, I don’t know how you spend your time,” he continued, a -little stiffly, “but I suppose you have to show people round. You are -writing a life of your grandfather, aren’t you? And this kind of -thing”—he nodded towards the other room, where they could hear bursts -of cultivated laughter—“must take up a lot of time.” - -She looked at him expectantly, as if between them they were decorating -a small figure of herself, and she saw him hesitating in the -disposition of some bow or sash. - -“You’ve got it very nearly right,” she said, “but I only help my -mother. I don’t write myself.” - -“Do you do anything yourself?” he demanded. - -“What do you mean?” she asked. “I don’t leave the house at ten and come -back at six.” - -“I don’t mean that.” - -Mr. Denham had recovered his self-control; he spoke with a quietness -which made Katharine rather anxious that he should explain himself, but -at the same time she wished to annoy him, to waft him away from her on -some light current of ridicule or satire, as she was wont to do with -these intermittent young men of her father’s. - -“Nobody ever does do anything worth doing nowadays,” she remarked. “You -see”—she tapped the volume of her grandfather’s poems—“we don’t even -print as well as they did, and as for poets or painters or -novelists—there are none; so, at any rate, I’m not singular.” - -“No, we haven’t any great men,” Denham replied. “I’m very glad that we -haven’t. I hate great men. The worship of greatness in the nineteenth -century seems to me to explain the worthlessness of that generation.” - -Katharine opened her lips and drew in her breath, as if to reply with -equal vigor, when the shutting of a door in the next room withdrew her -attention, and they both became conscious that the voices, which had -been rising and falling round the tea-table, had fallen silent; the -light, even, seemed to have sunk lower. A moment later Mrs. Hilbery -appeared in the doorway of the ante-room. She stood looking at them -with a smile of expectancy on her face, as if a scene from the drama of -the younger generation were being played for her benefit. She was a -remarkable-looking woman, well advanced in the sixties, but owing to -the lightness of her frame and the brightness of her eyes she seemed to -have been wafted over the surface of the years without taking much harm -in the passage. Her face was shrunken and aquiline, but any hint of -sharpness was dispelled by the large blue eyes, at once sagacious and -innocent, which seemed to regard the world with an enormous desire that -it should behave itself nobly, and an entire confidence that it could -do so, if it would only take the pains. - -Certain lines on the broad forehead and about the lips might be taken -to suggest that she had known moments of some difficulty and perplexity -in the course of her career, but these had not destroyed her -trustfulness, and she was clearly still prepared to give every one any -number of fresh chances and the whole system the benefit of the doubt. -She wore a great resemblance to her father, and suggested, as he did, -the fresh airs and open spaces of a younger world. - -“Well,” she said, “how do you like our things, Mr. Denham?” - -Mr. Denham rose, put his book down, opened his mouth, but said nothing, -as Katharine observed, with some amusement. - -Mrs. Hilbery handled the book he had laid down. - -“There are some books that _live_,” she mused. “They are young with us, -and they grow old with us. Are you fond of poetry, Mr. Denham? But what -an absurd question to ask! The truth is, dear Mr. Fortescue has almost -tired me out. He is so eloquent and so witty, so searching and so -profound that, after half an hour or so, I feel inclined to turn out -all the lights. But perhaps he’d be more wonderful than ever in the -dark. What d’you think, Katharine? Shall we give a little party in -complete darkness? There’d have to be bright rooms for the bores....” - -Here Mr. Denham held out his hand. - -“But we’ve any number of things to show you!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed, -taking no notice of it. “Books, pictures, china, manuscripts, and the -very chair that Mary Queen of Scots sat in when she heard of Darnley’s -murder. I must lie down for a little, and Katharine must change her -dress (though she’s wearing a very pretty one), but if you don’t mind -being left alone, supper will be at eight. I dare say you’ll write a -poem of your own while you’re waiting. Ah, how I love the firelight! -Doesn’t our room look charming?” - -She stepped back and bade them contemplate the empty drawing-room, with -its rich, irregular lights, as the flames leapt and wavered. - -“Dear things!” she exclaimed. “Dear chairs and tables! How like old -friends they are—faithful, silent friends. Which reminds me, Katharine, -little Mr. Anning is coming to-night, and Tite Street, and Cadogan -Square.... Do remember to get that drawing of your great-uncle glazed. -Aunt Millicent remarked it last time she was here, and I know how it -would hurt me to see _my_ father in a broken glass.” - -It was like tearing through a maze of diamond-glittering spiders’ webs -to say good-bye and escape, for at each movement Mrs. Hilbery -remembered something further about the villainies of picture-framers or -the delights of poetry, and at one time it seemed to the young man that -he would be hypnotized into doing what she pretended to want him to do, -for he could not suppose that she attached any value whatever to his -presence. Katharine, however, made an opportunity for him to leave, and -for that he was grateful to her, as one young person is grateful for -the understanding of another. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -The young man shut the door with a sharper slam than any visitor had -used that afternoon, and walked up the street at a great pace, cutting -the air with his walking-stick. He was glad to find himself outside -that drawing-room, breathing raw fog, and in contact with unpolished -people who only wanted their share of the pavement allowed them. He -thought that if he had had Mr. or Mrs. or Miss Hilbery out here he -would have made them, somehow, feel his superiority, for he was chafed -by the memory of halting awkward sentences which had failed to give -even the young woman with the sad, but inwardly ironical eyes a hint of -his force. He tried to recall the actual words of his little outburst, -and unconsciously supplemented them by so many words of greater -expressiveness that the irritation of his failure was somewhat -assuaged. Sudden stabs of the unmitigated truth assailed him now and -then, for he was not inclined by nature to take a rosy view of his -conduct, but what with the beat of his foot upon the pavement, and the -glimpse which half-drawn curtains offered him of kitchens, -dining-rooms, and drawing-rooms, illustrating with mute power different -scenes from different lives, his own experience lost its sharpness. - -His own experience underwent a curious change. His speed slackened, his -head sank a little towards his breast, and the lamplight shone now and -again upon a face grown strangely tranquil. His thought was so -absorbing that when it became necessary to verify the name of a street, -he looked at it for a time before he read it; when he came to a -crossing, he seemed to have to reassure himself by two or three taps, -such as a blind man gives, upon the curb; and, reaching the Underground -station, he blinked in the bright circle of light, glanced at his -watch, decided that he might still indulge himself in darkness, and -walked straight on. - -And yet the thought was the thought with which he had started. He was -still thinking about the people in the house which he had left; but -instead of remembering, with whatever accuracy he could, their looks -and sayings, he had consciously taken leave of the literal truth. A -turn of the street, a firelit room, something monumental in the -procession of the lamp-posts, who shall say what accident of light or -shape had suddenly changed the prospect within his mind, and led him to -murmur aloud: - -“She’ll do.... Yes, Katharine Hilbery’ll do.... I’ll take Katharine -Hilbery.” - -As soon as he had said this, his pace slackened, his head fell, his -eyes became fixed. The desire to justify himself, which had been so -urgent, ceased to torment him, and, as if released from constraint, so -that they worked without friction or bidding, his faculties leapt -forward and fixed, as a matter of course, upon the form of Katharine -Hilbery. It was marvellous how much they found to feed upon, -considering the destructive nature of Denham’s criticism in her -presence. The charm, which he had tried to disown, when under the -effect of it, the beauty, the character, the aloofness, which he had -been determined not to feel, now possessed him wholly; and when, as -happened by the nature of things, he had exhausted his memory, he went -on with his imagination. He was conscious of what he was about, for in -thus dwelling upon Miss Hilbery’s qualities, he showed a kind of -method, as if he required this vision of her for a particular purpose. -He increased her height, he darkened her hair; but physically there was -not much to change in her. His most daring liberty was taken with her -mind, which, for reasons of his own, he desired to be exalted and -infallible, and of such independence that it was only in the case of -Ralph Denham that it swerved from its high, swift flight, but where he -was concerned, though fastidious at first, she finally swooped from her -eminence to crown him with her approval. These delicious details, -however, were to be worked out in all their ramifications at his -leisure; the main point was that Katharine Hilbery would do; she would -do for weeks, perhaps for months. In taking her he had provided himself -with something the lack of which had left a bare place in his mind for -a considerable time. He gave a sigh of satisfaction; his consciousness -of his actual position somewhere in the neighborhood of Knightsbridge -returned to him, and he was soon speeding in the train towards -Highgate. - -Although thus supported by the knowledge of his new possession of -considerable value, he was not proof against the familiar thoughts -which the suburban streets and the damp shrubs growing in front gardens -and the absurd names painted in white upon the gates of those gardens -suggested to him. His walk was uphill, and his mind dwelt gloomily upon -the house which he approached, where he would find six or seven -brothers and sisters, a widowed mother, and, probably, some aunt or -uncle sitting down to an unpleasant meal under a very bright light. -Should he put in force the threat which, two weeks ago, some such -gathering had wrung from him—the terrible threat that if visitors came -on Sunday he should dine alone in his room? A glance in the direction -of Miss Hilbery determined him to make his stand this very night, and -accordingly, having let himself in, having verified the presence of -Uncle Joseph by means of a bowler hat and a very large umbrella, he -gave his orders to the maid, and went upstairs to his room. - -He went up a great many flights of stairs, and he noticed, as he had -very seldom noticed, how the carpet became steadily shabbier, until it -ceased altogether, how the walls were discolored, sometimes by cascades -of damp, and sometimes by the outlines of picture-frames since removed, -how the paper flapped loose at the corners, and a great flake of -plaster had fallen from the ceiling. The room itself was a cheerless -one to return to at this inauspicious hour. A flattened sofa would, -later in the evening, become a bed; one of the tables concealed a -washing apparatus; his clothes and boots were disagreeably mixed with -books which bore the gilt of college arms; and, for decoration, there -hung upon the wall photographs of bridges and cathedrals and large, -unprepossessing groups of insufficiently clothed young men, sitting in -rows one above another upon stone steps. There was a look of meanness -and shabbiness in the furniture and curtains, and nowhere any sign of -luxury or even of a cultivated taste, unless the cheap classics in the -book-case were a sign of an effort in that direction. The only object -that threw any light upon the character of the room’s owner was a large -perch, placed in the window to catch the air and sun, upon which a tame -and, apparently, decrepit rook hopped dryly from side to side. The -bird, encouraged by a scratch behind the ear, settled upon Denham’s -shoulder. He lit his gas-fire and settled down in gloomy patience to -await his dinner. After sitting thus for some minutes a small girl -popped her head in to say, - -“Mother says, aren’t you coming down, Ralph? Uncle Joseph—” - -“They’re to bring my dinner up here,” said Ralph, peremptorily; -whereupon she vanished, leaving the door ajar in her haste to be gone. -After Denham had waited some minutes, in the course of which neither he -nor the rook took their eyes off the fire, he muttered a curse, ran -downstairs, intercepted the parlor-maid, and cut himself a slice of -bread and cold meat. As he did so, the dining-room door sprang open, a -voice exclaimed “Ralph!” but Ralph paid no attention to the voice, and -made off upstairs with his plate. He set it down in a chair opposite -him, and ate with a ferocity that was due partly to anger and partly to -hunger. His mother, then, was determined not to respect his wishes; he -was a person of no importance in his own family; he was sent for and -treated as a child. He reflected, with a growing sense of injury, that -almost every one of his actions since opening the door of his room had -been won from the grasp of the family system. By rights, he should have -been sitting downstairs in the drawing-room describing his afternoon’s -adventures, or listening to the afternoon’s adventures of other people; -the room itself, the gas-fire, the arm-chair—all had been fought for; -the wretched bird, with half its feathers out and one leg lamed by a -cat, had been rescued under protest; but what his family most resented, -he reflected, was his wish for privacy. To dine alone, or to sit alone -after dinner, was flat rebellion, to be fought with every weapon of -underhand stealth or of open appeal. Which did he dislike -most—deception or tears? But, at any rate, they could not rob him of -his thoughts; they could not make him say where he had been or whom he -had seen. That was his own affair; that, indeed, was a step entirely in -the right direction, and, lighting his pipe, and cutting up the remains -of his meal for the benefit of the rook, Ralph calmed his rather -excessive irritation and settled down to think over his prospects. - -This particular afternoon was a step in the right direction, because it -was part of his plan to get to know people beyond the family circuit, -just as it was part of his plan to learn German this autumn, and to -review legal books for Mr. Hilbery’s “Critical Review.” He had always -made plans since he was a small boy; for poverty, and the fact that he -was the eldest son of a large family, had given him the habit of -thinking of spring and summer, autumn and winter, as so many stages in -a prolonged campaign. Although he was still under thirty, this -forecasting habit had marked two semicircular lines above his eyebrows, -which threatened, at this moment, to crease into their wonted shapes. -But instead of settling down to think, he rose, took a small piece of -cardboard marked in large letters with the word OUT, and hung it upon -the handle of his door. This done, he sharpened a pencil, lit a -reading-lamp and opened his book. But still he hesitated to take his -seat. He scratched the rook, he walked to the window; he parted the -curtains, and looked down upon the city which lay, hazily luminous, -beneath him. He looked across the vapors in the direction of Chelsea; -looked fixedly for a moment, and then returned to his chair. But the -whole thickness of some learned counsel’s treatise upon Torts did not -screen him satisfactorily. Through the pages he saw a drawing-room, -very empty and spacious; he heard low voices, he saw women’s figures, -he could even smell the scent of the cedar log which flamed in the -grate. His mind relaxed its tension, and seemed to be giving out now -what it had taken in unconsciously at the time. He could remember Mr. -Fortescue’s exact words, and the rolling emphasis with which he -delivered them, and he began to repeat what Mr. Fortescue had said, in -Mr. Fortescue’s own manner, about Manchester. His mind then began to -wander about the house, and he wondered whether there were other rooms -like the drawing-room, and he thought, inconsequently, how beautiful -the bathroom must be, and how leisurely it was—the life of these -well-kept people, who were, no doubt, still sitting in the same room, -only they had changed their clothes, and little Mr. Anning was there, -and the aunt who would mind if the glass of her father’s picture was -broken. Miss Hilbery had changed her dress (“although she’s wearing -such a pretty one,” he heard her mother say), and she was talking to -Mr. Anning, who was well over forty, and bald into the bargain, about -books. How peaceful and spacious it was; and the peace possessed him so -completely that his muscles slackened, his book drooped from his hand, -and he forgot that the hour of work was wasting minute by minute. - -He was roused by a creak upon the stair. With a guilty start he -composed himself, frowned and looked intently at the fifty-sixth page -of his volume. A step paused outside his door, and he knew that the -person, whoever it might be, was considering the placard, and debating -whether to honor its decree or not. Certainly, policy advised him to -sit still in autocratic silence, for no custom can take root in a -family unless every breach of it is punished severely for the first six -months or so. But Ralph was conscious of a distinct wish to be -interrupted, and his disappointment was perceptible when he heard the -creaking sound rather farther down the stairs, as if his visitor had -decided to withdraw. He rose, opened the door with unnecessary -abruptness, and waited on the landing. The person stopped -simultaneously half a flight downstairs. - -“Ralph?” said a voice, inquiringly. - -“Joan?” - -“I was coming up, but I saw your notice.” - -“Well, come along in, then.” He concealed his desire beneath a tone as -grudging as he could make it. - -Joan came in, but she was careful to show, by standing upright with one -hand upon the mantelpiece, that she was only there for a definite -purpose, which discharged, she would go. - -She was older than Ralph by some three or four years. Her face was -round but worn, and expressed that tolerant but anxious good humor -which is the special attribute of elder sisters in large families. Her -pleasant brown eyes resembled Ralph’s, save in expression, for whereas -he seemed to look straightly and keenly at one object, she appeared to -be in the habit of considering everything from many different points of -view. This made her appear his elder by more years than existed in fact -between them. Her gaze rested for a moment or two upon the rook. She -then said, without any preface: - -“It’s about Charles and Uncle John’s offer.... Mother’s been talking to -me. She says she can’t afford to pay for him after this term. She says -she’ll have to ask for an overdraft as it is.” - -“That’s simply not true,” said Ralph. - -“No. I thought not. But she won’t believe me when I say it.” - -Ralph, as if he could foresee the length of this familiar argument, -drew up a chair for his sister and sat down himself. - -“I’m not interrupting?” she inquired. - -Ralph shook his head, and for a time they sat silent. The lines curved -themselves in semicircles above their eyes. - -“She doesn’t understand that one’s got to take risks,” he observed, -finally. - -“I believe mother would take risks if she knew that Charles was the -sort of boy to profit by it.” - -“He’s got brains, hasn’t he?” said Ralph. His tone had taken on that -shade of pugnacity which suggested to his sister that some personal -grievance drove him to take the line he did. She wondered what it might -be, but at once recalled her mind, and assented. - -“In some ways he’s fearfully backward, though, compared with what you -were at his age. And he’s difficult at home, too. He makes Molly slave -for him.” - -Ralph made a sound which belittled this particular argument. It was -plain to Joan that she had struck one of her brother’s perverse moods, -and he was going to oppose whatever his mother said. He called her -“she,” which was a proof of it. She sighed involuntarily, and the sigh -annoyed Ralph, and he exclaimed with irritation: - -“It’s pretty hard lines to stick a boy into an office at seventeen!” - -“Nobody _wants_ to stick him into an office,” she said. - -She, too, was becoming annoyed. She had spent the whole of the -afternoon discussing wearisome details of education and expense with -her mother, and she had come to her brother for help, encouraged, -rather irrationally, to expect help by the fact that he had been out -somewhere, she didn’t know and didn’t mean to ask where, all the -afternoon. - -Ralph was fond of his sister, and her irritation made him think how -unfair it was that all these burdens should be laid on her shoulders. - -“The truth is,” he observed gloomily, “that I ought to have accepted -Uncle John’s offer. I should have been making six hundred a year by -this time.” - -“I don’t think that for a moment,” Joan replied quickly, repenting of -her annoyance. “The question, to my mind, is, whether we couldn’t cut -down our expenses in some way.” - -“A smaller house?” - -“Fewer servants, perhaps.” - -Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and after -reflecting for a moment what these proposed reforms in a strictly -economical household meant, Ralph announced very decidedly: - -“It’s out of the question.” - -It was out of the question that she should put any more household work -upon herself. No, the hardship must fall on him, for he was determined -that his family should have as many chances of distinguishing -themselves as other families had—as the Hilberys had, for example. He -believed secretly and rather defiantly, for it was a fact not capable -of proof, that there was something very remarkable about his family. - -“If mother won’t run risks—” - -“You really can’t expect her to sell out again.” - -“She ought to look upon it as an investment; but if she won’t, we must -find some other way, that’s all.” - -A threat was contained in this sentence, and Joan knew, without asking, -what the threat was. In the course of his professional life, which now -extended over six or seven years, Ralph had saved, perhaps, three or -four hundred pounds. Considering the sacrifices he had made in order to -put by this sum it always amazed Joan to find that he used it to gamble -with, buying shares and selling them again, increasing it sometimes, -sometimes diminishing it, and always running the risk of losing every -penny of it in a day’s disaster. But although she wondered, she could -not help loving him the better for his odd combination of Spartan -self-control and what appeared to her romantic and childish folly. -Ralph interested her more than any one else in the world, and she often -broke off in the middle of one of these economic discussions, in spite -of their gravity, to consider some fresh aspect of his character. - -“I think you’d be foolish to risk your money on poor old Charles,” she -observed. “Fond as I am of him, he doesn’t seem to me exactly -brilliant.... Besides, why should you be sacrificed?” - -“My dear Joan,” Ralph exclaimed, stretching himself out with a gesture -of impatience, “don’t you see that we’ve all got to be sacrificed? -What’s the use of denying it? What’s the use of struggling against it? -So it always has been, so it always will be. We’ve got no money and we -never shall have any money. We shall just turn round in the mill every -day of our lives until we drop and die, worn out, as most people do, -when one comes to think of it.” - -Joan looked at him, opened her lips as if to speak, and closed them -again. Then she said, very tentatively: - -“Aren’t you happy, Ralph?” - -“No. Are you? Perhaps I’m as happy as most people, though. God knows -whether I’m happy or not. What is happiness?” - -He glanced with half a smile, in spite of his gloomy irritation, at his -sister. She looked, as usual, as if she were weighing one thing with -another, and balancing them together before she made up her mind. - -“Happiness,” she remarked at length enigmatically, rather as if she -were sampling the word, and then she paused. She paused for a -considerable space, as if she were considering happiness in all its -bearings. “Hilda was here to-day,” she suddenly resumed, as if they had -never mentioned happiness. “She brought Bobbie—he’s a fine boy now.” -Ralph observed, with an amusement that had a tinge of irony in it, that -she was now going to sidle away quickly from this dangerous approach to -intimacy on to topics of general and family interest. Nevertheless, he -reflected, she was the only one of his family with whom he found it -possible to discuss happiness, although he might very well have -discussed happiness with Miss Hilbery at their first meeting. He looked -critically at Joan, and wished that she did not look so provincial or -suburban in her high green dress with the faded trimming, so patient, -and almost resigned. He began to wish to tell her about the Hilberys in -order to abuse them, for in the miniature battle which so often rages -between two quickly following impressions of life, the life of the -Hilberys was getting the better of the life of the Denhams in his mind, -and he wanted to assure himself that there was some quality in which -Joan infinitely surpassed Miss Hilbery. He should have felt that his -own sister was more original, and had greater vitality than Miss -Hilbery had; but his main impression of Katharine now was of a person -of great vitality and composure; and at the moment he could not -perceive what poor dear Joan had gained from the fact that she was the -granddaughter of a man who kept a shop, and herself earned her own -living. The infinite dreariness and sordidness of their life oppressed -him in spite of his fundamental belief that, as a family, they were -somehow remarkable. - -“Shall you talk to mother?” Joan inquired. “Because, you see, the -thing’s got to be settled, one way or another. Charles must write to -Uncle John if he’s going there.” - -Ralph sighed impatiently. - -“I suppose it doesn’t much matter either way,” he exclaimed. “He’s -doomed to misery in the long run.” - -A slight flush came into Joan’s cheek. - -“You know you’re talking nonsense,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt any one -to have to earn their own living. I’m very glad I have to earn mine.” - -Ralph was pleased that she should feel this, and wished her to -continue, but he went on, perversely enough. - -“Isn’t that only because you’ve forgotten how to enjoy yourself? You -never have time for anything decent—” - -“As for instance?” - -“Well, going for walks, or music, or books, or seeing interesting -people. You never do anything that’s really worth doing any more than I -do.” - -“I always think you could make this room much nicer, if you liked,” she -observed. - -“What does it matter what sort of room I have when I’m forced to spend -all the best years of my life drawing up deeds in an office?” - -“You said two days ago that you found the law so interesting.” - -“So it is if one could afford to know anything about it.” - -(“That’s Herbert only just going to bed now,” Joan interposed, as a -door on the landing slammed vigorously. “And then he won’t get up in -the morning.”) - -Ralph looked at the ceiling, and shut his lips closely together. Why, -he wondered, could Joan never for one moment detach her mind from the -details of domestic life? It seemed to him that she was getting more -and more enmeshed in them, and capable of shorter and less frequent -flights into the outer world, and yet she was only thirty-three. - -“D’you ever pay calls now?” he asked abruptly. - -“I don’t often have the time. Why do you ask?” - -“It might be a good thing, to get to know new people, that’s all.” - -“Poor Ralph!” said Joan suddenly, with a smile. “You think your -sister’s getting very old and very dull—that’s it, isn’t it?” - -“I don’t think anything of the kind,” he said stoutly, but he flushed. -“But you lead a dog’s life, Joan. When you’re not working in an office, -you’re worrying over the rest of us. And I’m not much good to you, I’m -afraid.” - -Joan rose, and stood for a moment warming her hands, and, apparently, -meditating as to whether she should say anything more or not. A feeling -of great intimacy united the brother and sister, and the semicircular -lines above their eyebrows disappeared. No, there was nothing more to -be said on either side. Joan brushed her brother’s head with her hand -as she passed him, murmured good night, and left the room. For some -minutes after she had gone Ralph lay quiescent, resting his head on his -hand, but gradually his eyes filled with thought, and the line -reappeared on his brow, as the pleasant impression of companionship and -ancient sympathy waned, and he was left to think on alone. - -After a time he opened his book, and read on steadily, glancing once or -twice at his watch, as if he had set himself a task to be accomplished -in a certain measure of time. Now and then he heard voices in the -house, and the closing of bedroom doors, which showed that the -building, at the top of which he sat, was inhabited in every one of its -cells. When midnight struck, Ralph shut his book, and with a candle in -his hand, descended to the ground floor, to ascertain that all lights -were extinct and all doors locked. It was a threadbare, well-worn house -that he thus examined, as if the inmates had grazed down all luxuriance -and plenty to the verge of decency; and in the night, bereft of life, -bare places and ancient blemishes were unpleasantly visible. Katharine -Hilbery, he thought, would condemn it off-hand. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -Denham had accused Katharine Hilbery of belonging to one of the most -distinguished families in England, and if any one will take the trouble -to consult Mr. Galton’s “Hereditary Genius,” he will find that this -assertion is not far from the truth. The Alardyces, the Hilberys, the -Millingtons, and the Otways seem to prove that intellect is a -possession which can be tossed from one member of a certain group to -another almost indefinitely, and with apparent certainty that the -brilliant gift will be safely caught and held by nine out of ten of the -privileged race. They had been conspicuous judges and admirals, lawyers -and servants of the State for some years before the richness of the -soil culminated in the rarest flower that any family can boast, a great -writer, a poet eminent among the poets of England, a Richard Alardyce; -and having produced him, they proved once more the amazing virtues of -their race by proceeding unconcernedly again with their usual task of -breeding distinguished men. They had sailed with Sir John Franklin to -the North Pole, and ridden with Havelock to the Relief of Lucknow, and -when they were not lighthouses firmly based on rock for the guidance of -their generation, they were steady, serviceable candles, illuminating -the ordinary chambers of daily life. Whatever profession you looked at, -there was a Warburton or an Alardyce, a Millington or a Hilbery -somewhere in authority and prominence. - -It may be said, indeed, that English society being what it is, no very -great merit is required, once you bear a well-known name, to put you -into a position where it is easier on the whole to be eminent than -obscure. And if this is true of the sons, even the daughters, even in -the nineteenth century, are apt to become people of -importance—philanthropists and educationalists if they are spinsters, -and the wives of distinguished men if they marry. It is true that there -were several lamentable exceptions to this rule in the Alardyce group, -which seems to indicate that the cadets of such houses go more rapidly -to the bad than the children of ordinary fathers and mothers, as if it -were somehow a relief to them. But, on the whole, in these first years -of the twentieth century, the Alardyces and their relations were -keeping their heads well above water. One finds them at the tops of -professions, with letters after their names; they sit in luxurious -public offices, with private secretaries attached to them; they write -solid books in dark covers, issued by the presses of the two great -universities, and when one of them dies the chances are that another of -them writes his biography. - -Now the source of this nobility was, of course, the poet, and his -immediate descendants, therefore, were invested with greater luster -than the collateral branches. Mrs. Hilbery, in virtue of her position -as the only child of the poet, was spiritually the head of the family, -and Katharine, her daughter, had some superior rank among all the -cousins and connections, the more so because she was an only child. The -Alardyces had married and intermarried, and their offspring were -generally profuse, and had a way of meeting regularly in each other’s -houses for meals and family celebrations which had acquired a -semi-sacred character, and were as regularly observed as days of -feasting and fasting in the Church. - -In times gone by, Mrs. Hilbery had known all the poets, all the -novelists, all the beautiful women and distinguished men of her time. -These being now either dead or secluded in their infirm glory, she made -her house a meeting-place for her own relations, to whom she would -lament the passing of the great days of the nineteenth century, when -every department of letters and art was represented in England by two -or three illustrious names. Where are their successors? she would ask, -and the absence of any poet or painter or novelist of the true caliber -at the present day was a text upon which she liked to ruminate, in a -sunset mood of benignant reminiscence, which it would have been hard to -disturb had there been need. But she was far from visiting their -inferiority upon the younger generation. She welcomed them very -heartily to her house, told them her stories, gave them sovereigns and -ices and good advice, and weaved round them romances which had -generally no likeness to the truth. - -The quality of her birth oozed into Katharine’s consciousness from a -dozen different sources as soon as she was able to perceive anything. -Above her nursery fireplace hung a photograph of her grandfather’s tomb -in Poets’ Corner, and she was told in one of those moments of grown-up -confidence which are so tremendously impressive to the child’s mind, -that he was buried there because he was a “good and great man.” Later, -on an anniversary, she was taken by her mother through the fog in a -hansom cab, and given a large bunch of bright, sweet-scented flowers to -lay upon his tomb. The candles in the church, the singing and the -booming of the organ, were all, she thought, in his honor. Again and -again she was brought down into the drawing-room to receive the -blessing of some awful distinguished old man, who sat, even to her -childish eye, somewhat apart, all gathered together and clutching a -stick, unlike an ordinary visitor in her father’s own arm-chair, and -her father himself was there, unlike himself, too, a little excited and -very polite. These formidable old creatures used to take her in their -arms, look very keenly in her eyes, and then to bless her, and tell her -that she must mind and be a good girl, or detect a look in her face -something like Richard’s as a small boy. That drew down upon her her -mother’s fervent embrace, and she was sent back to the nursery very -proud, and with a mysterious sense of an important and unexplained -state of things, which time, by degrees, unveiled to her. - -There were always visitors—uncles and aunts and cousins “from India,” -to be reverenced for their relationship alone, and others of the -solitary and formidable class, whom she was enjoined by her parents to -“remember all your life.” By these means, and from hearing constant -talk of great men and their works, her earliest conceptions of the -world included an august circle of beings to whom she gave the names of -Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, and so on, who were, for some -reason, much more nearly akin to the Hilberys than to other people. -They made a kind of boundary to her vision of life, and played a -considerable part in determining her scale of good and bad in her own -small affairs. Her descent from one of these gods was no surprise to -her, but matter for satisfaction, until, as the years wore on, the -privileges of her lot were taken for granted, and certain drawbacks -made themselves very manifest. Perhaps it is a little depressing to -inherit not lands but an example of intellectual and spiritual virtue; -perhaps the conclusiveness of a great ancestor is a little discouraging -to those who run the risk of comparison with him. It seems as if, -having flowered so splendidly, nothing now remained possible but a -steady growth of good, green stalk and leaf. For these reasons, and for -others, Katharine had her moments of despondency. The glorious past, in -which men and women grew to unexampled size, intruded too much upon the -present, and dwarfed it too consistently, to be altogether encouraging -to one forced to make her experiment in living when the great age was -dead. - -She was drawn to dwell upon these matters more than was natural, in the -first place owing to her mother’s absorption in them, and in the second -because a great part of her time was spent in imagination with the -dead, since she was helping her mother to produce a life of the great -poet. When Katharine was seventeen or eighteen—that is to say, some ten -years ago—her mother had enthusiastically announced that now, with a -daughter to help her, the biography would soon be published. Notices to -this effect found their way into the literary papers, and for some time -Katharine worked with a sense of great pride and achievement. - -Lately, however, it had seemed to her that they were making no way at -all, and this was the more tantalizing because no one with the ghost of -a literary temperament could doubt but that they had materials for one -of the greatest biographies that has ever been written. Shelves and -boxes bulged with the precious stuff. The most private lives of the -most interesting people lay furled in yellow bundles of close-written -manuscript. In addition to this Mrs. Hilbery had in her own head as -bright a vision of that time as now remained to the living, and could -give those flashes and thrills to the old words which gave them almost -the substance of flesh. She had no difficulty in writing, and covered a -page every morning as instinctively as a thrush sings, but -nevertheless, with all this to urge and inspire, and the most devout -intention to accomplish the work, the book still remained unwritten. -Papers accumulated without much furthering their task, and in dull -moments Katharine had her doubts whether they would ever produce -anything at all fit to lay before the public. Where did the difficulty -lie? Not in their materials, alas! nor in their ambitions, but in -something more profound, in her own inaptitude, and above all, in her -mother’s temperament. Katharine would calculate that she had never -known her write for more than ten minutes at a time. Ideas came to her -chiefly when she was in motion. She liked to perambulate the room with -a duster in her hand, with which she stopped to polish the backs of -already lustrous books, musing and romancing as she did so. Suddenly -the right phrase or the penetrating point of view would suggest itself, -and she would drop her duster and write ecstatically for a few -breathless moments; and then the mood would pass away, and the duster -would be sought for, and the old books polished again. These spells of -inspiration never burnt steadily, but flickered over the gigantic mass -of the subject as capriciously as a will-o’-the-wisp, lighting now on -this point, now on that. It was as much as Katharine could do to keep -the pages of her mother’s manuscript in order, but to sort them so that -the sixteenth year of Richard Alardyce’s life succeeded the fifteenth -was beyond her skill. And yet they were so brilliant, these paragraphs, -so nobly phrased, so lightning-like in their illumination, that the -dead seemed to crowd the very room. Read continuously, they produced a -sort of vertigo, and set her asking herself in despair what on earth -she was to do with them? Her mother refused, also, to face the radical -questions of what to leave in and what to leave out. She could not -decide how far the public was to be told the truth about the poet’s -separation from his wife. She drafted passages to suit either case, and -then liked each so well that she could not decide upon the rejection of -either. - -But the book must be written. It was a duty that they owed the world, -and to Katharine, at least, it meant more than that, for if they could -not between them get this one book accomplished they had no right to -their privileged position. Their increment became yearly more and more -unearned. Besides, it must be established indisputably that her -grandfather was a very great man. - -By the time she was twenty-seven, these thoughts had become very -familiar to her. They trod their way through her mind as she sat -opposite her mother of a morning at a table heaped with bundles of old -letters and well supplied with pencils, scissors, bottles of gum, -india-rubber bands, large envelopes, and other appliances for the -manufacture of books. Shortly before Ralph Denham’s visit, Katharine -had resolved to try the effect of strict rules upon her mother’s habits -of literary composition. They were to be seated at their tables every -morning at ten o’clock, with a clean-swept morning of empty, secluded -hours before them. They were to keep their eyes fast upon the paper, -and nothing was to tempt them to speech, save at the stroke of the hour -when ten minutes for relaxation were to be allowed them. If these rules -were observed for a year, she made out on a sheet of paper that the -completion of the book was certain, and she laid her scheme before her -mother with a feeling that much of the task was already accomplished. -Mrs. Hilbery examined the sheet of paper very carefully. Then she -clapped her hands and exclaimed enthusiastically: - -“Well done, Katharine! What a wonderful head for business you’ve got! -Now I shall keep this before me, and every day I shall make a little -mark in my pocketbook, and on the last day of all—let me think, what -shall we do to celebrate the last day of all? If it weren’t the winter -we could take a jaunt to Italy. They say Switzerland’s very lovely in -the snow, except for the cold. But, as you say, the great thing is to -finish the book. Now let me see—” - -When they inspected her manuscripts, which Katharine had put in order, -they found a state of things well calculated to dash their spirits, if -they had not just resolved on reform. They found, to begin with, a -great variety of very imposing paragraphs with which the biography was -to open; many of these, it is true, were unfinished, and resembled -triumphal arches standing upon one leg, but, as Mrs. Hilbery observed, -they could be patched up in ten minutes, if she gave her mind to it. -Next, there was an account of the ancient home of the Alardyces, or -rather, of spring in Suffolk, which was very beautifully written, -although not essential to the story. However, Katharine had put -together a string of names and dates, so that the poet was capably -brought into the world, and his ninth year was reached without further -mishap. After that, Mrs. Hilbery wished, for sentimental reasons, to -introduce the recollections of a very fluent old lady, who had been -brought up in the same village, but these Katharine decided must go. It -might be advisable to introduce here a sketch of contemporary poetry -contributed by Mr. Hilbery, and thus terse and learned and altogether -out of keeping with the rest, but Mrs. Hilbery was of opinion that it -was too bare, and made one feel altogether like a good little girl in a -lecture-room, which was not at all in keeping with her father. It was -put on one side. Now came the period of his early manhood, when various -affairs of the heart must either be concealed or revealed; here again -Mrs. Hilbery was of two minds, and a thick packet of manuscript was -shelved for further consideration. - -Several years were now altogether omitted, because Mrs. Hilbery had -found something distasteful to her in that period, and had preferred to -dwell upon her own recollections as a child. After this, it seemed to -Katharine that the book became a wild dance of will-o’-the-wisps, -without form or continuity, without coherence even, or any attempt to -make a narrative. Here were twenty pages upon her grandfather’s taste -in hats, an essay upon contemporary china, a long account of a summer -day’s expedition into the country, when they had missed their train, -together with fragmentary visions of all sorts of famous men and women, -which seemed to be partly imaginary and partly authentic. There were, -moreover, thousands of letters, and a mass of faithful recollections -contributed by old friends, which had grown yellow now in their -envelopes, but must be placed somewhere, or their feelings would be -hurt. So many volumes had been written about the poet since his death -that she had also to dispose of a great number of misstatements, which -involved minute researches and much correspondence. Sometimes Katharine -brooded, half crushed, among her papers; sometimes she felt that it was -necessary for her very existence that she should free herself from the -past; at others, that the past had completely displaced the present, -which, when one resumed life after a morning among the dead, proved to -be of an utterly thin and inferior composition. - -The worst of it was that she had no aptitude for literature. She did -not like phrases. She had even some natural antipathy to that process -of self-examination, that perpetual effort to understand one’s own -feeling, and express it beautifully, fitly, or energetically in -language, which constituted so great a part of her mother’s existence. -She was, on the contrary, inclined to be silent; she shrank from -expressing herself even in talk, let alone in writing. As this -disposition was highly convenient in a family much given to the -manufacture of phrases, and seemed to argue a corresponding capacity -for action, she was, from her childhood even, put in charge of -household affairs. She had the reputation, which nothing in her manner -contradicted, of being the most practical of people. Ordering meals, -directing servants, paying bills, and so contriving that every clock -ticked more or less accurately in time, and a number of vases were -always full of fresh flowers was supposed to be a natural endowment of -hers, and, indeed, Mrs. Hilbery often observed that it was poetry the -wrong side out. From a very early age, too, she had to exert herself in -another capacity; she had to counsel and help and generally sustain her -mother. Mrs. Hilbery would have been perfectly well able to sustain -herself if the world had been what the world is not. She was -beautifully adapted for life in another planet. But the natural genius -she had for conducting affairs there was of no real use to her here. -Her watch, for example, was a constant source of surprise to her, and -at the age of sixty-five she was still amazed at the ascendancy which -rules and reasons exerted over the lives of other people. She had never -learnt her lesson, and had constantly to be punished for her ignorance. -But as that ignorance was combined with a fine natural insight which -saw deep whenever it saw at all, it was not possible to write Mrs. -Hilbery off among the dunces; on the contrary, she had a way of seeming -the wisest person in the room. But, on the whole, she found it very -necessary to seek support in her daughter. - -Katharine, thus, was a member of a very great profession which has, as -yet, no title and very little recognition, although the labor of mill -and factory is, perhaps, no more severe and the results of less benefit -to the world. She lived at home. She did it very well, too. Any one -coming to the house in Cheyne Walk felt that here was an orderly place, -shapely, controlled—a place where life had been trained to show to the -best advantage, and, though composed of different elements, made to -appear harmonious and with a character of its own. Perhaps it was the -chief triumph of Katharine’s art that Mrs. Hilbery’s character -predominated. She and Mr. Hilbery appeared to be a rich background for -her mother’s more striking qualities. - -Silence being, thus, both natural to her and imposed upon her, the only -other remark that her mother’s friends were in the habit of making -about it was that it was neither a stupid silence nor an indifferent -silence. But to what quality it owed its character, since character of -some sort it had, no one troubled themselves to inquire. It was -understood that she was helping her mother to produce a great book. She -was known to manage the household. She was certainly beautiful. That -accounted for her satisfactorily. But it would have been a surprise, -not only to other people but to Katharine herself, if some magic watch -could have taken count of the moments spent in an entirely different -occupation from her ostensible one. Sitting with faded papers before -her, she took part in a series of scenes such as the taming of wild -ponies upon the American prairies, or the conduct of a vast ship in a -hurricane round a black promontory of rock, or in others more peaceful, -but marked by her complete emancipation from her present surroundings -and, needless to say, by her surpassing ability in her new vocation. -When she was rid of the pretense of paper and pen, phrase-making and -biography, she turned her attention in a more legitimate direction, -though, strangely enough, she would rather have confessed her wildest -dreams of hurricane and prairie than the fact that, upstairs, alone in -her room, she rose early in the morning or sat up late at night to... -work at mathematics. No force on earth would have made her confess -that. Her actions when thus engaged were furtive and secretive, like -those of some nocturnal animal. Steps had only to sound on the -staircase, and she slipped her paper between the leaves of a great -Greek dictionary which she had purloined from her father’s room for -this purpose. It was only at night, indeed, that she felt secure enough -from surprise to concentrate her mind to the utmost. - -Perhaps the unwomanly nature of the science made her instinctively wish -to conceal her love of it. But the more profound reason was that in her -mind mathematics were directly opposed to literature. She would not -have cared to confess how infinitely she preferred the exactitude, the -star-like impersonality, of figures to the confusion, agitation, and -vagueness of the finest prose. There was something a little unseemly in -thus opposing the tradition of her family; something that made her feel -wrong-headed, and thus more than ever disposed to shut her desires away -from view and cherish them with extraordinary fondness. Again and again -she was thinking of some problem when she should have been thinking of -her grandfather. Waking from these trances, she would see that her -mother, too, had lapsed into some dream almost as visionary as her own, -for the people who played their parts in it had long been numbered -among the dead. But, seeing her own state mirrored in her mother’s -face, Katharine would shake herself awake with a sense of irritation. -Her mother was the last person she wished to resemble, much though she -admired her. Her common sense would assert itself almost brutally, and -Mrs. Hilbery, looking at her with her odd sidelong glance, that was -half malicious and half tender, would liken her to “your wicked old -Uncle Judge Peter, who used to be heard delivering sentence of death in -the bathroom. Thank Heaven, Katharine, I’ve not a drop of _him_ in me!” - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -At about nine o’clock at night, on every alternate Wednesday, Miss Mary -Datchet made the same resolve, that she would never again lend her -rooms for any purposes whatsoever. Being, as they were, rather large -and conveniently situated in a street mostly dedicated to offices off -the Strand, people who wished to meet, either for purposes of -enjoyment, or to discuss art, or to reform the State, had a way of -suggesting that Mary had better be asked to lend them her rooms. She -always met the request with the same frown of well-simulated annoyance, -which presently dissolved in a kind of half-humorous, half-surly shrug, -as of a large dog tormented by children who shakes his ears. She would -lend her room, but only on condition that all the arrangements were -made by her. This fortnightly meeting of a society for the free -discussion of everything entailed a great deal of moving, and pulling, -and ranging of furniture against the wall, and placing of breakable and -precious things in safe places. Miss Datchet was quite capable of -lifting a kitchen table on her back, if need were, for although -well-proportioned and dressed becomingly, she had the appearance of -unusual strength and determination. - -She was some twenty-five years of age, but looked older because she -earned, or intended to earn, her own living, and had already lost the -look of the irresponsible spectator, and taken on that of the private -in the army of workers. Her gestures seemed to have a certain purpose, -the muscles round eyes and lips were set rather firmly, as though the -senses had undergone some discipline, and were held ready for a call on -them. She had contracted two faint lines between her eyebrows, not from -anxiety but from thought, and it was quite evident that all the -feminine instincts of pleasing, soothing, and charming were crossed by -others in no way peculiar to her sex. For the rest she was brown-eyed, -a little clumsy in movement, and suggested country birth and a descent -from respectable hard-working ancestors, who had been men of faith and -integrity rather than doubters or fanatics. - -At the end of a fairly hard day’s work it was certainly something of an -effort to clear one’s room, to pull the mattress off one’s bed, and lay -it on the floor, to fill a pitcher with cold coffee, and to sweep a -long table clear for plates and cups and saucers, with pyramids of -little pink biscuits between them; but when these alterations were -effected, Mary felt a lightness of spirit come to her, as if she had -put off the stout stuff of her working hours and slipped over her -entire being some vesture of thin, bright silk. She knelt before the -fire and looked out into the room. The light fell softly, but with -clear radiance, through shades of yellow and blue paper, and the room, -which was set with one or two sofas resembling grassy mounds in their -lack of shape, looked unusually large and quiet. Mary was led to think -of the heights of a Sussex down, and the swelling green circle of some -camp of ancient warriors. The moonlight would be falling there so -peacefully now, and she could fancy the rough pathway of silver upon -the wrinkled skin of the sea. - -“And here we are,” she said, half aloud, half satirically, yet with -evident pride, “talking about art.” - -She pulled a basket containing balls of differently colored wools and a -pair of stockings which needed darning towards her, and began to set -her fingers to work; while her mind, reflecting the lassitude of her -body, went on perversely, conjuring up visions of solitude and quiet, -and she pictured herself laying aside her knitting and walking out on -to the down, and hearing nothing but the sheep cropping the grass close -to the roots, while the shadows of the little trees moved very slightly -this way and that in the moonlight, as the breeze went through them. -But she was perfectly conscious of her present situation, and derived -some pleasure from the reflection that she could rejoice equally in -solitude, and in the presence of the many very different people who -were now making their way, by divers paths, across London to the spot -where she was sitting. - -As she ran her needle in and out of the wool, she thought of the -various stages in her own life which made her present position seem the -culmination of successive miracles. She thought of her clerical father -in his country parsonage, and of her mother’s death, and of her own -determination to obtain education, and of her college life, which had -merged, not so very long ago, in the wonderful maze of London, which -still seemed to her, in spite of her constitutional level-headedness, -like a vast electric light, casting radiance upon the myriads of men -and women who crowded round it. And here she was at the very center of -it all, that center which was constantly in the minds of people in -remote Canadian forests and on the plains of India, when their thoughts -turned to England. The nine mellow strokes, by which she was now -apprised of the hour, were a message from the great clock at -Westminster itself. As the last of them died away, there was a firm -knocking on her own door, and she rose and opened it. She returned to -the room, with a look of steady pleasure in her eyes, and she was -talking to Ralph Denham, who followed her. - -“Alone?” he said, as if he were pleasantly surprised by that fact. - -“I am sometimes alone,” she replied. - -“But you expect a great many people,” he added, looking round him. -“It’s like a room on the stage. Who is it to-night?” - -“William Rodney, upon the Elizabethan use of metaphor. I expect a good -solid paper, with plenty of quotations from the classics.” - -Ralph warmed his hands at the fire, which was flapping bravely in the -grate, while Mary took up her stocking again. - -“I suppose you are the only woman in London who darns her own -stockings,” he observed. - -“I’m only one of a great many thousands really,” she replied, “though I -must admit that I was thinking myself very remarkable when you came in. -And now that you’re here I don’t think myself remarkable at all. How -horrid of you! But I’m afraid you’re much more remarkable than I am. -You’ve done much more than I’ve done.” - -“If that’s your standard, you’ve nothing to be proud of,” said Ralph -grimly. - -“Well, I must reflect with Emerson that it’s being and not doing that -matters,” she continued. - -“Emerson?” Ralph exclaimed, with derision. “You don’t mean to say you -read Emerson?” - -“Perhaps it wasn’t Emerson; but why shouldn’t I read Emerson?” she -asked, with a tinge of anxiety. - -“There’s no reason that I know of. It’s the combination that’s -odd—books and stockings. The combination is very odd.” But it seemed to -recommend itself to him. Mary gave a little laugh, expressive of -happiness, and the particular stitches that she was now putting into -her work appeared to her to be done with singular grace and felicity. -She held out the stocking and looked at it approvingly. - -“You always say that,” she said. “I assure you it’s a common -‘combination,’ as you call it, in the houses of the clergy. The only -thing that’s odd about me is that I enjoy them both—Emerson and the -stocking.” - -A knock was heard, and Ralph exclaimed: - -“Damn those people! I wish they weren’t coming!” - -“It’s only Mr. Turner, on the floor below,” said Mary, and she felt -grateful to Mr. Turner for having alarmed Ralph, and for having given a -false alarm. - -“Will there be a crowd?” Ralph asked, after a pause. - -“There’ll be the Morrises and the Crashaws, and Dick Osborne, and -Septimus, and all that set. Katharine Hilbery is coming, by the way, so -William Rodney told me.” - -“Katharine Hilbery!” Ralph exclaimed. - -“You know her?” Mary asked, with some surprise. - -“I went to a tea-party at her house.” - -Mary pressed him to tell her all about it, and Ralph was not at all -unwilling to exhibit proofs of the extent of his knowledge. He -described the scene with certain additions and exaggerations which -interested Mary very much. - -“But, in spite of what you say, I do admire her,” she said. “I’ve only -seen her once or twice, but she seems to me to be what one calls a -‘personality.’” - -“I didn’t mean to abuse her. I only felt that she wasn’t very -sympathetic to me.” - -“They say she’s going to marry that queer creature Rodney.” - -“Marry Rodney? Then she must be more deluded than I thought her.” - -“Now that’s my door, all right,” Mary exclaimed, carefully putting her -wools away, as a succession of knocks reverberated unnecessarily, -accompanied by a sound of people stamping their feet and laughing. A -moment later the room was full of young men and women, who came in with -a peculiar look of expectation, exclaimed “Oh!” when they saw Denham, -and then stood still, gaping rather foolishly. - -The room very soon contained between twenty and thirty people, who -found seats for the most part upon the floor, occupying the mattresses, -and hunching themselves together into triangular shapes. They were all -young and some of them seemed to make a protest by their hair and -dress, and something somber and truculent in the expression of their -faces, against the more normal type, who would have passed unnoticed in -an omnibus or an underground railway. It was notable that the talk was -confined to groups, and was, at first, entirely spasmodic in character, -and muttered in undertones as if the speakers were suspicious of their -fellow-guests. - -Katharine Hilbery came in rather late, and took up a position on the -floor, with her back against the wall. She looked round quickly, -recognized about half a dozen people, to whom she nodded, but failed to -see Ralph, or, if so, had already forgotten to attach any name to him. -But in a second these heterogeneous elements were all united by the -voice of Mr. Rodney, who suddenly strode up to the table, and began -very rapidly in high-strained tones: - -“In undertaking to speak of the Elizabethan use of metaphor in poetry—” - -All the different heads swung slightly or steadied themselves into a -position in which they could gaze straight at the speaker’s face, and -the same rather solemn expression was visible on all of them. But, at -the same time, even the faces that were most exposed to view, and -therefore most tautly under control, disclosed a sudden impulsive -tremor which, unless directly checked, would have developed into an -outburst of laughter. The first sight of Mr. Rodney was irresistibly -ludicrous. He was very red in the face, whether from the cool November -night or nervousness, and every movement, from the way he wrung his -hands to the way he jerked his head to right and left, as though a -vision drew him now to the door, now to the window, bespoke his -horrible discomfort under the stare of so many eyes. He was -scrupulously well dressed, and a pearl in the center of his tie seemed -to give him a touch of aristocratic opulence. But the rather prominent -eyes and the impulsive stammering manner, which seemed to indicate a -torrent of ideas intermittently pressing for utterance and always -checked in their course by a clutch of nervousness, drew no pity, as in -the case of a more imposing personage, but a desire to laugh, which -was, however, entirely lacking in malice. Mr. Rodney was evidently so -painfully conscious of the oddity of his appearance, and his very -redness and the starts to which his body was liable gave such proof of -his own discomfort, that there was something endearing in this -ridiculous susceptibility, although most people would probably have -echoed Denham’s private exclamation, “Fancy marrying a creature like -that!” - -His paper was carefully written out, but in spite of this precaution -Mr. Rodney managed to turn over two sheets instead of one, to choose -the wrong sentence where two were written together, and to discover his -own handwriting suddenly illegible. When he found himself possessed of -a coherent passage, he shook it at his audience almost aggressively, -and then fumbled for another. After a distressing search a fresh -discovery would be made, and produced in the same way, until, by means -of repeated attacks, he had stirred his audience to a degree of -animation quite remarkable in these gatherings. Whether they were -stirred by his enthusiasm for poetry or by the contortions which a -human being was going through for their benefit, it would be hard to -say. At length Mr. Rodney sat down impulsively in the middle of a -sentence, and, after a pause of bewilderment, the audience expressed -its relief at being able to laugh aloud in a decided outburst of -applause. - -Mr. Rodney acknowledged this with a wild glance round him, and, instead -of waiting to answer questions, he jumped up, thrust himself through -the seated bodies into the corner where Katharine was sitting, and -exclaimed, very audibly: - -“Well, Katharine, I hope I’ve made a big enough fool of myself even for -you! It was terrible! terrible! terrible!” - -“Hush! You must answer their questions,” Katharine whispered, desiring, -at all costs, to keep him quiet. Oddly enough, when the speaker was no -longer in front of them, there seemed to be much that was suggestive in -what he had said. At any rate, a pale-faced young man with sad eyes was -already on his feet, delivering an accurately worded speech with -perfect composure. William Rodney listened with a curious lifting of -his upper lip, although his face was still quivering slightly with -emotion. - -“Idiot!” he whispered. “He’s misunderstood every word I said!” - -“Well then, answer him,” Katharine whispered back. - -“No, I shan’t! They’d only laugh at me. Why did I let you persuade me -that these sort of people care for literature?” he continued. - -There was much to be said both for and against Mr. Rodney’s paper. It -had been crammed with assertions that such-and-such passages, taken -liberally from English, French, and Italian, are the supreme pearls of -literature. Further, he was fond of using metaphors which, compounded -in the study, were apt to sound either cramped or out of place as he -delivered them in fragments. Literature was a fresh garland of spring -flowers, he said, in which yew-berries and the purple nightshade -mingled with the various tints of the anemone; and somehow or other -this garland encircled marble brows. He had read very badly some very -beautiful quotations. But through his manner and his confusion of -language there had emerged some passion of feeling which, as he spoke, -formed in the majority of the audience a little picture or an idea -which each now was eager to give expression to. Most of the people -there proposed to spend their lives in the practice either of writing -or painting, and merely by looking at them it could be seen that, as -they listened to Mr. Purvis first, and then to Mr. Greenhalgh, they -were seeing something done by these gentlemen to a possession which -they thought to be their own. One person after another rose, and, as -with an ill-balanced axe, attempted to hew out his conception of art a -little more clearly, and sat down with the feeling that, for some -reason which he could not grasp, his strokes had gone awry. As they sat -down they turned almost invariably to the person sitting next them, and -rectified and continued what they had just said in public. Before long, -therefore, the groups on the mattresses and the groups on the chairs -were all in communication with each other, and Mary Datchet, who had -begun to darn stockings again, stooped down and remarked to Ralph: - -“That was what I call a first-rate paper.” - -Both of them instinctively turned their eyes in the direction of the -reader of the paper. He was lying back against the wall, with his eyes -apparently shut, and his chin sunk upon his collar. Katharine was -turning over the pages of his manuscript as if she were looking for -some passage that had particularly struck her, and had a difficulty in -finding it. - -“Let’s go and tell him how much we liked it,” said Mary, thus -suggesting an action which Ralph was anxious to take, though without -her he would have been too proud to do it, for he suspected that he had -more interest in Katharine than she had in him. - -“That was a very interesting paper,” Mary began, without any shyness, -seating herself on the floor opposite to Rodney and Katharine. “Will -you lend me the manuscript to read in peace?” - -Rodney, who had opened his eyes on their approach, regarded her for a -moment in suspicious silence. - -“Do you say that merely to disguise the fact of my ridiculous failure?” -he asked. - -Katharine looked up from her reading with a smile. - -“He says he doesn’t mind what we think of him,” she remarked. “He says -we don’t care a rap for art of any kind.” - -“I asked her to pity me, and she teases me!” Rodney exclaimed. - -“I don’t intend to pity you, Mr. Rodney,” Mary remarked, kindly, but -firmly. “When a paper’s a failure, nobody says anything, whereas now, -just listen to them!” - -The sound, which filled the room, with its hurry of short syllables, -its sudden pauses, and its sudden attacks, might be compared to some -animal hubbub, frantic and inarticulate. - -“D’you think that’s all about my paper?” Rodney inquired, after a -moment’s attention, with a distinct brightening of expression. - -“Of course it is,” said Mary. “It was a very suggestive paper.” - -She turned to Denham for confirmation, and he corroborated her. - -“It’s the ten minutes after a paper is read that proves whether it’s -been a success or not,” he said. “If I were you, Rodney, I should be -very pleased with myself.” - -This commendation seemed to comfort Mr. Rodney completely, and he began -to bethink him of all the passages in his paper which deserved to be -called “suggestive.” - -“Did you agree at all, Denham, with what I said about Shakespeare’s -later use of imagery? I’m afraid I didn’t altogether make my meaning -plain.” - -Here he gathered himself together, and by means of a series of -frog-like jerks, succeeded in bringing himself close to Denham. - -Denham answered him with the brevity which is the result of having -another sentence in the mind to be addressed to another person. He -wished to say to Katharine: “Did you remember to get that picture -glazed before your aunt came to dinner?” but, besides having to answer -Rodney, he was not sure that the remark, with its assertion of -intimacy, would not strike Katharine as impertinent. She was listening -to what some one in another group was saying. Rodney, meanwhile, was -talking about the Elizabethan dramatists. - -He was a curious-looking man since, upon first sight, especially if he -chanced to be talking with animation, he appeared, in some way, -ridiculous; but, next moment, in repose, his face, with its large nose, -thin cheeks and lips expressing the utmost sensibility, somehow -recalled a Roman head bound with laurel, cut upon a circle of -semi-transparent reddish stone. It had dignity and character. By -profession a clerk in a Government office, he was one of those martyred -spirits to whom literature is at once a source of divine joy and of -almost intolerable irritation. Not content to rest in their love of it, -they must attempt to practise it themselves, and they are generally -endowed with very little facility in composition. They condemn whatever -they produce. Moreover, the violence of their feelings is such that -they seldom meet with adequate sympathy, and being rendered very -sensitive by their cultivated perceptions, suffer constant slights both -to their own persons and to the thing they worship. But Rodney could -never resist making trial of the sympathies of any one who seemed -favorably disposed, and Denham’s praise had stimulated his very -susceptible vanity. - -“You remember the passage just before the death of the Duchess?” he -continued, edging still closer to Denham, and adjusting his elbow and -knee in an incredibly angular combination. Here, Katharine, who had -been cut off by these maneuvers from all communication with the outer -world, rose, and seated herself upon the window-sill, where she was -joined by Mary Datchet. The two young women could thus survey the whole -party. Denham looked after them, and made as if he were tearing -handfuls of grass up by the roots from the carpet. But as it fell in -accurately with his conception of life that all one’s desires were -bound to be frustrated, he concentrated his mind upon literature, and -determined, philosophically, to get what he could out of that. - -Katharine was pleasantly excited. A variety of courses was open to her. -She knew several people slightly, and at any moment one of them might -rise from the floor and come and speak to her; on the other hand, she -might select somebody for herself, or she might strike into Rodney’s -discourse, to which she was intermittently attentive. She was conscious -of Mary’s body beside her, but, at the same time, the consciousness of -being both of them women made it unnecessary to speak to her. But Mary, -feeling, as she had said, that Katharine was a “personality,” wished so -much to speak to her that in a few moments she did. - -“They’re exactly like a flock of sheep, aren’t they?” she said, -referring to the noise that rose from the scattered bodies beneath her. - -Katharine turned and smiled. - -“I wonder what they’re making such a noise about?” she said. - -“The Elizabethans, I suppose.” - -“No, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the Elizabethans. -There! Didn’t you hear them say, ‘Insurance Bill’?” - -“I wonder why men always talk about politics?” Mary speculated. “I -suppose, if we had votes, we should, too.” - -“I dare say we should. And you spend your life in getting us votes, -don’t you?” - -“I do,” said Mary, stoutly. “From ten to six every day I’m at it.” - -Katharine looked at Ralph Denham, who was now pounding his way through -the metaphysics of metaphor with Rodney, and was reminded of his talk -that Sunday afternoon. She connected him vaguely with Mary. - -“I suppose you’re one of the people who think we should all have -professions,” she said, rather distantly, as if feeling her way among -the phantoms of an unknown world. - -“Oh dear no,” said Mary at once. - -“Well, I think I do,” Katharine continued, with half a sigh. “You will -always be able to say that you’ve done something, whereas, in a crowd -like this, I feel rather melancholy.” - -“In a crowd? Why in a crowd?” Mary asked, deepening the two lines -between her eyes, and hoisting herself nearer to Katharine upon the -window-sill. - -“Don’t you see how many different things these people care about? And I -want to beat them down—I only mean,” she corrected herself, “that I -want to assert myself, and it’s difficult, if one hasn’t a profession.” - -Mary smiled, thinking that to beat people down was a process that -should present no difficulty to Miss Katharine Hilbery. They knew each -other so slightly that the beginning of intimacy, which Katharine -seemed to initiate by talking about herself, had something solemn in -it, and they were silent, as if to decide whether to proceed or not. -They tested the ground. - -“Ah, but I want to trample upon their prostrate bodies!” Katharine -announced, a moment later, with a laugh, as if at the train of thought -which had led her to this conclusion. - -“One doesn’t necessarily trample upon people’s bodies because one runs -an office,” Mary remarked. - -“No. Perhaps not,” Katharine replied. The conversation lapsed, and Mary -saw Katharine looking out into the room rather moodily with closed -lips, the desire to talk about herself or to initiate a friendship -having, apparently, left her. Mary was struck by her capacity for being -thus easily silent, and occupied with her own thoughts. It was a habit -that spoke of loneliness and a mind thinking for itself. When Katharine -remained silent Mary was slightly embarrassed. - -“Yes, they’re very like sheep,” she repeated, foolishly. - -“And yet they are very clever—at least,” Katharine added, “I suppose -they have all read Webster.” - -“Surely you don’t think that a proof of cleverness? I’ve read Webster, -I’ve read Ben Jonson, but I don’t think myself clever—not exactly, at -least.” - -“I think you must be very clever,” Katharine observed. - -“Why? Because I run an office?” - -“I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking how you live alone in this -room, and have parties.” - -Mary reflected for a second. - -“It means, chiefly, a power of being disagreeable to one’s own family, -I think. I have that, perhaps. I didn’t want to live at home, and I -told my father. He didn’t like it.... But then I have a sister, and you -haven’t, have you?” - -“No, I haven’t any sisters.” - -“You are writing a life of your grandfather?” Mary pursued. - -Katharine seemed instantly to be confronted by some familiar thought -from which she wished to escape. She replied, “Yes, I am helping my -mother,” in such a way that Mary felt herself baffled, and put back -again into the position in which she had been at the beginning of their -talk. It seemed to her that Katharine possessed a curious power of -drawing near and receding, which sent alternate emotions through her -far more quickly than was usual, and kept her in a condition of curious -alertness. Desiring to classify her, Mary bethought her of the -convenient term “egoist.” - -“She’s an egoist,” she said to herself, and stored that word up to give -to Ralph one day when, as it would certainly fall out, they were -discussing Miss Hilbery. - -“Heavens, what a mess there’ll be to-morrow morning!” Katharine -exclaimed. “I hope you don’t sleep in this room, Miss Datchet?” - -Mary laughed. - -“What are you laughing at?” Katharine demanded. - -“I won’t tell you.” - -“Let me guess. You were laughing because you thought I’d changed the -conversation?” - -“No.” - -“Because you think—” She paused. - -“If you want to know, I was laughing at the way you said Miss Datchet.” - -“Mary, then. Mary, Mary, Mary.” - -So saying, Katharine drew back the curtain in order, perhaps, to -conceal the momentary flush of pleasure which is caused by coming -perceptibly nearer to another person. - -“Mary Datchet,” said Mary. “It’s not such an imposing name as Katharine -Hilbery, I’m afraid.” - -They both looked out of the window, first up at the hard silver moon, -stationary among a hurry of little grey-blue clouds, and then down upon -the roofs of London, with all their upright chimneys, and then below -them at the empty moonlit pavement of the street, upon which the joint -of each paving-stone was clearly marked out. Mary then saw Katharine -raise her eyes again to the moon, with a contemplative look in them, as -though she were setting that moon against the moon of other nights, -held in memory. Some one in the room behind them made a joke about -star-gazing, which destroyed their pleasure in it, and they looked back -into the room again. - -Ralph had been watching for this moment, and he instantly produced his -sentence. - -“I wonder, Miss Hilbery, whether you remembered to get that picture -glazed?” His voice showed that the question was one that had been -prepared. - -“Oh, you idiot!” Mary exclaimed, very nearly aloud, with a sense that -Ralph had said something very stupid. So, after three lessons in Latin -grammar, one might correct a fellow student, whose knowledge did not -embrace the ablative of “mensa.” - -“Picture—what picture?” Katharine asked. “Oh, at home, you mean—that -Sunday afternoon. Was it the day Mr. Fortescue came? Yes, I think I -remembered it.” - -The three of them stood for a moment awkwardly silent, and then Mary -left them in order to see that the great pitcher of coffee was properly -handled, for beneath all her education she preserved the anxieties of -one who owns china. - -Ralph could think of nothing further to say; but could one have -stripped off his mask of flesh, one would have seen that his will-power -was rigidly set upon a single object—that Miss Hilbery should obey him. -He wished her to stay there until, by some measures not yet apparent to -him, he had conquered her interest. These states of mind transmit -themselves very often without the use of language, and it was evident -to Katharine that this young man had fixed his mind upon her. She -instantly recalled her first impressions of him, and saw herself again -proffering family relics. She reverted to the state of mind in which he -had left her that Sunday afternoon. She supposed that he judged her -very severely. She argued naturally that, if this were the case, the -burden of the conversation should rest with him. But she submitted so -far as to stand perfectly still, her eyes upon the opposite wall, and -her lips very nearly closed, though the desire to laugh stirred them -slightly. - -“You know the names of the stars, I suppose?” Denham remarked, and from -the tone of his voice one might have thought that he grudged Katharine -the knowledge he attributed to her. - -She kept her voice steady with some difficulty. - -“I know how to find the Pole star if I’m lost.” - -“I don’t suppose that often happens to you.” - -“No. Nothing interesting ever happens to me,” she said. - -“I think you make a system of saying disagreeable things, Miss -Hilbery,” he broke out, again going further than he meant to. “I -suppose it’s one of the characteristics of your class. They never talk -seriously to their inferiors.” - -Whether it was that they were meeting on neutral ground to-night, or -whether the carelessness of an old grey coat that Denham wore gave an -ease to his bearing that he lacked in conventional dress, Katharine -certainly felt no impulse to consider him outside the particular set in -which she lived. - -“In what sense are you my inferior?” she asked, looking at him gravely, -as though honestly searching for his meaning. The look gave him great -pleasure. For the first time he felt himself on perfectly equal terms -with a woman whom he wished to think well of him, although he could not -have explained why her opinion of him mattered one way or another. -Perhaps, after all, he only wanted to have something of her to take -home to think about. But he was not destined to profit by his -advantage. - -“I don’t think I understand what you mean,” Katharine repeated, and -then she was obliged to stop and answer some one who wished to know -whether she would buy a ticket for an opera from them, at a reduction. -Indeed, the temper of the meeting was now unfavorable to separate -conversation; it had become rather debauched and hilarious, and people -who scarcely knew each other were making use of Christian names with -apparent cordiality, and had reached that kind of gay tolerance and -general friendliness which human beings in England only attain after -sitting together for three hours or so, and the first cold blast in the -air of the street freezes them into isolation once more. Cloaks were -being flung round the shoulders, hats swiftly pinned to the head; and -Denham had the mortification of seeing Katharine helped to prepare -herself by the ridiculous Rodney. It was not the convention of the -meeting to say good-bye, or necessarily even to nod to the person with -whom one was talking; but, nevertheless, Denham was disappointed by the -completeness with which Katharine parted from him, without any attempt -to finish her sentence. She left with Rodney. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -Denham had no conscious intention of following Katharine, but, seeing -her depart, he took his hat and ran rather more quickly down the stairs -than he would have done if Katharine had not been in front of him. He -overtook a friend of his, by name Harry Sandys, who was going the same -way, and they walked together a few paces behind Katharine and Rodney. - -The night was very still, and on such nights, when the traffic thins -away, the walker becomes conscious of the moon in the street, as if the -curtains of the sky had been drawn apart, and the heaven lay bare, as -it does in the country. The air was softly cool, so that people who had -been sitting talking in a crowd found it pleasant to walk a little -before deciding to stop an omnibus or encounter light again in an -underground railway. Sandys, who was a barrister with a philosophic -tendency, took out his pipe, lit it, murmured “hum” and “ha,” and was -silent. The couple in front of them kept their distance accurately, and -appeared, so far as Denham could judge by the way they turned towards -each other, to be talking very constantly. He observed that when a -pedestrian going the opposite way forced them to part they came -together again directly afterwards. Without intending to watch them he -never quite lost sight of the yellow scarf twisted round Katharine’s -head, or the light overcoat which made Rodney look fashionable among -the crowd. At the Strand he supposed that they would separate, but -instead they crossed the road, and took their way down one of the -narrow passages which lead through ancient courts to the river. Among -the crowd of people in the big thoroughfares Rodney seemed merely to be -lending Katharine his escort, but now, when passengers were rare and -the footsteps of the couple were distinctly heard in the silence, -Denham could not help picturing to himself some change in their -conversation. The effect of the light and shadow, which seemed to -increase their height, was to make them mysterious and significant, so -that Denham had no feeling of irritation with Katharine, but rather a -half-dreamy acquiescence in the course of the world. Yes, she did very -well to dream about—but Sandys had suddenly begun to talk. He was a -solitary man who had made his friends at college and always addressed -them as if they were still undergraduates arguing in his room, though -many months or even years had passed in some cases between the last -sentence and the present one. The method was a little singular, but -very restful, for it seemed to ignore completely all accidents of human -life, and to span very deep abysses with a few simple words. - -On this occasion he began, while they waited for a minute on the edge -of the Strand: - -“I hear that Bennett has given up his theory of truth.” - -Denham returned a suitable answer, and he proceeded to explain how this -decision had been arrived at, and what changes it involved in the -philosophy which they both accepted. Meanwhile Katharine and Rodney -drew further ahead, and Denham kept, if that is the right expression -for an involuntary action, one filament of his mind upon them, while -with the rest of his intelligence he sought to understand what Sandys -was saying. - -As they passed through the courts thus talking, Sandys laid the tip of -his stick upon one of the stones forming a time-worn arch, and struck -it meditatively two or three times in order to illustrate something -very obscure about the complex nature of one’s apprehension of facts. -During the pause which this necessitated, Katharine and Rodney turned -the corner and disappeared. For a moment Denham stopped involuntarily -in his sentence, and continued it with a sense of having lost -something. - -Unconscious that they were observed, Katharine and Rodney had come out -on the Embankment. When they had crossed the road, Rodney slapped his -hand upon the stone parapet above the river and exclaimed: - -“I promise I won’t say another word about it, Katharine! But do stop a -minute and look at the moon upon the water.” - -Katharine paused, looked up and down the river, and snuffed the air. - -“I’m sure one can smell the sea, with the wind blowing this way,” she -said. - -They stood silent for a few moments while the river shifted in its bed, -and the silver and red lights which were laid upon it were torn by the -current and joined together again. Very far off up the river a steamer -hooted with its hollow voice of unspeakable melancholy, as if from the -heart of lonely mist-shrouded voyagings. - -“Ah!” Rodney cried, striking his hand once more upon the balustrade, -“why can’t one say how beautiful it all is? Why am I condemned for -ever, Katharine, to feel what I can’t express? And the things I can -give there’s no use in my giving. Trust me, Katharine,” he added -hastily, “I won’t speak of it again. But in the presence of beauty—look -at the iridescence round the moon!—one feels—one feels—Perhaps if you -married me—I’m half a poet, you see, and I can’t pretend not to feel -what I do feel. If I could write—ah, that would be another matter. I -shouldn’t bother you to marry me then, Katharine.” - -He spoke these disconnected sentences rather abruptly, with his eyes -alternately upon the moon and upon the stream. - -“But for me I suppose you would recommend marriage?” said Katharine, -with her eyes fixed on the moon. - -“Certainly I should. Not for you only, but for all women. Why, you’re -nothing at all without it; you’re only half alive; using only half your -faculties; you must feel that for yourself. That is why—” Here he -stopped himself, and they began to walk slowly along the Embankment, -the moon fronting them. - - “With how sad steps she climbs the sky, - How silently and with how wan a face,” - -Rodney quoted. - -“I’ve been told a great many unpleasant things about myself to-night,” -Katharine stated, without attending to him. “Mr. Denham seems to think -it his mission to lecture me, though I hardly know him. By the way, -William, you know him; tell me, what is he like?” - -William drew a deep sigh. - -“We may lecture you till we’re blue in the face—” - -“Yes—but what’s he like?” - -“And we write sonnets to your eyebrows, you cruel practical creature. -Denham?” he added, as Katharine remained silent. “A good fellow, I -should think. He cares, naturally, for the right sort of things, I -expect. But you mustn’t marry him, though. He scolded you, did he—what -did he say?” - -“What happens with Mr. Denham is this: He comes to tea. I do all I can -to put him at his ease. He merely sits and scowls at me. Then I show -him our manuscripts. At this he becomes really angry, and tells me I’ve -no business to call myself a middle-class woman. So we part in a huff; -and next time we meet, which was to-night, he walks straight up to me, -and says, ‘Go to the Devil!’ That’s the sort of behavior my mother -complains of. I want to know, what does it mean?” - -She paused and, slackening her steps, looked at the lighted train -drawing itself smoothly over Hungerford Bridge. - -“It means, I should say, that he finds you chilly and unsympathetic.” - -Katharine laughed with round, separate notes of genuine amusement. - -“It’s time I jumped into a cab and hid myself in my own house,” she -exclaimed. - -“Would your mother object to my being seen with you? No one could -possibly recognize us, could they?” Rodney inquired, with some -solicitude. - -Katharine looked at him, and perceiving that his solicitude was -genuine, she laughed again, but with an ironical note in her laughter. - -“You may laugh, Katharine, but I can tell you that if any of your -friends saw us together at this time of night they would talk about it, -and I should find that very disagreeable. But why do you laugh?” - -“I don’t know. Because you’re such a queer mixture, I think. You’re -half poet and half old maid.” - -“I know I always seem to you highly ridiculous. But I can’t help having -inherited certain traditions and trying to put them into practice.” - -“Nonsense, William. You may come of the oldest family in Devonshire, -but that’s no reason why you should mind being seen alone with me on -the Embankment.” - -“I’m ten years older than you are, Katharine, and I know more of the -world than you do.” - -“Very well. Leave me and go home.” - -Rodney looked back over his shoulder and perceived that they were being -followed at a short distance by a taxicab, which evidently awaited his -summons. Katharine saw it, too, and exclaimed: - -“Don’t call that cab for me, William. I shall walk.” - -“Nonsense, Katharine; you’ll do nothing of the kind. It’s nearly twelve -o’clock, and we’ve walked too far as it is.” - -Katharine laughed and walked on so quickly that both Rodney and the -taxicab had to increase their pace to keep up with her. - -“Now, William,” she said, “if people see me racing along the Embankment -like this they _will_ talk. You had far better say good-night, if you -don’t want people to talk.” - -At this William beckoned, with a despotic gesture, to the cab with one -hand, and with the other he brought Katharine to a standstill. - -“Don’t let the man see us struggling, for God’s sake!” he murmured. -Katharine stood for a moment quite still. - -“There’s more of the old maid in you than the poet,” she observed -briefly. - -William shut the door sharply, gave the address to the driver, and -turned away, lifting his hat punctiliously high in farewell to the -invisible lady. - -He looked back after the cab twice, suspiciously, half expecting that -she would stop it and dismount; but it bore her swiftly on, and was -soon out of sight. William felt in the mood for a short soliloquy of -indignation, for Katharine had contrived to exasperate him in more ways -than one. - -“Of all the unreasonable, inconsiderate creatures I’ve ever known, -she’s the worst!” he exclaimed to himself, striding back along the -Embankment. “Heaven forbid that I should ever make a fool of myself -with her again. Why, I’d sooner marry the daughter of my landlady than -Katharine Hilbery! She’d leave me not a moment’s peace—and she’d never -understand me—never, never, never!” - -Uttered aloud and with vehemence so that the stars of Heaven might -hear, for there was no human being at hand, these sentiments sounded -satisfactorily irrefutable. Rodney quieted down, and walked on in -silence, until he perceived some one approaching him, who had -something, either in his walk or his dress, which proclaimed that he -was one of William’s acquaintances before it was possible to tell which -of them he was. It was Denham who, having parted from Sandys at the -bottom of his staircase, was now walking to the Tube at Charing Cross, -deep in the thoughts which his talk with Sandys had suggested. He had -forgotten the meeting at Mary Datchet’s rooms, he had forgotten Rodney, -and metaphors and Elizabethan drama, and could have sworn that he had -forgotten Katharine Hilbery, too, although that was more disputable. -His mind was scaling the highest pinnacles of its alps, where there was -only starlight and the untrodden snow. He cast strange eyes upon -Rodney, as they encountered each other beneath a lamp-post. - -“Ha!” Rodney exclaimed. - -If he had been in full possession of his mind, Denham would probably -have passed on with a salutation. But the shock of the interruption -made him stand still, and before he knew what he was doing, he had -turned and was walking with Rodney in obedience to Rodney’s invitation -to come to his rooms and have something to drink. Denham had no wish to -drink with Rodney, but he followed him passively enough. Rodney was -gratified by this obedience. He felt inclined to be communicative with -this silent man, who possessed so obviously all the good masculine -qualities in which Katharine now seemed lamentably deficient. - -“You do well, Denham,” he began impulsively, “to have nothing to do -with young women. I offer you my experience—if one trusts them one -invariably has cause to repent. Not that I have any reason at this -moment,” he added hastily, “to complain of them. It’s a subject that -crops up now and again for no particular reason. Miss Datchet, I dare -say, is one of the exceptions. Do you like Miss Datchet?” - -These remarks indicated clearly enough that Rodney’s nerves were in a -state of irritation, and Denham speedily woke to the situation of the -world as it had been one hour ago. He had last seen Rodney walking with -Katharine. He could not help regretting the eagerness with which his -mind returned to these interests, and fretted him with the old trivial -anxieties. He sank in his own esteem. Reason bade him break from -Rodney, who clearly tended to become confidential, before he had -utterly lost touch with the problems of high philosophy. He looked -along the road, and marked a lamp-post at a distance of some hundred -yards, and decided that he would part from Rodney when they reached -this point. - -“Yes, I like Mary; I don’t see how one could help liking her,” he -remarked cautiously, with his eye on the lamp-post. - -“Ah, Denham, you’re so different from me. You never give yourself away. -I watched you this evening with Katharine Hilbery. My instinct is to -trust the person I’m talking to. That’s why I’m always being taken in, -I suppose.” - -Denham seemed to be pondering this statement of Rodney’s, but, as a -matter of fact, he was hardly conscious of Rodney and his revelations, -and was only concerned to make him mention Katharine again before they -reached the lamp-post. - -“Who’s taken you in now?” he asked. “Katharine Hilbery?” - -Rodney stopped and once more began beating a kind of rhythm, as if he -were marking a phrase in a symphony, upon the smooth stone balustrade -of the Embankment. - -“Katharine Hilbery,” he repeated, with a curious little chuckle. “No, -Denham, I have no illusions about that young woman. I think I made that -plain to her to-night. But don’t run away with a false impression,” he -continued eagerly, turning and linking his arm through Denham’s, as -though to prevent him from escaping; and, thus compelled, Denham passed -the monitory lamp-post, to which, in passing, he breathed an excuse, -for how could he break away when Rodney’s arm was actually linked in -his? “You must not think that I have any bitterness against her—far -from it. It’s not altogether her fault, poor girl. She lives, you know, -one of those odious, self-centered lives—at least, I think them odious -for a woman—feeding her wits upon everything, having control of -everything, getting far too much her own way at home—spoilt, in a -sense, feeling that every one is at her feet, and so not realizing how -she hurts—that is, how rudely she behaves to people who haven’t all her -advantages. Still, to do her justice, she’s no fool,” he added, as if -to warn Denham not to take any liberties. “She has taste. She has -sense. She can understand you when you talk to her. But she’s a woman, -and there’s an end of it,” he added, with another little chuckle, and -dropped Denham’s arm. - -“And did you tell her all this to-night?” Denham asked. - -“Oh dear me, no. I should never think of telling Katharine the truth -about herself. That wouldn’t do at all. One has to be in an attitude of -adoration in order to get on with Katharine. - -“Now I’ve learnt that she’s refused to marry him why don’t I go home?” -Denham thought to himself. But he went on walking beside Rodney, and -for a time they did not speak, though Rodney hummed snatches of a tune -out of an opera by Mozart. A feeling of contempt and liking combine -very naturally in the mind of one to whom another has just spoken -unpremeditatedly, revealing rather more of his private feelings than he -intended to reveal. Denham began to wonder what sort of person Rodney -was, and at the same time Rodney began to think about Denham. - -“You’re a slave like me, I suppose?” he asked. - -“A solicitor, yes.” - -“I sometimes wonder why we don’t chuck it. Why don’t you emigrate, -Denham? I should have thought that would suit you.” - -“I’ve a family.” - -“I’m often on the point of going myself. And then I know I couldn’t -live without this”—and he waved his hand towards the City of London, -which wore, at this moment, the appearance of a town cut out of -gray-blue cardboard, and pasted flat against the sky, which was of a -deeper blue. - -“There are one or two people I’m fond of, and there’s a little good -music, and a few pictures, now and then—just enough to keep one -dangling about here. Ah, but I couldn’t live with savages! Are you fond -of books? Music? Pictures? D’you care at all for first editions? I’ve -got a few nice things up here, things I pick up cheap, for I can’t -afford to give what they ask.” - -They had reached a small court of high eighteenth-century houses, in -one of which Rodney had his rooms. They climbed a very steep staircase, -through whose uncurtained windows the moonlight fell, illuminating the -banisters with their twisted pillars, and the piles of plates set on -the window-sills, and jars half-full of milk. Rodney’s rooms were -small, but the sitting-room window looked out into a courtyard, with -its flagged pavement, and its single tree, and across to the flat -red-brick fronts of the opposite houses, which would not have surprised -Dr. Johnson, if he had come out of his grave for a turn in the -moonlight. Rodney lit his lamp, pulled his curtains, offered Denham a -chair, and, flinging the manuscript of his paper on the Elizabethan use -of Metaphor on to the table, exclaimed: - -“Oh dear me, what a waste of time! But it’s over now, and so we may -think no more about it.” - -He then busied himself very dexterously in lighting a fire, producing -glasses, whisky, a cake, and cups and saucers. He put on a faded -crimson dressing-gown, and a pair of red slippers, and advanced to -Denham with a tumbler in one hand and a well-burnished book in the -other. - -“The Baskerville Congreve,” said Rodney, offering it to his guest. “I -couldn’t read him in a cheap edition.” - -When he was seen thus among his books and his valuables, amiably -anxious to make his visitor comfortable, and moving about with -something of the dexterity and grace of a Persian cat, Denham relaxed -his critical attitude, and felt more at home with Rodney than he would -have done with many men better known to him. Rodney’s room was the room -of a person who cherishes a great many personal tastes, guarding them -from the rough blasts of the public with scrupulous attention. His -papers and his books rose in jagged mounds on table and floor, round -which he skirted with nervous care lest his dressing-gown might -disarrange them ever so slightly. On a chair stood a stack of -photographs of statues and pictures, which it was his habit to exhibit, -one by one, for the space of a day or two. The books on his shelves -were as orderly as regiments of soldiers, and the backs of them shone -like so many bronze beetle-wings; though, if you took one from its -place you saw a shabbier volume behind it, since space was limited. An -oval Venetian mirror stood above the fireplace, and reflected duskily -in its spotted depths the faint yellow and crimson of a jarful of -tulips which stood among the letters and pipes and cigarettes upon the -mantelpiece. A small piano occupied a corner of the room, with the -score of “Don Giovanni” open upon the bracket. - -“Well, Rodney,” said Denham, as he filled his pipe and looked about -him, “this is all very nice and comfortable.” - -Rodney turned his head half round and smiled, with the pride of a -proprietor, and then prevented himself from smiling. - -“Tolerable,” he muttered. - -“But I dare say it’s just as well that you have to earn your own -living.” - -“If you mean that I shouldn’t do anything good with leisure if I had -it, I dare say you’re right. But I should be ten times as happy with my -whole day to spend as I liked.” - -“I doubt that,” Denham replied. - -They sat silent, and the smoke from their pipes joined amicably in a -blue vapor above their heads. - -“I could spend three hours every day reading Shakespeare,” Rodney -remarked. “And there’s music and pictures, let alone the society of the -people one likes.” - -“You’d be bored to death in a year’s time.” - -“Oh, I grant you I should be bored if I did nothing. But I should write -plays.” - -“H’m!” - -“I should write plays,” he repeated. “I’ve written three-quarters of -one already, and I’m only waiting for a holiday to finish it. And it’s -not bad—no, some of it’s really rather nice.” - -The question arose in Denham’s mind whether he should ask to see this -play, as, no doubt, he was expected to do. He looked rather stealthily -at Rodney, who was tapping the coal nervously with a poker, and -quivering almost physically, so Denham thought, with desire to talk -about this play of his, and vanity unrequited and urgent. He seemed -very much at Denham’s mercy, and Denham could not help liking him, -partly on that account. - -“Well,... will you let me see the play?” Denham asked, and Rodney -looked immediately appeased, but, nevertheless, he sat silent for a -moment, holding the poker perfectly upright in the air, regarding it -with his rather prominent eyes, and opening his lips and shutting them -again. - -“Do you really care for this kind of thing?” he asked at length, in a -different tone of voice from that in which he had been speaking. And, -without waiting for an answer, he went on, rather querulously: “Very -few people care for poetry. I dare say it bores you.” - -“Perhaps,” Denham remarked. - -“Well, I’ll lend it you,” Rodney announced, putting down the poker. - -As he moved to fetch the play, Denham stretched a hand to the bookcase -beside him, and took down the first volume which his fingers touched. -It happened to be a small and very lovely edition of Sir Thomas Browne, -containing the “Urn Burial,” the “Hydriotaphia,” and the “Garden of -Cyrus,” and, opening it at a passage which he knew very nearly by -heart, Denham began to read and, for some time, continued to read. - -Rodney resumed his seat, with his manuscript on his knee, and from time -to time he glanced at Denham, and then joined his finger-tips and -crossed his thin legs over the fender, as if he experienced a good deal -of pleasure. At length Denham shut the book, and stood, with his back -to the fireplace, occasionally making an inarticulate humming sound -which seemed to refer to Sir Thomas Browne. He put his hat on his head, -and stood over Rodney, who still lay stretched back in his chair, with -his toes within the fender. - -“I shall look in again some time,” Denham remarked, upon which Rodney -held up his hand, containing his manuscript, without saying anything -except—“If you like.” - -Denham took the manuscript and went. Two days later he was much -surprised to find a thin parcel on his breakfast-plate, which, on being -opened, revealed the very copy of Sir Thomas Browne which he had -studied so intently in Rodney’s rooms. From sheer laziness he returned -no thanks, but he thought of Rodney from time to time with interest, -disconnecting him from Katharine, and meant to go round one evening and -smoke a pipe with him. It pleased Rodney thus to give away whatever his -friends genuinely admired. His library was constantly being diminished. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -Of all the hours of an ordinary working week-day, which are the -pleasantest to look forward to and to look back upon? If a single -instance is of use in framing a theory, it may be said that the minutes -between nine-twenty-five and nine-thirty in the morning had a singular -charm for Mary Datchet. She spent them in a very enviable frame of -mind; her contentment was almost unalloyed. High in the air as her flat -was, some beams from the morning sun reached her even in November, -striking straight at curtain, chair, and carpet, and painting there -three bright, true spaces of green, blue, and purple, upon which the -eye rested with a pleasure which gave physical warmth to the body. - -There were few mornings when Mary did not look up, as she bent to lace -her boots, and as she followed the yellow rod from curtain to -breakfast-table she usually breathed some sigh of thankfulness that her -life provided her with such moments of pure enjoyment. She was robbing -no one of anything, and yet, to get so much pleasure from simple -things, such as eating one’s breakfast alone in a room which had nice -colors in it, clean from the skirting of the boards to the corners of -the ceiling, seemed to suit her so thoroughly that she used at first to -hunt about for some one to apologize to, or for some flaw in the -situation. She had now been six months in London, and she could find no -flaw, but that, as she invariably concluded by the time her boots were -laced, was solely and entirely due to the fact that she had her work. -Every day, as she stood with her dispatch-box in her hand at the door -of her flat, and gave one look back into the room to see that -everything was straight before she left, she said to herself that she -was very glad that she was going to leave it all, that to have sat -there all day long, in the enjoyment of leisure, would have been -intolerable. - -Out in the street she liked to think herself one of the workers who, at -this hour, take their way in rapid single file along all the broad -pavements of the city, with their heads slightly lowered, as if all -their effort were to follow each other as closely as might be; so that -Mary used to figure to herself a straight rabbit-run worn by their -unswerving feet upon the pavement. But she liked to pretend that she -was indistinguishable from the rest, and that when a wet day drove her -to the Underground or omnibus, she gave and took her share of crowd and -wet with clerks and typists and commercial men, and shared with them -the serious business of winding-up the world to tick for another -four-and-twenty hours. - -Thus thinking, on the particular morning in question, she made her away -across Lincoln’s Inn Fields and up Kingsway, and so through Southampton -Row until she reached her office in Russell Square. Now and then she -would pause and look into the window of some bookseller or flower shop, -where, at this early hour, the goods were being arranged, and empty -gaps behind the plate glass revealed a state of undress. Mary felt -kindly disposed towards the shopkeepers, and hoped that they would -trick the midday public into purchasing, for at this hour of the -morning she ranged herself entirely on the side of the shopkeepers and -bank clerks, and regarded all who slept late and had money to spend as -her enemy and natural prey. And directly she had crossed the road at -Holborn, her thoughts all came naturally and regularly to roost upon -her work, and she forgot that she was, properly speaking, an amateur -worker, whose services were unpaid, and could hardly be said to wind -the world up for its daily task, since the world, so far, had shown -very little desire to take the boons which Mary’s society for woman’s -suffrage had offered it. - -She was thinking all the way up Southampton Row of notepaper and -foolscap, and how an economy in the use of paper might be effected -(without, of course, hurting Mrs. Seal’s feelings), for she was certain -that the great organizers always pounce, to begin with, upon trifles -like these, and build up their triumphant reforms upon a basis of -absolute solidity; and, without acknowledging it for a moment, Mary -Datchet was determined to be a great organizer, and had already doomed -her society to reconstruction of the most radical kind. Once or twice -lately, it is true, she had started, broad awake, before turning into -Russell Square, and denounced herself rather sharply for being already -in a groove, capable, that is, of thinking the same thoughts every -morning at the same hour, so that the chestnut-colored brick of the -Russell Square houses had some curious connection with her thoughts -about office economy, and served also as a sign that she should get -into trim for meeting Mr. Clacton, or Mrs. Seal, or whoever might be -beforehand with her at the office. Having no religious belief, she was -the more conscientious about her life, examining her position from time -to time very seriously, and nothing annoyed her more than to find one -of these bad habits nibbling away unheeded at the precious substance. -What was the good, after all, of being a woman if one didn’t keep -fresh, and cram one’s life with all sorts of views and experiments? -Thus she always gave herself a little shake, as she turned the corner, -and, as often as not, reached her own door whistling a snatch of a -Somersetshire ballad. - -The suffrage office was at the top of one of the large Russell Square -houses, which had once been lived in by a great city merchant and his -family, and was now let out in slices to a number of societies which -displayed assorted initials upon doors of ground glass, and kept, each -of them, a typewriter which clicked busily all day long. The old house, -with its great stone staircase, echoed hollowly to the sound of -typewriters and of errand-boys from ten to six. The noise of different -typewriters already at work, disseminating their views upon the -protection of native races, or the value of cereals as foodstuffs, -quickened Mary’s steps, and she always ran up the last flight of steps -which led to her own landing, at whatever hour she came, so as to get -her typewriter to take its place in competition with the rest. - -She sat herself down to her letters, and very soon all these -speculations were forgotten, and the two lines drew themselves between -her eyebrows, as the contents of the letters, the office furniture, and -the sounds of activity in the next room gradually asserted their sway -upon her. By eleven o’clock the atmosphere of concentration was running -so strongly in one direction that any thought of a different order -could hardly have survived its birth more than a moment or so. The task -which lay before her was to organize a series of entertainments, the -profits of which were to benefit the society, which drooped for want of -funds. It was her first attempt at organization on a large scale, and -she meant to achieve something remarkable. She meant to use the -cumbrous machine to pick out this, that, and the other interesting -person from the muddle of the world, and to set them for a week in a -pattern which must catch the eyes of Cabinet Ministers, and the eyes -once caught, the old arguments were to be delivered with unexampled -originality. Such was the scheme as a whole; and in contemplation of it -she would become quite flushed and excited, and have to remind herself -of all the details that intervened between her and success. - -The door would open, and Mr. Clacton would come in to search for a -certain leaflet buried beneath a pyramid of leaflets. He was a thin, -sandy-haired man of about thirty-five, spoke with a Cockney accent, and -had about him a frugal look, as if nature had not dealt generously with -him in any way, which, naturally, prevented him from dealing generously -with other people. When he had found his leaflet, and offered a few -jocular hints upon keeping papers in order, the typewriting would stop -abruptly, and Mrs. Seal would burst into the room with a letter which -needed explanation in her hand. This was a more serious interruption -than the other, because she never knew exactly what she wanted, and -half a dozen requests would bolt from her, no one of which was clearly -stated. Dressed in plum-colored velveteen, with short, gray hair, and a -face that seemed permanently flushed with philanthropic enthusiasm, she -was always in a hurry, and always in some disorder. She wore two -crucifixes, which got themselves entangled in a heavy gold chain upon -her breast, and seemed to Mary expressive of her mental ambiguity. Only -her vast enthusiasm and her worship of Miss Markham, one of the -pioneers of the society, kept her in her place, for which she had no -sound qualification. - -So the morning wore on, and the pile of letters grew, and Mary felt, at -last, that she was the center ganglion of a very fine network of nerves -which fell over England, and one of these days, when she touched the -heart of the system, would begin feeling and rushing together and -emitting their splendid blaze of revolutionary fireworks—for some such -metaphor represents what she felt about her work, when her brain had -been heated by three hours of application. - -Shortly before one o’clock Mr. Clacton and Mrs. Seal desisted from -their labors, and the old joke about luncheon, which came out regularly -at this hour, was repeated with scarcely any variation of words. Mr. -Clacton patronized a vegetarian restaurant; Mrs. Seal brought -sandwiches, which she ate beneath the plane-trees in Russell Square; -while Mary generally went to a gaudy establishment, upholstered in red -plush, near by, where, much to the vegetarian’s disapproval, you could -buy steak, two inches thick, or a roast section of fowl, swimming in a -pewter dish. - -“The bare branches against the sky do one so much _good_,” Mrs. Seal -asserted, looking out into the Square. - -“But one can’t lunch off trees, Sally,” said Mary. - -“I confess I don’t know how you manage it, Miss Datchet,” Mr. Clacton -remarked. “I should sleep all the afternoon, I know, if I took a heavy -meal in the middle of the day.” - -“What’s the very latest thing in literature?” Mary asked, -good-humoredly pointing to the yellow-covered volume beneath Mr. -Clacton’s arm, for he invariably read some new French author at -lunch-time, or squeezed in a visit to a picture gallery, balancing his -social work with an ardent culture of which he was secretly proud, as -Mary had very soon divined. - -So they parted and Mary walked away, wondering if they guessed that she -really wanted to get away from them, and supposing that they had not -quite reached that degree of subtlety. She bought herself an evening -paper, which she read as she ate, looking over the top of it again and -again at the queer people who were buying cakes or imparting their -secrets, until some young woman whom she knew came in, and she called -out, “Eleanor, come and sit by me,” and they finished their lunch -together, parting on the strip of pavement among the different lines of -traffic with a pleasant feeling that they were stepping once more into -their separate places in the great and eternally moving pattern of -human life. - -But, instead of going straight back to the office to-day, Mary turned -into the British Museum, and strolled down the gallery with the shapes -of stone until she found an empty seat directly beneath the gaze of the -Elgin marbles. She looked at them, and seemed, as usual, borne up on -some wave of exaltation and emotion, by which her life at once became -solemn and beautiful—an impression which was due as much, perhaps, to -the solitude and chill and silence of the gallery as to the actual -beauty of the statues. One must suppose, at least, that her emotions -were not purely esthetic, because, after she had gazed at the Ulysses -for a minute or two, she began to think about Ralph Denham. So secure -did she feel with these silent shapes that she almost yielded to an -impulse to say “I am in love with you” aloud. The presence of this -immense and enduring beauty made her almost alarmingly conscious of her -desire, and at the same time proud of a feeling which did not display -anything like the same proportions when she was going about her daily -work. - -She repressed her impulse to speak aloud, and rose and wandered about -rather aimlessly among the statues until she found herself in another -gallery devoted to engraved obelisks and winged Assyrian bulls, and her -emotion took another turn. She began to picture herself traveling with -Ralph in a land where these monsters were couchant in the sand. “For,” -she thought to herself, as she gazed fixedly at some information -printed behind a piece of glass, “the wonderful thing about you is that -you’re ready for anything; you’re not in the least conventional, like -most clever men.” - -And she conjured up a scene of herself on a camel’s back, in the -desert, while Ralph commanded a whole tribe of natives. - -“That is what you can do,” she went on, moving on to the next statue. -“You always make people do what you want.” - -A glow spread over her spirit, and filled her eyes with brightness. -Nevertheless, before she left the Museum she was very far from saying, -even in the privacy of her own mind, “I am in love with you,” and that -sentence might very well never have framed itself. She was, indeed, -rather annoyed with herself for having allowed such an ill-considered -breach of her reserve, weakening her powers of resistance, she felt, -should this impulse return again. For, as she walked along the street -to her office, the force of all her customary objections to being in -love with any one overcame her. She did not want to marry at all. It -seemed to her that there was something amateurish in bringing love into -touch with a perfectly straightforward friendship, such as hers was -with Ralph, which, for two years now, had based itself upon common -interests in impersonal topics, such as the housing of the poor, or the -taxation of land values. - -But the afternoon spirit differed intrinsically from the morning -spirit. Mary found herself watching the flight of a bird, or making -drawings of the branches of the plane-trees upon her blotting-paper. -People came in to see Mr. Clacton on business, and a seductive smell of -cigarette smoke issued from his room. Mrs. Seal wandered about with -newspaper cuttings, which seemed to her either “quite splendid” or -“really too bad for words.” She used to paste these into books, or send -them to her friends, having first drawn a broad bar in blue pencil down -the margin, a proceeding which signified equally and indistinguishably -the depths of her reprobation or the heights of her approval. - -About four o’clock on that same afternoon Katharine Hilbery was walking -up Kingsway. The question of tea presented itself. The street lamps -were being lit already, and as she stood still for a moment beneath one -of them, she tried to think of some neighboring drawing-room where -there would be firelight and talk congenial to her mood. That mood, -owing to the spinning traffic and the evening veil of unreality, was -ill-adapted to her home surroundings. Perhaps, on the whole, a shop was -the best place in which to preserve this queer sense of heightened -existence. At the same time she wished to talk. Remembering Mary -Datchet and her repeated invitations, she crossed the road, turned into -Russell Square, and peered about, seeking for numbers with a sense of -adventure that was out of all proportion to the deed itself. She found -herself in a dimly lighted hall, unguarded by a porter, and pushed open -the first swing door. But the office-boy had never heard of Miss -Datchet. Did she belong to the S.R.F.R.? Katharine shook her head with -a smile of dismay. A voice from within shouted, “No. The S.G.S.—top -floor.” - -Katharine mounted past innumerable glass doors, with initials on them, -and became steadily more and more doubtful of the wisdom of her -venture. At the top she paused for a moment to breathe and collect -herself. She heard the typewriter and formal professional voices -inside, not belonging, she thought, to any one she had ever spoken to. -She touched the bell, and the door was opened almost immediately by -Mary herself. Her face had to change its expression entirely when she -saw Katharine. - -“You!” she exclaimed. “We thought you were the printer.” Still holding -the door open, she called back, “No, Mr. Clacton, it’s not Penningtons. -I should ring them up again—double three double eight, Central. Well, -this is a surprise. Come in,” she added. “You’re just in time for tea.” - -The light of relief shone in Mary’s eyes. The boredom of the afternoon -was dissipated at once, and she was glad that Katharine had found them -in a momentary press of activity, owing to the failure of the printer -to send back certain proofs. - -The unshaded electric light shining upon the table covered with papers -dazed Katharine for a moment. After the confusion of her twilight walk, -and her random thoughts, life in this small room appeared extremely -concentrated and bright. She turned instinctively to look out of the -window, which was uncurtained, but Mary immediately recalled her. - -“It was very clever of you to find your way,” she said, and Katharine -wondered, as she stood there, feeling, for the moment, entirely -detached and unabsorbed, why she had come. She looked, indeed, to -Mary’s eyes strangely out of place in the office. Her figure in the -long cloak, which took deep folds, and her face, which was composed -into a mask of sensitive apprehension, disturbed Mary for a moment with -a sense of the presence of some one who was of another world, and, -therefore, subversive of her world. She became immediately anxious that -Katharine should be impressed by the importance of her world, and hoped -that neither Mrs. Seal nor Mr. Clacton would appear until the -impression of importance had been received. But in this she was -disappointed. Mrs. Seal burst into the room holding a kettle in her -hand, which she set upon the stove, and then, with inefficient haste, -she set light to the gas, which flared up, exploded, and went out. - -“Always the way, always the way,” she muttered. “Kit Markham is the -only person who knows how to deal with the thing.” - -Mary had to go to her help, and together they spread the table, and -apologized for the disparity between the cups and the plainness of the -food. - -“If we had known Miss Hilbery was coming, we should have bought a -cake,” said Mary, upon which Mrs. Seal looked at Katharine for the -first time, suspiciously, because she was a person who needed cake. - -Here Mr. Clacton opened the door, and came in, holding a typewritten -letter in his hand, which he was reading aloud. - -“Salford’s affiliated,” he said. - -“Well done, Salford!” Mrs. Seal exclaimed enthusiastically, thumping -the teapot which she held upon the table, in token of applause. - -“Yes, these provincial centers seem to be coming into line at last,” -said Mr. Clacton, and then Mary introduced him to Miss Hilbery, and he -asked her, in a very formal manner, if she were interested “in our -work.” - -“And the proofs still not come?” said Mrs. Seal, putting both her -elbows on the table, and propping her chin on her hands, as Mary began -to pour out tea. “It’s too bad—too bad. At this rate we shall miss the -country post. Which reminds me, Mr. Clacton, don’t you think we should -circularize the provinces with Partridge’s last speech? What? You’ve -not read it? Oh, it’s the best thing they’ve had in the House this -Session. Even the Prime Minister—” - -But Mary cut her short. - -“We don’t allow shop at tea, Sally,” she said firmly. “We fine her a -penny each time she forgets, and the fines go to buying a plum cake,” -she explained, seeking to draw Katharine into the community. She had -given up all hope of impressing her. - -“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Seal apologized. “It’s my misfortune to be -an enthusiast,” she said, turning to Katharine. “My father’s daughter -could hardly be anything else. I think I’ve been on as many committees -as most people. Waifs and Strays, Rescue Work, Church Work, C. O. -S.—local branch—besides the usual civic duties which fall to one as a -householder. But I’ve given them all up for our work here, and I don’t -regret it for a second,” she added. “This is the root question, I feel; -until women have votes—” - -“It’ll be sixpence, at least, Sally,” said Mary, bringing her fist down -on the table. “And we’re all sick to death of women and their votes.” - -Mrs. Seal looked for a moment as though she could hardly believe her -ears, and made a deprecating “tut-tut-tut” in her throat, looking -alternately at Katharine and Mary, and shaking her head as she did so. -Then she remarked, rather confidentially to Katharine, with a little -nod in Mary’s direction: - -“She’s doing more for the cause than any of us. She’s giving her -youth—for, alas! when I was young there were domestic circumstances—” -she sighed, and stopped short. - -Mr. Clacton hastily reverted to the joke about luncheon, and explained -how Mrs. Seal fed on a bag of biscuits under the trees, whatever the -weather might be, rather, Katharine thought, as though Mrs. Seal were a -pet dog who had convenient tricks. - -“Yes, I took my little bag into the square,” said Mrs. Seal, with the -self-conscious guilt of a child owning some fault to its elders. “It -was really very sustaining, and the bare boughs against the sky do one -so much _good_. But I shall have to give up going into the square,” she -proceeded, wrinkling her forehead. “The injustice of it! Why should I -have a beautiful square all to myself, when poor women who need rest -have nowhere at all to sit?” She looked fiercely at Katharine, giving -her short locks a little shake. “It’s dreadful what a tyrant one still -is, in spite of all one’s efforts. One tries to lead a decent life, but -one can’t. Of course, directly one thinks of it, one sees that _all_ -squares should be open to _every one_. Is there any society with that -object, Mr. Clacton? If not, there should be, surely.” - -“A most excellent object,” said Mr. Clacton in his professional manner. -“At the same time, one must deplore the ramification of organizations, -Mrs. Seal. So much excellent effort thrown away, not to speak of -pounds, shillings, and pence. Now how many organizations of a -philanthropic nature do you suppose there are in the City of London -itself, Miss Hilbery?” he added, screwing his mouth into a queer little -smile, as if to show that the question had its frivolous side. - -Katharine smiled, too. Her unlikeness to the rest of them had, by this -time, penetrated to Mr. Clacton, who was not naturally observant, and -he was wondering who she was; this same unlikeness had subtly -stimulated Mrs. Seal to try and make a convert of her. Mary, too, -looked at her almost as if she begged her to make things easy. For -Katharine had shown no disposition to make things easy. She had -scarcely spoken, and her silence, though grave and even thoughtful, -seemed to Mary the silence of one who criticizes. - -“Well, there are more in this house than I’d any notion of,” she said. -“On the ground floor you protect natives, on the next you emigrate -women and tell people to eat nuts—” - -“Why do you say that ‘we’ do these things?” Mary interposed, rather -sharply. “We’re not responsible for all the cranks who choose to lodge -in the same house with us.” - -Mr. Clacton cleared his throat and looked at each of the young ladies -in turn. He was a good deal struck by the appearance and manner of Miss -Hilbery, which seemed to him to place her among those cultivated and -luxurious people of whom he used to dream. Mary, on the other hand, was -more of his own sort, and a little too much inclined to order him -about. He picked up crumbs of dry biscuit and put them into his mouth -with incredible rapidity. - -“You don’t belong to our society, then?” said Mrs. Seal. - -“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” said Katharine, with such ready candor that -Mrs. Seal was nonplussed, and stared at her with a puzzled expression, -as if she could not classify her among the varieties of human beings -known to her. - -“But surely,” she began. - -“Mrs. Seal is an enthusiast in these matters,” said Mr. Clacton, almost -apologetically. “We have to remind her sometimes that others have a -right to their views even if they differ from our own.... “Punch” has a -very funny picture this week, about a Suffragist and an agricultural -laborer. Have you seen this week’s “Punch,” Miss Datchet?” - -Mary laughed, and said “No.” - -Mr. Clacton then told them the substance of the joke, which, however, -depended a good deal for its success upon the expression which the -artist had put into the people’s faces. Mrs. Seal sat all the time -perfectly grave. Directly he had done speaking she burst out: - -“But surely, if you care about the welfare of your sex at all, you must -wish them to have the vote?” - -“I never said I didn’t wish them to have the vote,” Katharine -protested. - -“Then why aren’t you a member of our society?” Mrs. Seal demanded. - -Katharine stirred her spoon round and round, stared into the swirl of -the tea, and remained silent. Mr. Clacton, meanwhile, framed a question -which, after a moment’s hesitation, he put to Katharine. - -“Are you in any way related, I wonder, to the poet Alardyce? His -daughter, I believe, married a Mr. Hilbery.” - -“Yes; I’m the poet’s granddaughter,” said Katharine, with a little -sigh, after a pause; and for a moment they were all silent. - -“The poet’s granddaughter!” Mrs. Seal repeated, half to herself, with a -shake of her head, as if that explained what was otherwise -inexplicable. - -The light kindled in Mr. Clacton’s eye. - -“Ah, indeed. That interests me very much,” he said. “I owe a great debt -to your grandfather, Miss Hilbery. At one time I could have repeated -the greater part of him by heart. But one gets out of the way of -reading poetry, unfortunately. You don’t remember him, I suppose?” - -A sharp rap at the door made Katharine’s answer inaudible. Mrs. Seal -looked up with renewed hope in her eyes, and exclaiming: - -“The proofs at last!” ran to open the door. “Oh, it’s only Mr. Denham!” -she cried, without any attempt to conceal her disappointment. Ralph, -Katharine supposed, was a frequent visitor, for the only person he -thought it necessary to greet was herself, and Mary at once explained -the strange fact of her being there by saying: - -“Katharine has come to see how one runs an office.” - -Ralph felt himself stiffen uncomfortably, as he said: - -“I hope Mary hasn’t persuaded you that she knows how to run an office?” - -“What, doesn’t she?” said Katharine, looking from one to the other. - -At these remarks Mrs. Seal began to exhibit signs of discomposure, -which displayed themselves by a tossing movement of her head, and, as -Ralph took a letter from his pocket, and placed his finger upon a -certain sentence, she forestalled him by exclaiming in confusion: - -“Now, I know what you’re going to say, Mr. Denham! But it was the day -Kit Markham was here, and she upsets one so—with her wonderful -vitality, always thinking of something new that we ought to be doing -and aren’t—and I was conscious at the time that my dates were mixed. It -had nothing to do with Mary at all, I assure you.” - -“My dear Sally, don’t apologize,” said Mary, laughing. “Men are such -pedants—they don’t know what things matter, and what things don’t.” - -“Now, Denham, speak up for our sex,” said Mr. Clacton in a jocular -manner, indeed, but like most insignificant men he was very quick to -resent being found fault with by a woman, in argument with whom he was -fond of calling himself “a mere man.” He wished, however, to enter into -a literary conservation with Miss Hilbery, and thus let the matter -drop. - -“Doesn’t it seem strange to you, Miss Hilbery,” he said, “that the -French, with all their wealth of illustrious names, have no poet who -can compare with your grandfather? Let me see. There’s Chenier and Hugo -and Alfred de Musset—wonderful men, but, at the same time, there’s a -richness, a freshness about Alardyce—” - -Here the telephone bell rang, and he had to absent himself with a smile -and a bow which signified that, although literature is delightful, it -is not work. Mrs. Seal rose at the same time, but remained hovering -over the table, delivering herself of a tirade against party -government. “For if I were to tell you what I know of back-stairs -intrigue, and what can be done by the power of the purse, you wouldn’t -credit me, Mr. Denham, you wouldn’t, indeed. Which is why I feel that -the only work for my father’s daughter—for he was one of the pioneers, -Mr. Denham, and on his tombstone I had that verse from the Psalms put, -about the sowers and the seed.... And what wouldn’t I give that he -should be alive now, seeing what we’re going to see—” but reflecting -that the glories of the future depended in part upon the activity of -her typewriter, she bobbed her head, and hurried back to the seclusion -of her little room, from which immediately issued sounds of -enthusiastic, but obviously erratic, composition. - -Mary made it clear at once, by starting a fresh topic of general -interest, that though she saw the humor of her colleague, she did not -intend to have her laughed at. - -“The standard of morality seems to me frightfully low,” she observed -reflectively, pouring out a second cup of tea, “especially among women -who aren’t well educated. They don’t see that small things matter, and -that’s where the leakage begins, and then we find ourselves in -difficulties—I very nearly lost my temper yesterday,” she went on, -looking at Ralph with a little smile, as though he knew what happened -when she lost her temper. “It makes me very angry when people tell me -lies—doesn’t it make you angry?” she asked Katharine. - -“But considering that every one tells lies,” Katharine remarked, -looking about the room to see where she had put down her umbrella and -her parcel, for there was an intimacy in the way in which Mary and -Ralph addressed each other which made her wish to leave them. Mary, on -the other hand, was anxious, superficially at least, that Katharine -should stay and so fortify her in her determination not to be in love -with Ralph. - -Ralph, while lifting his cup from his lips to the table, had made up -his mind that if Miss Hilbery left, he would go with her. - -“I don’t think that I tell lies, and I don’t think that Ralph tells -lies, do you, Ralph?” Mary continued. - -Katharine laughed, with more gayety, as it seemed to Mary, than she -could properly account for. What was she laughing at? At them, -presumably. Katharine had risen, and was glancing hither and thither, -at the presses and the cupboards, and all the machinery of the office, -as if she included them all in her rather malicious amusement, which -caused Mary to keep her eyes on her straightly and rather fiercely, as -if she were a gay-plumed, mischievous bird, who might light on the -topmost bough and pick off the ruddiest cherry, without any warning. -Two women less like each other could scarcely be imagined, Ralph -thought, looking from one to the other. Next moment, he too, rose, and -nodding to Mary, as Katharine said good-bye, opened the door for her, -and followed her out. - -Mary sat still and made no attempt to prevent them from going. For a -second or two after the door had shut on them her eyes rested on the -door with a straightforward fierceness in which, for a moment, a -certain degree of bewilderment seemed to enter; but, after a brief -hesitation, she put down her cup and proceeded to clear away the -tea-things. - -The impulse which had driven Ralph to take this action was the result -of a very swift little piece of reasoning, and thus, perhaps, was not -quite so much of an impulse as it seemed. It passed through his mind -that if he missed this chance of talking to Katharine, he would have to -face an enraged ghost, when he was alone in his room again, demanding -an explanation of his cowardly indecision. It was better, on the whole, -to risk present discomfiture than to waste an evening bandying excuses -and constructing impossible scenes with this uncompromising section of -himself. For ever since he had visited the Hilberys he had been much at -the mercy of a phantom Katharine, who came to him when he sat alone, -and answered him as he would have her answer, and was always beside him -to crown those varying triumphs which were transacted almost every -night, in imaginary scenes, as he walked through the lamplit streets -home from the office. To walk with Katharine in the flesh would either -feed that phantom with fresh food, which, as all who nourish dreams are -aware, is a process that becomes necessary from time to time, or refine -it to such a degree of thinness that it was scarcely serviceable any -longer; and that, too, is sometimes a welcome change to a dreamer. And -all the time Ralph was well aware that the bulk of Katharine was not -represented in his dreams at all, so that when he met her he was -bewildered by the fact that she had nothing to do with his dream of -her. - -When, on reaching the street, Katharine found that Mr. Denham proceeded -to keep pace by her side, she was surprised and, perhaps, a little -annoyed. She, too, had her margin of imagination, and to-night her -activity in this obscure region of the mind required solitude. If she -had had her way, she would have walked very fast down the Tottenham -Court Road, and then sprung into a cab and raced swiftly home. The view -she had had of the inside of an office was of the nature of a dream to -her. Shut off up there, she compared Mrs. Seal, and Mary Datchet, and -Mr. Clacton to enchanted people in a bewitched tower, with the spiders’ -webs looping across the corners of the room, and all the tools of the -necromancer’s craft at hand; for so aloof and unreal and apart from the -normal world did they seem to her, in the house of innumerable -typewriters, murmuring their incantations and concocting their drugs, -and flinging their frail spiders’ webs over the torrent of life which -rushed down the streets outside. - -She may have been conscious that there was some exaggeration in this -fancy of hers, for she certainly did not wish to share it with Ralph. -To him, she supposed, Mary Datchet, composing leaflets for Cabinet -Ministers among her typewriters, represented all that was interesting -and genuine; and, accordingly, she shut them both out from all share in -the crowded street, with its pendant necklace of lamps, its lighted -windows, and its throng of men and women, which exhilarated her to such -an extent that she very nearly forgot her companion. She walked very -fast, and the effect of people passing in the opposite direction was to -produce a queer dizziness both in her head and in Ralph’s, which set -their bodies far apart. But she did her duty by her companion almost -unconsciously. - -“Mary Datchet does that sort of work very well.... She’s responsible -for it, I suppose?” - -“Yes. The others don’t help at all.... Has she made a convert of you?” - -“Oh no. That is, I’m a convert already.” - -“But she hasn’t persuaded you to work for them?” - -“Oh dear no—that wouldn’t do at all.” - -So they walked on down the Tottenham Court Road, parting and coming -together again, and Ralph felt much as though he were addressing the -summit of a poplar in a high gale of wind. - -“Suppose we get on to that omnibus?” he suggested. - -Katharine acquiesced, and they climbed up, and found themselves alone -on top of it. - -“But which way are you going?” Katharine asked, waking a little from -the trance into which movement among moving things had thrown her. - -“I’m going to the Temple,” Ralph replied, inventing a destination on -the spur of the moment. He felt the change come over her as they sat -down and the omnibus began to move forward. He imagined her -contemplating the avenue in front of them with those honest sad eyes -which seemed to set him at such a distance from them. But the breeze -was blowing in their faces; it lifted her hat for a second, and she -drew out a pin and stuck it in again,—a little action which seemed, for -some reason, to make her rather more fallible. Ah, if only her hat -would blow off, and leave her altogether disheveled, accepting it from -his hands! - -“This is like Venice,” she observed, raising her hand. “The motor-cars, -I mean, shooting about so quickly, with their lights.” - -“I’ve never seen Venice,” he replied. “I keep that and some other -things for my old age.” - -“What are the other things?” she asked. - -“There’s Venice and India and, I think, Dante, too.” - -She laughed. - -“Think of providing for one’s old age! And would you refuse to see -Venice if you had the chance?” - -Instead of answering her, he wondered whether he should tell her -something that was quite true about himself; and as he wondered, he -told her. - -“I’ve planned out my life in sections ever since I was a child, to make -it last longer. You see, I’m always afraid that I’m missing something—” - -“And so am I!” Katharine exclaimed. “But, after all,” she added, “why -should you miss anything?” - -“Why? Because I’m poor, for one thing,” Ralph rejoined. “You, I -suppose, can have Venice and India and Dante every day of your life.” - -She said nothing for a moment, but rested one hand, which was bare of -glove, upon the rail in front of her, meditating upon a variety of -things, of which one was that this strange young man pronounced Dante -as she was used to hearing it pronounced, and another, that he had, -most unexpectedly, a feeling about life that was familiar to her. -Perhaps, then, he was the sort of person she might take an interest in, -if she came to know him better, and as she had placed him among those -whom she would never want to know better, this was enough to make her -silent. She hastily recalled her first view of him, in the little room -where the relics were kept, and ran a bar through half her impressions, -as one cancels a badly written sentence, having found the right one. - -“But to know that one might have things doesn’t alter the fact that one -hasn’t got them,” she said, in some confusion. “How could I go to -India, for example? Besides,” she began impulsively, and stopped -herself. Here the conductor came round, and interrupted them. Ralph -waited for her to resume her sentence, but she said no more. - -“I have a message to give your father,” he remarked. “Perhaps you would -give it him, or I could come—” - -“Yes, do come,” Katharine replied. - -“Still, I don’t see why you shouldn’t go to India,” Ralph began, in -order to keep her from rising, as she threatened to do. - -But she got up in spite of him, and said good-bye with her usual air of -decision, and left him with a quickness which Ralph connected now with -all her movements. He looked down and saw her standing on the pavement -edge, an alert, commanding figure, which waited its season to cross, -and then walked boldly and swiftly to the other side. That gesture and -action would be added to the picture he had of her, but at present the -real woman completely routed the phantom one. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -“And little Augustus Pelham said to me, ‘It’s the younger generation -knocking at the door,’ and I said to him, ‘Oh, but the younger -generation comes in without knocking, Mr. Pelham.’ Such a feeble little -joke, wasn’t it, but down it went into his notebook all the same.” - -“Let us congratulate ourselves that we shall be in the grave before -that work is published,” said Mr. Hilbery. - -The elderly couple were waiting for the dinner-bell to ring and for -their daughter to come into the room. Their arm-chairs were drawn up on -either side of the fire, and each sat in the same slightly crouched -position, looking into the coals, with the expressions of people who -have had their share of experiences and wait, rather passively, for -something to happen. Mr. Hilbery now gave all his attention to a piece -of coal which had fallen out of the grate, and to selecting a favorable -position for it among the lumps that were burning already. Mrs. Hilbery -watched him in silence, and the smile changed on her lips as if her -mind still played with the events of the afternoon. - -When Mr. Hilbery had accomplished his task, he resumed his crouching -position again, and began to toy with the little green stone attached -to his watch-chain. His deep, oval-shaped eyes were fixed upon the -flames, but behind the superficial glaze seemed to brood an observant -and whimsical spirit, which kept the brown of the eye still unusually -vivid. But a look of indolence, the result of skepticism or of a taste -too fastidious to be satisfied by the prizes and conclusions so easily -within his grasp, lent him an expression almost of melancholy. After -sitting thus for a time, he seemed to reach some point in his thinking -which demonstrated its futility, upon which he sighed and stretched his -hand for a book lying on the table by his side. - -Directly the door opened he closed the book, and the eyes of father and -mother both rested on Katharine as she came towards them. The sight -seemed at once to give them a motive which they had not had before. To -them she appeared, as she walked towards them in her light evening -dress, extremely young, and the sight of her refreshed them, were it -only because her youth and ignorance made their knowledge of the world -of some value. - -“The only excuse for you, Katharine, is that dinner is still later than -you are,” said Mr. Hilbery, putting down his spectacles. - -“I don’t mind her being late when the result is so charming,” said Mrs. -Hilbery, looking with pride at her daughter. “Still, I don’t know that -I _like_ your being out so late, Katharine,” she continued. “You took a -cab, I hope?” - -Here dinner was announced, and Mr. Hilbery formally led his wife -downstairs on his arm. They were all dressed for dinner, and, indeed, -the prettiness of the dinner-table merited that compliment. There was -no cloth upon the table, and the china made regular circles of deep -blue upon the shining brown wood. In the middle there was a bowl of -tawny red and yellow chrysanthemums, and one of pure white, so fresh -that the narrow petals were curved backwards into a firm white ball. -From the surrounding walls the heads of three famous Victorian writers -surveyed this entertainment, and slips of paper pasted beneath them -testified in the great man’s own handwriting that he was yours -sincerely or affectionately or for ever. The father and daughter would -have been quite content, apparently, to eat their dinner in silence, or -with a few cryptic remarks expressed in a shorthand which could not be -understood by the servants. But silence depressed Mrs. Hilbery, and far -from minding the presence of maids, she would often address herself to -them, and was never altogether unconscious of their approval or -disapproval of her remarks. In the first place she called them to -witness that the room was darker than usual, and had all the lights -turned on. - -“That’s more cheerful,” she exclaimed. “D’you know, Katharine, that -ridiculous goose came to tea with me? Oh, how I wanted you! He tried to -make epigrams all the time, and I got so nervous, expecting them, you -know, that I spilt the tea—and he made an epigram about that!” - -“Which ridiculous goose?” Katharine asked her father. - -“Only one of my geese, happily, makes epigrams—Augustus Pelham, of -course,” said Mrs. Hilbery. - -“I’m not sorry that I was out,” said Katharine. - -“Poor Augustus!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. “But we’re all too hard on -him. Remember how devoted he is to his tiresome old mother.” - -“That’s only because she is his mother. Any one connected with -himself—” - -“No, no, Katharine—that’s too bad. That’s—what’s the word I mean, -Trevor, something long and Latin—the sort of word you and Katharine -know—” - -Mr. Hilbery suggested “cynical.” - -“Well, that’ll do. I don’t believe in sending girls to college, but I -should teach them that sort of thing. It makes one feel so dignified, -bringing out these little allusions, and passing on gracefully to the -next topic. But I don’t know what’s come over me—I actually had to ask -Augustus the name of the lady Hamlet was in love with, as you were out, -Katharine, and Heaven knows what he mayn’t put down about me in his -diary.” - -“I wish,” Katharine started, with great impetuosity, and checked -herself. Her mother always stirred her to feel and think quickly, and -then she remembered that her father was there, listening with -attention. - -“What is it you wish?” he asked, as she paused. - -He often surprised her, thus, into telling him what she had not meant -to tell him; and then they argued, while Mrs. Hilbery went on with her -own thoughts. - -“I wish mother wasn’t famous. I was out at tea, and they would talk to -me about poetry.” - -“Thinking you must be poetical, I see—and aren’t you?” - -“Who’s been talking to you about poetry, Katharine?” Mrs. Hilbery -demanded, and Katharine was committed to giving her parents an account -of her visit to the Suffrage office. - -“They have an office at the top of one of the old houses in Russell -Square. I never saw such queer-looking people. And the man discovered I -was related to the poet, and talked to me about poetry. Even Mary -Datchet seems different in that atmosphere.” - -“Yes, the office atmosphere is very bad for the soul,” said Mr. -Hilbery. - -“I don’t remember any offices in Russell Square in the old days, when -Mamma lived there,” Mrs. Hilbery mused, “and I can’t fancy turning one -of those noble great rooms into a stuffy little Suffrage office. Still, -if the clerks read poetry there must be something nice about them.” - -“No, because they don’t read it as we read it,” Katharine insisted. - -“But it’s nice to think of them reading your grandfather, and not -filling up those dreadful little forms all day long,” Mrs. Hilbery -persisted, her notion of office life being derived from some chance -view of a scene behind the counter at her bank, as she slipped the -sovereigns into her purse. - -“At any rate, they haven’t made a convert of Katharine, which was what -I was afraid of,” Mr. Hilbery remarked. - -“Oh no,” said Katharine very decidedly, “I wouldn’t work with them for -anything.” - -“It’s curious,” Mr. Hilbery continued, agreeing with his daughter, “how -the sight of one’s fellow-enthusiasts always chokes one off. They show -up the faults of one’s cause so much more plainly than one’s -antagonists. One can be enthusiastic in one’s study, but directly one -comes into touch with the people who agree with one, all the glamor -goes. So I’ve always found,” and he proceeded to tell them, as he -peeled his apple, how he committed himself once, in his youthful days, -to make a speech at a political meeting, and went there ablaze with -enthusiasm for the ideals of his own side; but while his leaders spoke, -he became gradually converted to the other way of thinking, if thinking -it could be called, and had to feign illness in order to avoid making a -fool of himself—an experience which had sickened him of public -meetings. - -Katharine listened and felt as she generally did when her father, and -to some extent her mother, described their feelings, that she quite -understood and agreed with them, but, at the same time, saw something -which they did not see, and always felt some disappointment when they -fell short of her vision, as they always did. The plates succeeded each -other swiftly and noiselessly in front of her, and the table was decked -for dessert, and as the talk murmured on in familiar grooves, she sat -there, rather like a judge, listening to her parents, who did, indeed, -feel it very pleasant when they made her laugh. - -Daily life in a house where there are young and old is full of curious -little ceremonies and pieties, which are discharged quite punctually, -though the meaning of them is obscure, and a mystery has come to brood -over them which lends even a superstitious charm to their performance. -Such was the nightly ceremony of the cigar and the glass of port, which -were placed on the right hand and on the left hand of Mr. Hilbery, and -simultaneously Mrs. Hilbery and Katharine left the room. All the years -they had lived together they had never seen Mr. Hilbery smoke his cigar -or drink his port, and they would have felt it unseemly if, by chance, -they had surprised him as he sat there. These short, but clearly -marked, periods of separation between the sexes were always used for an -intimate postscript to what had been said at dinner, the sense of being -women together coming out most strongly when the male sex was, as if by -some religious rite, secluded from the female. Katharine knew by heart -the sort of mood that possessed her as she walked upstairs to the -drawing-room, her mother’s arm in hers; and she could anticipate the -pleasure with which, when she had turned on the lights, they both -regarded the drawing-room, fresh swept and set in order for the last -section of the day, with the red parrots swinging on the chintz -curtains, and the arm-chairs warming in the blaze. Mrs. Hilbery stood -over the fire, with one foot on the fender, and her skirts slightly -raised. - -“Oh, Katharine,” she exclaimed, “how you’ve made me think of Mamma and -the old days in Russell Square! I can see the chandeliers, and the -green silk of the piano, and Mamma sitting in her cashmere shawl by the -window, singing till the little ragamuffin boys outside stopped to -listen. Papa sent me in with a bunch of violets while he waited round -the corner. It must have been a summer evening. That was before things -were hopeless....” - -As she spoke an expression of regret, which must have come frequently -to cause the lines which now grew deep round the lips and eyes, settled -on her face. The poet’s marriage had not been a happy one. He had left -his wife, and after some years of a rather reckless existence, she had -died, before her time. This disaster had led to great irregularities of -education, and, indeed, Mrs. Hilbery might be said to have escaped -education altogether. But she had been her father’s companion at the -season when he wrote the finest of his poems. She had sat on his knee -in taverns and other haunts of drunken poets, and it was for her sake, -so people said, that he had cured himself of his dissipation, and -become the irreproachable literary character that the world knows, -whose inspiration had deserted him. As Mrs. Hilbery grew old she -thought more and more of the past, and this ancient disaster seemed at -times almost to prey upon her mind, as if she could not pass out of -life herself without laying the ghost of her parent’s sorrow to rest. - -Katharine wished to comfort her mother, but it was difficult to do this -satisfactorily when the facts themselves were so much of a legend. The -house in Russell Square, for example, with its noble rooms, and the -magnolia-tree in the garden, and the sweet-voiced piano, and the sound -of feet coming down the corridors, and other properties of size and -romance—had they any existence? Yet why should Mrs. Alardyce live all -alone in this gigantic mansion, and, if she did not live alone, with -whom did she live? For its own sake, Katharine rather liked this tragic -story, and would have been glad to hear the details of it, and to have -been able to discuss them frankly. But this it became less and less -possible to do, for though Mrs. Hilbery was constantly reverting to the -story, it was always in this tentative and restless fashion, as though -by a touch here and there she could set things straight which had been -crooked these sixty years. Perhaps, indeed, she no longer knew what the -truth was. - -“If they’d lived now,” she concluded, “I feel it wouldn’t have -happened. People aren’t so set upon tragedy as they were then. If my -father had been able to go round the world, or if she’d had a rest -cure, everything would have come right. But what could I do? And then -they had bad friends, both of them, who made mischief. Ah, Katharine, -when you marry, be quite, quite sure that you love your husband!” - -The tears stood in Mrs. Hilbery’s eyes. - -While comforting her, Katharine thought to herself, “Now this is what -Mary Datchet and Mr. Denham don’t understand. This is the sort of -position I’m always getting into. How simple it must be to live as they -do!” for all the evening she had been comparing her home and her father -and mother with the Suffrage office and the people there. - -“But, Katharine,” Mrs. Hilbery continued, with one of her sudden -changes of mood, “though, Heaven knows, I don’t want to see you -married, surely if ever a man loved a woman, William loves you. And -it’s a nice, rich-sounding name too—Katharine Rodney, which, -unfortunately, doesn’t mean that he’s got any money, because he -hasn’t.” - -The alteration of her name annoyed Katharine, and she observed, rather -sharply, that she didn’t want to marry any one. - -“It’s very dull that you can only marry one husband, certainly,” Mrs. -Hilbery reflected. “I always wish that you could marry everybody who -wants to marry you. Perhaps they’ll come to that in time, but meanwhile -I confess that dear William—” But here Mr. Hilbery came in, and the -more solid part of the evening began. This consisted in the reading -aloud by Katharine from some prose work or other, while her mother -knitted scarves intermittently on a little circular frame, and her -father read the newspaper, not so attentively but that he could comment -humorously now and again upon the fortunes of the hero and the heroine. -The Hilberys subscribed to a library, which delivered books on Tuesdays -and Fridays, and Katharine did her best to interest her parents in the -works of living and highly respectable authors; but Mrs. Hilbery was -perturbed by the very look of the light, gold-wreathed volumes, and -would make little faces as if she tasted something bitter as the -reading went on; while Mr. Hilbery would treat the moderns with a -curious elaborate banter such as one might apply to the antics of a -promising child. So this evening, after five pages or so of one of -these masters, Mrs. Hilbery protested that it was all too clever and -cheap and nasty for words. - -“Please, Katharine, read us something _real_.” - -Katharine had to go to the bookcase and choose a portly volume in -sleek, yellow calf, which had directly a sedative effect upon both her -parents. But the delivery of the evening post broke in upon the periods -of Henry Fielding, and Katharine found that her letters needed all her -attention. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -She took her letters up to her room with her, having persuaded her -mother to go to bed directly Mr. Hilbery left them, for so long as she -sat in the same room as her mother, Mrs. Hilbery might, at any moment, -ask for a sight of the post. A very hasty glance through many sheets -had shown Katharine that, by some coincidence, her attention had to be -directed to many different anxieties simultaneously. In the first -place, Rodney had written a very full account of his state of mind, -which was illustrated by a sonnet, and he demanded a reconsideration of -their position, which agitated Katharine more than she liked. Then -there were two letters which had to be laid side by side and compared -before she could make out the truth of their story, and even when she -knew the facts she could not decide what to make of them; and finally -she had to reflect upon a great many pages from a cousin who found -himself in financial difficulties, which forced him to the uncongenial -occupation of teaching the young ladies of Bungay to play upon the -violin. - -But the two letters which each told the same story differently were the -chief source of her perplexity. She was really rather shocked to find -it definitely established that her own second cousin, Cyril Alardyce, -had lived for the last four years with a woman who was not his wife, -who had borne him two children, and was now about to bear him another. -This state of things had been discovered by Mrs. Milvain, her aunt -Celia, a zealous inquirer into such matters, whose letter was also -under consideration. Cyril, she said, must be made to marry the woman -at once; and Cyril, rightly or wrongly, was indignant with such -interference with his affairs, and would not own that he had any cause -to be ashamed of himself. Had he any cause to be ashamed of himself, -Katharine wondered; and she turned to her aunt again. - -“Remember,” she wrote, in her profuse, emphatic statement, “that he -bears your grandfather’s name, and so will the child that is to be -born. The poor boy is not so much to blame as the woman who deluded -him, thinking him a gentleman, which he IS, and having money, which he -has _not_.” - -“What would Ralph Denham say to this?” thought Katharine, beginning to -pace up and down her bedroom. She twitched aside the curtains, so that, -on turning, she was faced by darkness, and looking out, could just -distinguish the branches of a plane-tree and the yellow lights of some -one else’s windows. - -“What would Mary Datchet and Ralph Denham say?” she reflected, pausing -by the window, which, as the night was warm, she raised, in order to -feel the air upon her face, and to lose herself in the nothingness of -night. But with the air the distant humming sound of far-off crowded -thoroughfares was admitted to the room. The incessant and tumultuous -hum of the distant traffic seemed, as she stood there, to represent the -thick texture of her life, for her life was so hemmed in with the -progress of other lives that the sound of its own advance was -inaudible. People like Ralph and Mary, she thought, had it all their -own way, and an empty space before them, and, as she envied them, she -cast her mind out to imagine an empty land where all this petty -intercourse of men and women, this life made up of the dense crossings -and entanglements of men and women, had no existence whatever. Even -now, alone, at night, looking out into the shapeless mass of London, -she was forced to remember that there was one point and here another -with which she had some connection. William Rodney, at this very -moment, was seated in a minute speck of light somewhere to the east of -her, and his mind was occupied, not with his book, but with her. She -wished that no one in the whole world would think of her. However, -there was no way of escaping from one’s fellow-beings, she concluded, -and shut the window with a sigh, and returned once more to her letters. - -She could not doubt but that William’s letter was the most genuine she -had yet received from him. He had come to the conclusion that he could -not live without her, he wrote. He believed that he knew her, and could -give her happiness, and that their marriage would be unlike other -marriages. Nor was the sonnet, in spite of its accomplishment, lacking -in passion, and Katharine, as she read the pages through again, could -see in what direction her feelings ought to flow, supposing they -revealed themselves. She would come to feel a humorous sort of -tenderness for him, a zealous care for his susceptibilities, and, after -all, she considered, thinking of her father and mother, what is love? - -Naturally, with her face, position, and background, she had experience -of young men who wished to marry her, and made protestations of love, -but, perhaps because she did not return the feeling, it remained -something of a pageant to her. Not having experience of it herself, her -mind had unconsciously occupied itself for some years in dressing up an -image of love, and the marriage that was the outcome of love, and the -man who inspired love, which naturally dwarfed any examples that came -her way. Easily, and without correction by reason, her imagination made -pictures, superb backgrounds casting a rich though phantom light upon -the facts in the foreground. Splendid as the waters that drop with -resounding thunder from high ledges of rock, and plunge downwards into -the blue depths of night, was the presence of love she dreamt, drawing -into it every drop of the force of life, and dashing them all asunder -in the superb catastrophe in which everything was surrendered, and -nothing might be reclaimed. The man, too, was some magnanimous hero, -riding a great horse by the shore of the sea. They rode through forests -together, they galloped by the rim of the sea. But waking, she was able -to contemplate a perfectly loveless marriage, as the thing one did -actually in real life, for possibly the people who dream thus are those -who do the most prosaic things. - -At this moment she was much inclined to sit on into the night, spinning -her light fabric of thoughts until she tired of their futility, and -went to her mathematics; but, as she knew very well, it was necessary -that she should see her father before he went to bed. The case of Cyril -Alardyce must be discussed, her mother’s illusions and the rights of -the family attended to. Being vague herself as to what all this -amounted to, she had to take counsel with her father. She took her -letters in her hand and went downstairs. It was past eleven, and the -clocks had come into their reign, the grandfather’s clock in the hall -ticking in competition with the small clock on the landing. Mr. -Hilbery’s study ran out behind the rest of the house, on the ground -floor, and was a very silent, subterranean place, the sun in daytime -casting a mere abstract of light through a skylight upon his books and -the large table, with its spread of white papers, now illumined by a -green reading-lamp. Here Mr. Hilbery sat editing his review, or placing -together documents by means of which it could be proved that Shelley -had written “of” instead of “and,” or that the inn in which Byron had -slept was called the “Nag’s Head” and not the “Turkish Knight,” or that -the Christian name of Keats’s uncle had been John rather than Richard, -for he knew more minute details about these poets than any man in -England, probably, and was preparing an edition of Shelley which -scrupulously observed the poet’s system of punctuation. He saw the -humor of these researches, but that did not prevent him from carrying -them out with the utmost scrupulosity. - -He was lying back comfortably in a deep arm-chair smoking a cigar, and -ruminating the fruitful question as to whether Coleridge had wished to -marry Dorothy Wordsworth, and what, if he had done so, would have been -the consequences to him in particular, and to literature in general. -When Katharine came in he reflected that he knew what she had come for, -and he made a pencil note before he spoke to her. Having done this, he -saw that she was reading, and he watched her for a moment without -saying anything. She was reading “Isabella and the Pot of Basil,” and -her mind was full of the Italian hills and the blue daylight, and the -hedges set with little rosettes of red and white roses. Feeling that -her father waited for her, she sighed and said, shutting her book: - -“I’ve had a letter from Aunt Celia about Cyril, father.... It seems to -be true—about his marriage. What are we to do?” - -“Cyril seems to have been behaving in a very foolish manner,” said Mr. -Hilbery, in his pleasant and deliberate tones. - -Katharine found some difficulty in carrying on the conversation, while -her father balanced his finger-tips so judiciously, and seemed to -reserve so many of his thoughts for himself. - -“He’s about done for himself, I should say,” he continued. Without -saying anything, he took Katharine’s letters out of her hand, adjusted -his eyeglasses, and read them through. - -At length he said “Humph!” and gave the letters back to her. - -“Mother knows nothing about it,” Katharine remarked. “Will you tell -her?” - -“I shall tell your mother. But I shall tell her that there is nothing -whatever for us to do.” - -“But the marriage?” Katharine asked, with some diffidence. - -Mr. Hilbery said nothing, and stared into the fire. - -“What in the name of conscience did he do it for?” he speculated at -last, rather to himself than to her. - -Katharine had begun to read her aunt’s letter over again, and she now -quoted a sentence. “Ibsen and Butler.... He has sent me a letter full -of quotations—nonsense, though clever nonsense.” - -“Well, if the younger generation want to carry on its life on those -lines, it’s none of our affair,” he remarked. - -“But isn’t it our affair, perhaps, to make them get married?” Katharine -asked rather wearily. - -“Why the dickens should they apply to me?” her father demanded with -sudden irritation. - -“Only as the head of the family—” - -“But I’m not the head of the family. Alfred’s the head of the family. -Let them apply to Alfred,” said Mr. Hilbery, relapsing again into his -arm-chair. Katharine was aware that she had touched a sensitive spot, -however, in mentioning the family. - -“I think, perhaps, the best thing would be for me to go and see them,” -she observed. - -“I won’t have you going anywhere near them,” Mr. Hilbery replied with -unwonted decision and authority. “Indeed, I don’t understand why -they’ve dragged you into the business at all—I don’t see that it’s got -anything to do with you.” - -“I’ve always been friends with Cyril,” Katharine observed. - -“But did he ever tell you anything about this?” Mr. Hilbery asked -rather sharply. - -Katharine shook her head. She was, indeed, a good deal hurt that Cyril -had not confided in her—did he think, as Ralph Denham or Mary Datchet -might think, that she was, for some reason, unsympathetic—hostile even? - -“As to your mother,” said Mr. Hilbery, after a pause, in which he -seemed to be considering the color of the flames, “you had better tell -her the facts. She’d better know the facts before every one begins to -talk about it, though why Aunt Celia thinks it necessary to come, I’m -sure I don’t know. And the less talk there is the better.” - -Granting the assumption that gentlemen of sixty who are highly -cultivated, and have had much experience of life, probably think of -many things which they do not say, Katharine could not help feeling -rather puzzled by her father’s attitude, as she went back to her room. -What a distance he was from it all! How superficially he smoothed these -events into a semblance of decency which harmonized with his own view -of life! He never wondered what Cyril had felt, nor did the hidden -aspects of the case tempt him to examine into them. He merely seemed to -realize, rather languidly, that Cyril had behaved in a way which was -foolish, because other people did not behave in that way. He seemed to -be looking through a telescope at little figures hundreds of miles in -the distance. - -Her selfish anxiety not to have to tell Mrs. Hilbery what had happened -made her follow her father into the hall after breakfast the next -morning in order to question him. - -“Have you told mother?” she asked. Her manner to her father was almost -stern, and she seemed to hold endless depths of reflection in the dark -of her eyes. - -Mr. Hilbery sighed. - -“My dear child, it went out of my head.” He smoothed his silk hat -energetically, and at once affected an air of hurry. “I’ll send a note -round from the office.... I’m late this morning, and I’ve any amount of -proofs to get through.” - -“That wouldn’t do at all,” Katharine said decidedly. “She must be -told—you or I must tell her. We ought to have told her at first.” - -Mr. Hilbery had now placed his hat on his head, and his hand was on the -door-knob. An expression which Katharine knew well from her childhood, -when he asked her to shield him in some neglect of duty, came into his -eyes; malice, humor, and irresponsibility were blended in it. He nodded -his head to and fro significantly, opened the door with an adroit -movement, and stepped out with a lightness unexpected at his age. He -waved his hand once to his daughter, and was gone. Left alone, -Katharine could not help laughing to find herself cheated as usual in -domestic bargainings with her father, and left to do the disagreeable -work which belonged, by rights, to him. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -Katharine disliked telling her mother about Cyril’s misbehavior quite -as much as her father did, and for much the same reasons. They both -shrank, nervously, as people fear the report of a gun on the stage, -from all that would have to be said on this occasion. Katharine, -moreover, was unable to decide what she thought of Cyril’s misbehavior. -As usual, she saw something which her father and mother did not see, -and the effect of that something was to suspend Cyril’s behavior in her -mind without any qualification at all. They would think whether it was -good or bad; to her it was merely a thing that had happened. - -When Katharine reached the study, Mrs. Hilbery had already dipped her -pen in the ink. - -“Katharine,” she said, lifting it in the air, “I’ve just made out such -a queer, strange thing about your grandfather. I’m three years and six -months older than he was when he died. I couldn’t very well have been -his mother, but I might have been his elder sister, and that seems to -me such a pleasant fancy. I’m going to start quite fresh this morning, -and get a lot done.” - -She began her sentence, at any rate, and Katharine sat down at her own -table, untied the bundle of old letters upon which she was working, -smoothed them out absent-mindedly, and began to decipher the faded -script. In a minute she looked across at her mother, to judge her mood. -Peace and happiness had relaxed every muscle in her face; her lips were -parted very slightly, and her breath came in smooth, controlled -inspirations like those of a child who is surrounding itself with a -building of bricks, and increasing in ecstasy as each brick is placed -in position. So Mrs. Hilbery was raising round her the skies and trees -of the past with every stroke of her pen, and recalling the voices of -the dead. Quiet as the room was, and undisturbed by the sounds of the -present moment, Katharine could fancy that here was a deep pool of past -time, and that she and her mother were bathed in the light of sixty -years ago. What could the present give, she wondered, to compare with -the rich crowd of gifts bestowed by the past? Here was a Thursday -morning in process of manufacture; each second was minted fresh by the -clock upon the mantelpiece. She strained her ears and could just hear, -far off, the hoot of a motor-car and the rush of wheels coming nearer -and dying away again, and the voices of men crying old iron and -vegetables in one of the poorer streets at the back of the house. -Rooms, of course, accumulate their suggestions, and any room in which -one has been used to carry on any particular occupation gives off -memories of moods, of ideas, of postures that have been seen in it; so -that to attempt any different kind of work there is almost impossible. - -Katharine was unconsciously affected, each time she entered her -mother’s room, by all these influences, which had had their birth years -ago, when she was a child, and had something sweet and solemn about -them, and connected themselves with early memories of the cavernous -glooms and sonorous echoes of the Abbey where her grandfather lay -buried. All the books and pictures, even the chairs and tables, had -belonged to him, or had reference to him; even the china dogs on the -mantelpiece and the little shepherdesses with their sheep had been -bought by him for a penny a piece from a man who used to stand with a -tray of toys in Kensington High Street, as Katharine had often heard -her mother tell. Often she had sat in this room, with her mind fixed so -firmly on those vanished figures that she could almost see the muscles -round their eyes and lips, and had given to each his own voice, with -its tricks of accent, and his coat and his cravat. Often she had seemed -to herself to be moving among them, an invisible ghost among the -living, better acquainted with them than with her own friends, because -she knew their secrets and possessed a divine foreknowledge of their -destiny. They had been so unhappy, such muddlers, so wrong-headed, it -seemed to her. She could have told them what to do, and what not to do. -It was a melancholy fact that they would pay no heed to her, and were -bound to come to grief in their own antiquated way. Their behavior was -often grotesquely irrational; their conventions monstrously absurd; and -yet, as she brooded upon them, she felt so closely attached to them -that it was useless to try to pass judgment upon them. She very nearly -lost consciousness that she was a separate being, with a future of her -own. On a morning of slight depression, such as this, she would try to -find some sort of clue to the muddle which their old letters presented; -some reason which seemed to make it worth while to them; some aim which -they kept steadily in view—but she was interrupted. - -Mrs. Hilbery had risen from her table, and was standing looking out of -the window at a string of barges swimming up the river. - -Katharine watched her. Suddenly Mrs. Hilbery turned abruptly, and -exclaimed: - -“I really believe I’m bewitched! I only want three sentences, you see, -something quite straightforward and commonplace, and I can’t find ‘em.” - -She began to pace up and down the room, snatching up her duster; but -she was too much annoyed to find any relief, as yet, in polishing the -backs of books. - -“Besides,” she said, giving the sheet she had written to Katharine, “I -don’t believe this’ll do. Did your grandfather ever visit the Hebrides, -Katharine?” She looked in a strangely beseeching way at her daughter. -“My mind got running on the Hebrides, and I couldn’t help writing a -little description of them. Perhaps it would do at the beginning of a -chapter. Chapters often begin quite differently from the way they go -on, you know.” Katharine read what her mother had written. She might -have been a schoolmaster criticizing a child’s essay. Her face gave -Mrs. Hilbery, who watched it anxiously, no ground for hope. - -“It’s very beautiful,” she stated, “but, you see, mother, we ought to -go from point to point—” - -“Oh, I know,” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. “And that’s just what I can’t do. -Things keep coming into my head. It isn’t that I don’t know everything -and feel everything (who did know him, if I didn’t?), but I can’t put -it down, you see. There’s a kind of blind spot,” she said, touching her -forehead, “there. And when I can’t sleep o’ nights, I fancy I shall die -without having done it.” - -From exultation she had passed to the depths of depression which the -imagination of her death aroused. The depression communicated itself to -Katharine. How impotent they were, fiddling about all day long with -papers! And the clock was striking eleven and nothing done! She watched -her mother, now rummaging in a great brass-bound box which stood by her -table, but she did not go to her help. Of course, Katharine reflected, -her mother had now lost some paper, and they would waste the rest of -the morning looking for it. She cast her eyes down in irritation, and -read again her mother’s musical sentences about the silver gulls, and -the roots of little pink flowers washed by pellucid streams, and the -blue mists of hyacinths, until she was struck by her mother’s silence. -She raised her eyes. Mrs. Hilbery had emptied a portfolio containing -old photographs over her table, and was looking from one to another. - -“Surely, Katharine,” she said, “the men were far handsomer in those -days than they are now, in spite of their odious whiskers? Look at old -John Graham, in his white waistcoat—look at Uncle Harley. That’s Peter -the manservant, I suppose. Uncle John brought him back from India.” - -Katharine looked at her mother, but did not stir or answer. She had -suddenly become very angry, with a rage which their relationship made -silent, and therefore doubly powerful and critical. She felt all the -unfairness of the claim which her mother tacitly made to her time and -sympathy, and what Mrs. Hilbery took, Katharine thought bitterly, she -wasted. Then, in a flash, she remembered that she had still to tell her -about Cyril’s misbehavior. Her anger immediately dissipated itself; it -broke like some wave that has gathered itself high above the rest; the -waters were resumed into the sea again, and Katharine felt once more -full of peace and solicitude, and anxious only that her mother should -be protected from pain. She crossed the room instinctively, and sat on -the arm of her mother’s chair. Mrs. Hilbery leant her head against her -daughter’s body. - -“What is nobler,” she mused, turning over the photographs, “than to be -a woman to whom every one turns, in sorrow or difficulty? How have the -young women of your generation improved upon that, Katharine? I can see -them now, sweeping over the lawns at Melbury House, in their flounces -and furbelows, so calm and stately and imperial (and the monkey and the -little black dwarf following behind), as if nothing mattered in the -world but to be beautiful and kind. But they did more than we do, I -sometimes think. They WERE, and that’s better than doing. They seem to -me like ships, like majestic ships, holding on their way, not shoving -or pushing, not fretted by little things, as we are, but taking their -way, like ships with white sails.” - -Katharine tried to interrupt this discourse, but the opportunity did -not come, and she could not forbear to turn over the pages of the album -in which the old photographs were stored. The faces of these men and -women shone forth wonderfully after the hubbub of living faces, and -seemed, as her mother had said, to wear a marvelous dignity and calm, -as if they had ruled their kingdoms justly and deserved great love. -Some were of almost incredible beauty, others were ugly enough in a -forcible way, but none were dull or bored or insignificant. The superb -stiff folds of the crinolines suited the women; the cloaks and hats of -the gentlemen seemed full of character. Once more Katharine felt the -serene air all round her, and seemed far off to hear the solemn beating -of the sea upon the shore. But she knew that she must join the present -on to this past. - -Mrs. Hilbery was rambling on, from story to story. - -“That’s Janie Mannering,” she said, pointing to a superb, white-haired -dame, whose satin robes seemed strung with pearls. “I must have told -you how she found her cook drunk under the kitchen table when the -Empress was coming to dinner, and tucked up her velvet sleeves (she -always dressed like an Empress herself), cooked the whole meal, and -appeared in the drawing-room as if she’d been sleeping on a bank of -roses all day. She could do anything with her hands—they all could—make -a cottage or embroider a petticoat. - -“And that’s Queenie Colquhoun,” she went on, turning the pages, “who -took her coffin out with her to Jamaica, packed with lovely shawls and -bonnets, because you couldn’t get coffins in Jamaica, and she had a -horror of dying there (as she did), and being devoured by the white -ants. And there’s Sabine, the loveliest of them all; ah! it was like a -star rising when she came into the room. And that’s Miriam, in her -coachman’s cloak, with all the little capes on, and she wore great -top-boots underneath. You young people may say you’re unconventional, -but you’re nothing compared with her.” - -Turning the page, she came upon the picture of a very masculine, -handsome lady, whose head the photographer had adorned with an imperial -crown. - -“Ah, you wretch!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed, “what a wicked old despot you -were, in your day! How we all bowed down before you! ‘Maggie,’ she used -to say, ‘if it hadn’t been for me, where would you be now?’ And it was -true; she brought them together, you know. She said to my father, -‘Marry her,’ and he did; and she said to poor little Clara, ‘Fall down -and worship him,’ and she did; but she got up again, of course. What -else could one expect? She was a mere child—eighteen—and half dead with -fright, too. But that old tyrant never repented. She used to say that -she had given them three perfect months, and no one had a right to -more; and I sometimes think, Katharine, that’s true, you know. It’s -more than most of us have, only we have to pretend, which was a thing -neither of them could ever do. I fancy,” Mrs. Hilbery mused, “that -there was a kind of sincerity in those days between men and women -which, with all your outspokenness, you haven’t got.” - -Katharine again tried to interrupt. But Mrs. Hilbery had been gathering -impetus from her recollections, and was now in high spirits. - -“They must have been good friends at heart,” she resumed, “because she -used to sing his songs. Ah, how did it go?” and Mrs. Hilbery, who had a -very sweet voice, trolled out a famous lyric of her father’s which had -been set to an absurdly and charmingly sentimental air by some early -Victorian composer. - -“It’s the vitality of them!” she concluded, striking her fist against -the table. “That’s what we haven’t got! We’re virtuous, we’re earnest, -we go to meetings, we pay the poor their wages, but we don’t live as -they lived. As often as not, my father wasn’t in bed three nights out -of the seven, but always fresh as paint in the morning. I hear him now, -come singing up the stairs to the nursery, and tossing the loaf for -breakfast on his sword-stick, and then off we went for a day’s -pleasuring—Richmond, Hampton Court, the Surrey Hills. Why shouldn’t we -go, Katharine? It’s going to be a fine day.” - -At this moment, just as Mrs. Hilbery was examining the weather from the -window, there was a knock at the door. A slight, elderly lady came in, -and was saluted by Katharine, with very evident dismay, as “Aunt -Celia!” She was dismayed because she guessed why Aunt Celia had come. -It was certainly in order to discuss the case of Cyril and the woman -who was not his wife, and owing to her procrastination Mrs. Hilbery was -quite unprepared. Who could be more unprepared? Here she was, -suggesting that all three of them should go on a jaunt to Blackfriars -to inspect the site of Shakespeare’s theater, for the weather was -hardly settled enough for the country. - -To this proposal Mrs. Milvain listened with a patient smile, which -indicated that for many years she had accepted such eccentricities in -her sister-in-law with bland philosophy. Katharine took up her position -at some distance, standing with her foot on the fender, as though by so -doing she could get a better view of the matter. But, in spite of her -aunt’s presence, how unreal the whole question of Cyril and his -morality appeared! The difficulty, it now seemed, was not to break the -news gently to Mrs. Hilbery, but to make her understand it. How was one -to lasso her mind, and tether it to this minute, unimportant spot? A -matter-of-fact statement seemed best. - -“I think Aunt Celia has come to talk about Cyril, mother,” she said -rather brutally. “Aunt Celia has discovered that Cyril is married. He -has a wife and children.” - -“No, he is _not_ married,” Mrs. Milvain interposed, in low tones, -addressing herself to Mrs. Hilbery. “He has two children, and another -on the way.” - -Mrs. Hilbery looked from one to the other in bewilderment. - -“We thought it better to wait until it was proved before we told you,” -Katharine added. - -“But I met Cyril only a fortnight ago at the National Gallery!” Mrs. -Hilbery exclaimed. “I don’t believe a word of it,” and she tossed her -head with a smile on her lips at Mrs. Milvain, as though she could -quite understand her mistake, which was a very natural mistake, in the -case of a childless woman, whose husband was something very dull in the -Board of Trade. - -“I didn’t _wish_ to believe it, Maggie,” said Mrs. Milvain. “For a long -time I _couldn’t_ believe it. But now I’ve seen, and I _have_ to -believe it.” - -“Katharine,” Mrs. Hilbery demanded, “does your father know of this?” - -Katharine nodded. - -“Cyril married!” Mrs. Hilbery repeated. “And never telling us a word, -though we’ve had him in our house since he was a child—noble William’s -son! I can’t believe my ears!” - -Feeling that the burden of proof was laid upon her, Mrs. Milvain now -proceeded with her story. She was elderly and fragile, but her -childlessness seemed always to impose these painful duties on her, and -to revere the family, and to keep it in repair, had now become the -chief object of her life. She told her story in a low, spasmodic, and -somewhat broken voice. - -“I have suspected for some time that he was not happy. There were new -lines on his face. So I went to his rooms, when I knew he was engaged -at the poor men’s college. He lectures there—Roman law, you know, or it -may be Greek. The landlady said Mr. Alardyce only slept there about -once a fortnight now. He looked so ill, she said. She had seen him with -a young person. I suspected something directly. I went to his room, and -there was an envelope on the mantelpiece, and a letter with an address -in Seton Street, off the Kennington Road.” - -Mrs. Hilbery fidgeted rather restlessly, and hummed fragments of her -tune, as if to interrupt. - -“I went to Seton Street,” Aunt Celia continued firmly. “A very low -place—lodging-houses, you know, with canaries in the window. Number -seven just like all the others. I rang, I knocked; no one came. I went -down the area. I am certain I saw some one inside—children—a cradle. -But no reply—no reply.” She sighed, and looked straight in front of her -with a glazed expression in her half-veiled blue eyes. - -“I stood in the street,” she resumed, “in case I could catch a sight of -one of them. It seemed a very long time. There were rough men singing -in the public-house round the corner. At last the door opened, and some -one—it must have been the woman herself—came right past me. There was -only the pillar-box between us.” - -“And what did she look like?” Mrs. Hilbery demanded. - -“One could see how the poor boy had been deluded,” was all that Mrs. -Milvain vouchsafed by way of description. - -“Poor thing!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. - -“Poor Cyril!” Mrs. Milvain said, laying a slight emphasis upon Cyril. - -“But they’ve got nothing to live upon,” Mrs. Hilbery continued. “If -he’d come to us like a man,” she went on, “and said, ‘I’ve been a -fool,’ one would have pitied him; one would have tried to help him. -There’s nothing so disgraceful after all—But he’s been going about all -these years, pretending, letting one take it for granted, that he was -single. And the poor deserted little wife—” - -“She is _not_ his wife,” Aunt Celia interrupted. - -“I’ve never heard anything so detestable!” Mrs. Hilbery wound up, -striking her fist on the arm of her chair. As she realized the facts -she became thoroughly disgusted, although, perhaps, she was more hurt -by the concealment of the sin than by the sin itself. She looked -splendidly roused and indignant; and Katharine felt an immense relief -and pride in her mother. It was plain that her indignation was very -genuine, and that her mind was as perfectly focused upon the facts as -any one could wish—more so, by a long way, than Aunt Celia’s mind, -which seemed to be timidly circling, with a morbid pleasure, in these -unpleasant shades. She and her mother together would take the situation -in hand, visit Cyril, and see the whole thing through. - -“We must realize Cyril’s point of view first,” she said, speaking -directly to her mother, as if to a contemporary, but before the words -were out of her mouth, there was more confusion outside, and Cousin -Caroline, Mrs. Hilbery’s maiden cousin, entered the room. Although she -was by birth an Alardyce, and Aunt Celia a Hilbery, the complexities of -the family relationship were such that each was at once first and -second cousin to the other, and thus aunt and cousin to the culprit -Cyril, so that his misbehavior was almost as much Cousin Caroline’s -affair as Aunt Celia’s. Cousin Caroline was a lady of very imposing -height and circumference, but in spite of her size and her handsome -trappings, there was something exposed and unsheltered in her -expression, as if for many summers her thin red skin and hooked nose -and reduplication of chins, so much resembling the profile of a -cockatoo, had been bared to the weather; she was, indeed, a single -lady; but she had, it was the habit to say, “made a life for herself,” -and was thus entitled to be heard with respect. - -“This unhappy business,” she began, out of breath as she was. “If the -train had not gone out of the station just as I arrived, I should have -been with you before. Celia has doubtless told you. You will agree with -me, Maggie. He must be made to marry her at once for the sake of the -children—” - -“But does he refuse to marry her?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired, with a return -of her bewilderment. - -“He has written an absurd perverted letter, all quotations,” Cousin -Caroline puffed. “He thinks he’s doing a very fine thing, where we only -see the folly of it.... The girl’s every bit as infatuated as he is—for -which I blame him.” - -“She entangled him,” Aunt Celia intervened, with a very curious -smoothness of intonation, which seemed to convey a vision of threads -weaving and interweaving a close, white mesh round their victim. - -“It’s no use going into the rights and wrongs of the affair now, -Celia,” said Cousin Caroline with some acerbity, for she believed -herself the only practical one of the family, and regretted that, owing -to the slowness of the kitchen clock, Mrs. Milvain had already confused -poor dear Maggie with her own incomplete version of the facts. “The -mischief’s done, and very ugly mischief too. Are we to allow the third -child to be born out of wedlock? (I am sorry to have to say these -things before you, Katharine.) He will bear your name, Maggie—your -father’s name, remember.” - -“But let us hope it will be a girl,” said Mrs. Hilbery. - -Katharine, who had been looking at her mother constantly, while the -chatter of tongues held sway, perceived that the look of -straightforward indignation had already vanished; her mother was -evidently casting about in her mind for some method of escape, or -bright spot, or sudden illumination which should show to the -satisfaction of everybody that all had happened, miraculously but -incontestably, for the best. - -“It’s detestable—quite detestable!” she repeated, but in tones of no -great assurance; and then her face lit up with a smile which, tentative -at first, soon became almost assured. “Nowadays, people don’t think so -badly of these things as they used to do,” she began. “It will be -horribly uncomfortable for them sometimes, but if they are brave, -clever children, as they will be, I dare say it’ll make remarkable -people of them in the end. Robert Browning used to say that every great -man has Jewish blood in him, and we must try to look at it in that -light. And, after all, Cyril has acted on principle. One may disagree -with his principle, but, at least, one can respect it—like the French -Revolution, or Cromwell cutting the King’s head off. Some of the most -terrible things in history have been done on principle,” she concluded. - -“I’m afraid I take a very different view of principle,” Cousin Caroline -remarked tartly. - -“Principle!” Aunt Celia repeated, with an air of deprecating such a -word in such a connection. “I will go to-morrow and see him,” she -added. - -“But why should you take these disagreeable things upon yourself, -Celia?” Mrs. Hilbery interposed, and Cousin Caroline thereupon -protested with some further plan involving sacrifice of herself. - -Growing weary of it all, Katharine turned to the window, and stood -among the folds of the curtain, pressing close to the window-pane, and -gazing disconsolately at the river much in the attitude of a child -depressed by the meaningless talk of its elders. She was much -disappointed in her mother—and in herself too. The little tug which she -gave to the blind, letting it fly up to the top with a snap, signified -her annoyance. She was very angry, and yet impotent to give expression -to her anger, or know with whom she was angry. How they talked and -moralized and made up stories to suit their own version of the -becoming, and secretly praised their own devotion and tact! No; they -had their dwelling in a mist, she decided; hundreds of miles away—away -from what? “Perhaps it would be better if I married William,” she -thought suddenly, and the thought appeared to loom through the mist -like solid ground. She stood there, thinking of her own destiny, and -the elder ladies talked on, until they had talked themselves into a -decision to ask the young woman to luncheon, and tell her, very -friendlily, how such behavior appeared to women like themselves, who -knew the world. And then Mrs. Hilbery was struck by a better idea. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -Messrs. Grateley and Hooper, the solicitors in whose firm Ralph Denham -was clerk, had their office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and there Ralph -Denham appeared every morning very punctually at ten o’clock. His -punctuality, together with other qualities, marked him out among the -clerks for success, and indeed it would have been safe to wager that in -ten years’ time or so one would find him at the head of his profession, -had it not been for a peculiarity which sometimes seemed to make -everything about him uncertain and perilous. His sister Joan had -already been disturbed by his love of gambling with his savings. -Scrutinizing him constantly with the eye of affection, she had become -aware of a curious perversity in his temperament which caused her much -anxiety, and would have caused her still more if she had not recognized -the germs of it in her own nature. She could fancy Ralph suddenly -sacrificing his entire career for some fantastic imagination; some -cause or idea or even (so her fancy ran) for some woman seen from a -railway train, hanging up clothes in a back yard. When he had found -this beauty or this cause, no force, she knew, would avail to restrain -him from pursuit of it. She suspected the East also, and always -fidgeted herself when she saw him with a book of Indian travels in his -hand, as though he were sucking contagion from the page. On the other -hand, no common love affair, had there been such a thing, would have -caused her a moment’s uneasiness where Ralph was concerned. He was -destined in her fancy for something splendid in the way of success or -failure, she knew not which. - -And yet nobody could have worked harder or done better in all the -recognized stages of a young man’s life than Ralph had done, and Joan -had to gather materials for her fears from trifles in her brother’s -behavior which would have escaped any other eye. It was natural that -she should be anxious. Life had been so arduous for all of them from -the start that she could not help dreading any sudden relaxation of his -grasp upon what he held, though, as she knew from inspection of her own -life, such sudden impulse to let go and make away from the discipline -and the drudgery was sometimes almost irresistible. But with Ralph, if -he broke away, she knew that it would be only to put himself under -harsher constraint; she figured him toiling through sandy deserts under -a tropical sun to find the source of some river or the haunt of some -fly; she figured him living by the labor of his hands in some city -slum, the victim of one of those terrible theories of right and wrong -which were current at the time; she figured him prisoner for life in -the house of a woman who had seduced him by her misfortunes. Half -proudly, and wholly anxiously, she framed such thoughts, as they sat, -late at night, talking together over the gas-stove in Ralph’s bedroom. - -It is likely that Ralph would not have recognized his own dream of a -future in the forecasts which disturbed his sister’s peace of mind. -Certainly, if any one of them had been put before him he would have -rejected it with a laugh, as the sort of life that held no attractions -for him. He could not have said how it was that he had put these absurd -notions into his sister’s head. Indeed, he prided himself upon being -well broken into a life of hard work, about which he had no sort of -illusions. His vision of his own future, unlike many such forecasts, -could have been made public at any moment without a blush; he -attributed to himself a strong brain, and conferred on himself a seat -in the House of Commons at the age of fifty, a moderate fortune, and, -with luck, an unimportant office in a Liberal Government. There was -nothing extravagant in a forecast of that kind, and certainly nothing -dishonorable. Nevertheless, as his sister guessed, it needed all -Ralph’s strength of will, together with the pressure of circumstances, -to keep his feet moving in the path which led that way. It needed, in -particular, a constant repetition of a phrase to the effect that he -shared the common fate, found it best of all, and wished for no other; -and by repeating such phrases he acquired punctuality and habits of -work, and could very plausibly demonstrate that to be a clerk in a -solicitor’s office was the best of all possible lives, and that other -ambitions were vain. - -But, like all beliefs not genuinely held, this one depended very much -upon the amount of acceptance it received from other people, and in -private, when the pressure of public opinion was removed, Ralph let -himself swing very rapidly away from his actual circumstances upon -strange voyages which, indeed, he would have been ashamed to describe. -In these dreams, of course, he figured in noble and romantic parts, but -self-glorification was not the only motive of them. They gave outlet to -some spirit which found no work to do in real life, for, with the -pessimism which his lot forced upon him, Ralph had made up his mind -that there was no use for what, contemptuously enough, he called -dreams, in the world which we inhabit. It sometimes seemed to him that -this spirit was the most valuable possession he had; he thought that by -means of it he could set flowering waste tracts of the earth, cure many -ills, or raise up beauty where none now existed; it was, too, a fierce -and potent spirit which would devour the dusty books and parchments on -the office wall with one lick of its tongue, and leave him in a minute -standing in nakedness, if he gave way to it. His endeavor, for many -years, had been to control the spirit, and at the age of twenty-nine he -thought he could pride himself upon a life rigidly divided into the -hours of work and those of dreams; the two lived side by side without -harming each other. As a matter of fact, this effort at discipline had -been helped by the interests of a difficult profession, but the old -conclusion to which Ralph had come when he left college still held sway -in his mind, and tinged his views with the melancholy belief that life -for most people compels the exercise of the lower gifts and wastes the -precious ones, until it forces us to agree that there is little virtue, -as well as little profit, in what once seemed to us the noblest part of -our inheritance. - -Denham was not altogether popular either in his office or among his -family. He was too positive, at this stage of his career, as to what -was right and what wrong, too proud of his self-control, and, as is -natural in the case of persons not altogether happy or well suited in -their conditions, too apt to prove the folly of contentment, if he -found any one who confessed to that weakness. In the office his rather -ostentatious efficiency annoyed those who took their own work more -lightly, and, if they foretold his advancement, it was not altogether -sympathetically. Indeed, he appeared to be rather a hard and -self-sufficient young man, with a queer temper, and manners that were -uncompromisingly abrupt, who was consumed with a desire to get on in -the world, which was natural, these critics thought, in a man of no -means, but not engaging. - -The young men in the office had a perfect right to these opinions, -because Denham showed no particular desire for their friendship. He -liked them well enough, but shut them up in that compartment of life -which was devoted to work. Hitherto, indeed, he had found little -difficulty in arranging his life as methodically as he arranged his -expenditure, but about this time he began to encounter experiences -which were not so easy to classify. Mary Datchet had begun this -confusion two years ago by bursting into laughter at some remark of -his, almost the first time they met. She could not explain why it was. -She thought him quite astonishingly odd. When he knew her well enough -to tell her how he spent Monday and Wednesday and Saturday, she was -still more amused; she laughed till he laughed, too, without knowing -why. It seemed to her very odd that he should know as much about -breeding bulldogs as any man in England; that he had a collection of -wild flowers found near London; and his weekly visit to old Miss -Trotter at Ealing, who was an authority upon the science of Heraldry, -never failed to excite her laughter. She wanted to know everything, -even the kind of cake which the old lady supplied on these occasions; -and their summer excursions to churches in the neighborhood of London -for the purpose of taking rubbings of the brasses became most important -festivals, from the interest she took in them. In six months she knew -more about his odd friends and hobbies than his own brothers and -sisters knew, after living with him all his life; and Ralph found this -very pleasant, though disordering, for his own view of himself had -always been profoundly serious. - -Certainly it was very pleasant to be with Mary Datchet and to become, -directly the door was shut, quite a different sort of person, eccentric -and lovable, with scarcely any likeness to the self most people knew. -He became less serious, and rather less dictatorial at home, for he was -apt to hear Mary laughing at him, and telling him, as she was fond of -doing, that he knew nothing at all about anything. She made him, also, -take an interest in public questions, for which she had a natural -liking; and was in process of turning him from Tory to Radical, after a -course of public meetings, which began by boring him acutely, and ended -by exciting him even more than they excited her. - -But he was reserved; when ideas started up in his mind, he divided them -automatically into those he could discuss with Mary, and those he must -keep for himself. She knew this and it interested her, for she was -accustomed to find young men very ready to talk about themselves, and -had come to listen to them as one listens to children, without any -thought of herself. But with Ralph, she had very little of this -maternal feeling, and, in consequence, a much keener sense of her own -individuality. - -Late one afternoon Ralph stepped along the Strand to an interview with -a lawyer upon business. The afternoon light was almost over, and -already streams of greenish and yellowish artificial light were being -poured into an atmosphere which, in country lanes, would now have been -soft with the smoke of wood fires; and on both sides of the road the -shop windows were full of sparkling chains and highly polished leather -cases, which stood upon shelves made of thick plate-glass. None of -these different objects was seen separately by Denham, but from all of -them he drew an impression of stir and cheerfulness. Thus it came about -that he saw Katharine Hilbery coming towards him, and looked straight -at her, as if she were only an illustration of the argument that was -going forward in his mind. In this spirit he noticed the rather set -expression in her eyes, and the slight, half-conscious movement of her -lips, which, together with her height and the distinction of her dress, -made her look as if the scurrying crowd impeded her, and her direction -were different from theirs. He noticed this calmly; but suddenly, as he -passed her, his hands and knees began to tremble, and his heart beat -painfully. She did not see him, and went on repeating to herself some -lines which had stuck to her memory: “It’s life that matters, nothing -but life—the process of discovering—the everlasting and perpetual -process, not the discovery itself at all.” Thus occupied, she did not -see Denham, and he had not the courage to stop her. But immediately the -whole scene in the Strand wore that curious look of order and purpose -which is imparted to the most heterogeneous things when music sounds; -and so pleasant was this impression that he was very glad that he had -not stopped her, after all. It grew slowly fainter, but lasted until he -stood outside the barrister’s chambers. - -When his interview with the barrister was over, it was too late to go -back to the office. His sight of Katharine had put him queerly out of -tune for a domestic evening. Where should he go? To walk through the -streets of London until he came to Katharine’s house, to look up at the -windows and fancy her within, seemed to him possible for a moment; and -then he rejected the plan almost with a blush as, with a curious -division of consciousness, one plucks a flower sentimentally and throws -it away, with a blush, when it is actually picked. No, he would go and -see Mary Datchet. By this time she would be back from her work. - -To see Ralph appear unexpectedly in her room threw Mary for a second -off her balance. She had been cleaning knives in her little scullery, -and when she had let him in she went back again, and turned on the -cold-water tap to its fullest volume, and then turned it off again. -“Now,” she thought to herself, as she screwed it tight, “I’m not going -to let these silly ideas come into my head.... Don’t you think Mr. -Asquith deserves to be hanged?” she called back into the sitting-room, -and when she joined him, drying her hands, she began to tell him about -the latest evasion on the part of the Government with respect to the -Women’s Suffrage Bill. Ralph did not want to talk about politics, but -he could not help respecting Mary for taking such an interest in public -questions. He looked at her as she leant forward, poking the fire, and -expressing herself very clearly in phrases which bore distantly the -taint of the platform, and he thought, “How absurd Mary would think me -if she knew that I almost made up my mind to walk all the way to -Chelsea in order to look at Katharine’s windows. She wouldn’t -understand it, but I like her very much as she is.” - -For some time they discussed what the women had better do; and as Ralph -became genuinely interested in the question, Mary unconsciously let her -attention wander, and a great desire came over her to talk to Ralph -about her own feelings; or, at any rate, about something personal, so -that she might see what he felt for her; but she resisted this wish. -But she could not prevent him from feeling her lack of interest in what -he was saying, and gradually they both became silent. One thought after -another came up in Ralph’s mind, but they were all, in some way, -connected with Katharine, or with vague feelings of romance and -adventure such as she inspired. But he could not talk to Mary about -such thoughts; and he pitied her for knowing nothing of what he was -feeling. “Here,” he thought, “is where we differ from women; they have -no sense of romance.” - -“Well, Mary,” he said at length, “why don’t you say something amusing?” - -His tone was certainly provoking, but, as a general rule, Mary was not -easily provoked. This evening, however, she replied rather sharply: - -“Because I’ve got nothing amusing to say, I suppose.” - -Ralph thought for a moment, and then remarked: - -“You work too hard. I don’t mean your health,” he added, as she laughed -scornfully, “I mean that you seem to me to be getting wrapped up in -your work.” - -“And is that a bad thing?” she asked, shading her eyes with her hand. - -“I think it is,” he returned abruptly. - -“But only a week ago you were saying the opposite.” Her tone was -defiant, but she became curiously depressed. Ralph did not perceive it, -and took this opportunity of lecturing her, and expressing his latest -views upon the proper conduct of life. She listened, but her main -impression was that he had been meeting some one who had influenced -him. He was telling her that she ought to read more, and to see that -there were other points of view as deserving of attention as her own. -Naturally, having last seen him as he left the office in company with -Katharine, she attributed the change to her; it was likely that -Katharine, on leaving the scene which she had so clearly despised, had -pronounced some such criticism, or suggested it by her own attitude. -But she knew that Ralph would never admit that he had been influenced -by anybody. - -“You don’t read enough, Mary,” he was saying. “You ought to read more -poetry.” - -It was true that Mary’s reading had been rather limited to such works -as she needed to know for the sake of examinations; and her time for -reading in London was very little. For some reason, no one likes to be -told that they do not read enough poetry, but her resentment was only -visible in the way she changed the position of her hands, and in the -fixed look in her eyes. And then she thought to herself, “I’m behaving -exactly as I said I wouldn’t behave,” whereupon she relaxed all her -muscles and said, in her reasonable way: - -“Tell me what I ought to read, then.” - -Ralph had unconsciously been irritated by Mary, and he now delivered -himself of a few names of great poets which were the text for a -discourse upon the imperfection of Mary’s character and way of life. - -“You live with your inferiors,” he said, warming unreasonably, as he -knew, to his text. “And you get into a groove because, on the whole, -it’s rather a pleasant groove. And you tend to forget what you’re there -for. You’ve the feminine habit of making much of details. You don’t see -when things matter and when they don’t. And that’s what’s the ruin of -all these organizations. That’s why the Suffragists have never done -anything all these years. What’s the point of drawing-room meetings and -bazaars? You want to have ideas, Mary; get hold of something big; never -mind making mistakes, but don’t niggle. Why don’t you throw it all up -for a year, and travel?—see something of the world. Don’t be content to -live with half a dozen people in a backwater all your life. But you -won’t,” he concluded. - -“I’ve rather come to that way of thinking myself—about myself, I mean,” -said Mary, surprising him by her acquiescence. “I should like to go -somewhere far away.” - -For a moment they were both silent. Ralph then said: - -“But look here, Mary, you haven’t been taking this seriously, have -you?” His irritation was spent, and the depression, which she could not -keep out of her voice, made him feel suddenly with remorse that he had -been hurting her. - -“You won’t go away, will you?” he asked. And as she said nothing, he -added, “Oh no, don’t go away.” - -“I don’t know exactly what I mean to do,” she replied. She hovered on -the verge of some discussion of her plans, but she received no -encouragement. He fell into one of his queer silences, which seemed to -Mary, in spite of all her precautions, to have reference to what she -also could not prevent herself from thinking about—their feeling for -each other and their relationship. She felt that the two lines of -thought bored their way in long, parallel tunnels which came very close -indeed, but never ran into each other. - -When he had gone, and he left her without breaking his silence more -than was needed to wish her good night, she sat on for a time, -reviewing what he had said. If love is a devastating fire which melts -the whole being into one mountain torrent, Mary was no more in love -with Denham than she was in love with her poker or her tongs. But -probably these extreme passions are very rare, and the state of mind -thus depicted belongs to the very last stages of love, when the power -to resist has been eaten away, week by week or day by day. Like most -intelligent people, Mary was something of an egoist, to the extent, -that is, of attaching great importance to what she felt, and she was by -nature enough of a moralist to like to make certain, from time to time, -that her feelings were creditable to her. When Ralph left her she -thought over her state of mind, and came to the conclusion that it -would be a good thing to learn a language—say Italian or German. She -then went to a drawer, which she had to unlock, and took from it -certain deeply scored manuscript pages. She read them through, looking -up from her reading every now and then and thinking very intently for a -few seconds about Ralph. She did her best to verify all the qualities -in him which gave rise to emotions in her; and persuaded herself that -she accounted reasonably for them all. Then she looked back again at -her manuscript, and decided that to write grammatical English prose is -the hardest thing in the world. But she thought about herself a great -deal more than she thought about grammatical English prose or about -Ralph Denham, and it may therefore be disputed whether she was in love, -or, if so, to which branch of the family her passion belonged. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -“It’s life that matters, nothing but life—the process of discovering, -the everlasting and perpetual process,” said Katharine, as she passed -under the archway, and so into the wide space of King’s Bench Walk, -“not the discovery itself at all.” She spoke the last words looking up -at Rodney’s windows, which were a semilucent red color, in her honor, -as she knew. He had asked her to tea with him. But she was in a mood -when it is almost physically disagreeable to interrupt the stride of -one’s thought, and she walked up and down two or three times under the -trees before approaching his staircase. She liked getting hold of some -book which neither her father or mother had read, and keeping it to -herself, and gnawing its contents in privacy, and pondering the meaning -without sharing her thoughts with any one, or having to decide whether -the book was a good one or a bad one. This evening she had twisted the -words of Dostoevsky to suit her mood—a fatalistic mood—to proclaim that -the process of discovery was life, and that, presumably, the nature of -one’s goal mattered not at all. She sat down for a moment upon one of -the seats; felt herself carried along in the swirl of many things; -decided, in her sudden way, that it was time to heave all this thinking -overboard, and rose, leaving a fishmonger’s basket on the seat behind -her. Two minutes later her rap sounded with authority upon Rodney’s -door. - -“Well, William,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m late.” - -It was true, but he was so glad to see her that he forgot his -annoyance. He had been occupied for over an hour in making things ready -for her, and he now had his reward in seeing her look right and left, -as she slipped her cloak from her shoulders, with evident satisfaction, -although she said nothing. He had seen that the fire burnt well; -jam-pots were on the table, tin covers shone in the fender, and the -shabby comfort of the room was extreme. He was dressed in his old -crimson dressing-gown, which was faded irregularly, and had bright new -patches on it, like the paler grass which one finds on lifting a stone. -He made the tea, and Katharine drew off her gloves, and crossed her -legs with a gesture that was rather masculine in its ease. Nor did they -talk much until they were smoking cigarettes over the fire, having -placed their teacups upon the floor between them. - -They had not met since they had exchanged letters about their -relationship. Katharine’s answer to his protestation had been short and -sensible. Half a sheet of notepaper contained the whole of it, for she -merely had to say that she was not in love with him, and so could not -marry him, but their friendship would continue, she hoped, unchanged. -She had added a postscript in which she stated, “I like your sonnet -very much.” - -So far as William was concerned, this appearance of ease was assumed. -Three times that afternoon he had dressed himself in a tail-coat, and -three times he had discarded it for an old dressing-gown; three times -he had placed his pearl tie-pin in position, and three times he had -removed it again, the little looking-glass in his room being the -witness of these changes of mind. The question was, which would -Katharine prefer on this particular afternoon in December? He read her -note once more, and the postscript about the sonnet settled the matter. -Evidently she admired most the poet in him; and as this, on the whole, -agreed with his own opinion, he decided to err, if anything, on the -side of shabbiness. His demeanor was also regulated with premeditation; -he spoke little, and only on impersonal matters; he wished her to -realize that in visiting him for the first time alone she was doing -nothing remarkable, although, in fact, that was a point about which he -was not at all sure. - -Certainly Katharine seemed quite unmoved by any disturbing thoughts; -and if he had been completely master of himself, he might, indeed, have -complained that she was a trifle absent-minded. The ease, the -familiarity of the situation alone with Rodney, among teacups and -candles, had more effect upon her than was apparent. She asked to look -at his books, and then at his pictures. It was while she held -photograph from the Greek in her hands that she exclaimed, impulsively, -if incongruously: - -“My oysters! I had a basket,” she explained, “and I’ve left it -somewhere. Uncle Dudley dines with us to-night. What in the world have -I done with them?” - -She rose and began to wander about the room. William rose also, and -stood in front of the fire, muttering, “Oysters, oysters—your basket of -oysters!” but though he looked vaguely here and there, as if the -oysters might be on the top of the bookshelf, his eyes returned always -to Katharine. She drew the curtain and looked out among the scanty -leaves of the plane-trees. - -“I had them,” she calculated, “in the Strand; I sat on a seat. Well, -never mind,” she concluded, turning back into the room abruptly, “I -dare say some old creature is enjoying them by this time.” - -“I should have thought that you never forgot anything,” William -remarked, as they settled down again. - -“That’s part of the myth about me, I know,” Katharine replied. - -“And I wonder,” William proceeded, with some caution, “what the truth -about you is? But I know this sort of thing doesn’t interest you,” he -added hastily, with a touch of peevishness. - -“No; it doesn’t interest me very much,” she replied candidly. - -“What shall we talk about then?” he asked. - -She looked rather whimsically round the walls of the room. - -“However we start, we end by talking about the same thing—about poetry, -I mean. I wonder if you realize, William, that I’ve never read even -Shakespeare? It’s rather wonderful how I’ve kept it up all these -years.” - -“You’ve kept it up for ten years very beautifully, as far as I’m -concerned,” he said. - -“Ten years? So long as that?” - -“And I don’t think it’s always bored you,” he added. - -She looked into the fire silently. She could not deny that the surface -of her feeling was absolutely unruffled by anything in William’s -character; on the contrary, she felt certain that she could deal with -whatever turned up. He gave her peace, in which she could think of -things that were far removed from what they talked about. Even now, -when he sat within a yard of her, how easily her mind ranged hither and -thither! Suddenly a picture presented itself before her, without any -effort on her part as pictures will, of herself in these very rooms; -she had come in from a lecture, and she held a pile of books in her -hand, scientific books, and books about mathematics and astronomy which -she had mastered. She put them down on the table over there. It was a -picture plucked from her life two or three years hence, when she was -married to William; but here she checked herself abruptly. - -She could not entirely forget William’s presence, because, in spite of -his efforts to control himself, his nervousness was apparent. On such -occasions his eyes protruded more than ever, and his face had more than -ever the appearance of being covered with a thin crackling skin, -through which every flush of his volatile blood showed itself -instantly. By this time he had shaped so many sentences and rejected -them, felt so many impulses and subdued them, that he was a uniform -scarlet. - -“You may say you don’t read books,” he remarked, “but, all the same, -you know about them. Besides, who wants you to be learned? Leave that -to the poor devils who’ve got nothing better to do. You—you—ahem!—” - -“Well, then, why don’t you read me something before I go?” said -Katharine, looking at her watch. - -“Katharine, you’ve only just come! Let me see now, what have I got to -show you?” He rose, and stirred about the papers on his table, as if in -doubt; he then picked up a manuscript, and after spreading it smoothly -upon his knee, he looked up at Katharine suspiciously. He caught her -smiling. - -“I believe you only ask me to read out of kindness,” he burst out. -“Let’s find something else to talk about. Who have you been seeing?” - -“I don’t generally ask things out of kindness,” Katharine observed; -“however, if you don’t want to read, you needn’t.” - -William gave a queer snort of exasperation, and opened his manuscript -once more, though he kept his eyes upon her face as he did so. No face -could have been graver or more judicial. - -“One can trust you, certainly, to say unpleasant things,” he said, -smoothing out the page, clearing his throat, and reading half a stanza -to himself. “Ahem! The Princess is lost in the wood, and she hears the -sound of a horn. (This would all be very pretty on the stage, but I -can’t get the effect here.) Anyhow, Sylvano enters, accompanied by the -rest of the gentlemen of Gratian’s court. I begin where he -soliloquizes.” He jerked his head and began to read. - -Although Katharine had just disclaimed any knowledge of literature, she -listened attentively. At least, she listened to the first twenty-five -lines attentively, and then she frowned. Her attention was only aroused -again when Rodney raised his finger—a sign, she knew, that the meter -was about to change. - -His theory was that every mood has its meter. His mastery of meters was -very great; and, if the beauty of a drama depended upon the variety of -measures in which the personages speak, Rodney’s plays must have -challenged the works of Shakespeare. Katharine’s ignorance of -Shakespeare did not prevent her from feeling fairly certain that plays -should not produce a sense of chill stupor in the audience, such as -overcame her as the lines flowed on, sometimes long and sometimes -short, but always delivered with the same lilt of voice, which seemed -to nail each line firmly on to the same spot in the hearer’s brain. -Still, she reflected, these sorts of skill are almost exclusively -masculine; women neither practice them nor know how to value them; and -one’s husband’s proficiency in this direction might legitimately -increase one’s respect for him, since mystification is no bad basis for -respect. No one could doubt that William was a scholar. The reading -ended with the finish of the Act; Katharine had prepared a little -speech. - -“That seems to me extremely well written, William; although, of course, -I don’t know enough to criticize in detail.” - -“But it’s the skill that strikes you—not the emotion?” - -“In a fragment like that, of course, the skill strikes one most.” - -“But perhaps—have you time to listen to one more short piece? the scene -between the lovers? There’s some real feeling in that, I think. Denham -agrees that it’s the best thing I’ve done.” - -“You’ve read it to Ralph Denham?” Katharine inquired, with surprise. -“He’s a better judge than I am. What did he say?” - -“My dear Katharine,” Rodney exclaimed, “I don’t ask you for criticism, -as I should ask a scholar. I dare say there are only five men in -England whose opinion of my work matters a straw to me. But I trust you -where feeling is concerned. I had you in my mind often when I was -writing those scenes. I kept asking myself, ‘Now is this the sort of -thing Katharine would like?’ I always think of you when I’m writing, -Katharine, even when it’s the sort of thing you wouldn’t know about. -And I’d rather—yes, I really believe I’d rather—you thought well of my -writing than any one in the world.” - -This was so genuine a tribute to his trust in her that Katharine was -touched. - -“You think too much of me altogether, William,” she said, forgetting -that she had not meant to speak in this way. - -“No, Katharine, I don’t,” he replied, replacing his manuscript in the -drawer. “It does me good to think of you.” - -So quiet an answer, followed as it was by no expression of love, but -merely by the statement that if she must go he would take her to the -Strand, and would, if she could wait a moment, change his dressing-gown -for a coat, moved her to the warmest feeling of affection for him that -she had yet experienced. While he changed in the next room, she stood -by the bookcase, taking down books and opening them, but reading -nothing on their pages. - -She felt certain that she would marry Rodney. How could one avoid it? -How could one find fault with it? Here she sighed, and, putting the -thought of marriage away, fell into a dream state, in which she became -another person, and the whole world seemed changed. Being a frequent -visitor to that world, she could find her way there unhesitatingly. If -she had tried to analyze her impressions, she would have said that -there dwelt the realities of the appearances which figure in our world; -so direct, powerful, and unimpeded were her sensations there, compared -with those called forth in actual life. There dwelt the things one -might have felt, had there been cause; the perfect happiness of which -here we taste the fragment; the beauty seen here in flying glimpses -only. No doubt much of the furniture of this world was drawn directly -from the past, and even from the England of the Elizabethan age. -However the embellishment of this imaginary world might change, two -qualities were constant in it. It was a place where feelings were -liberated from the constraint which the real world puts upon them; and -the process of awakenment was always marked by resignation and a kind -of stoical acceptance of facts. She met no acquaintance there, as -Denham did, miraculously transfigured; she played no heroic part. But -there certainly she loved some magnanimous hero, and as they swept -together among the leaf-hung trees of an unknown world, they shared the -feelings which came fresh and fast as the waves on the shore. But the -sands of her liberation were running fast; even through the forest -branches came sounds of Rodney moving things on his dressing-table; and -Katharine woke herself from this excursion by shutting the cover of the -book she was holding, and replacing it in the bookshelf. - -“William,” she said, speaking rather faintly at first, like one sending -a voice from sleep to reach the living. “William,” she repeated firmly, -“if you still want me to marry you, I will.” - -Perhaps it was that no man could expect to have the most momentous -question of his life settled in a voice so level, so toneless, so -devoid of joy or energy. At any rate William made no answer. She waited -stoically. A moment later he stepped briskly from his dressing-room, -and observed that if she wanted to buy more oysters he thought he knew -where they could find a fishmonger’s shop still open. She breathed -deeply a sigh of relief. - -Extract from a letter sent a few days later by Mrs. Hilbery to her -sister-in-law, Mrs. Milvain: - -“... How stupid of me to forget the name in my telegram. Such a nice, -rich, English name, too, and, in addition, he has all the graces of -intellect; he has read literally _everything_. I tell Katharine, I -shall always put him on my right side at dinner, so as to have him by -me when people begin talking about characters in Shakespeare. They -won’t be rich, but they’ll be very, very happy. I was sitting in my -room late one night, feeling that nothing nice would ever happen to me -again, when I heard Katharine outside in the passage, and I thought to -myself, ‘Shall I call her in?’ and then I thought (in that hopeless, -dreary way one does think, with the fire going out and one’s birthday -just over), ‘Why should I lay my troubles on _her?_’ But my little -self-control had its reward, for next moment she tapped at the door and -came in, and sat on the rug, and though we neither of us said anything, -I felt so happy all of a second that I couldn’t help crying, ‘Oh, -Katharine, when you come to my age, how I hope you’ll have a daughter, -too!’ You know how silent Katharine is. She was so silent, for such a -long time, that in my foolish, nervous state I dreaded something, I -don’t quite know what. And then she told me how, after all, she had -made up her mind. She had written. She expected him to-morrow. At first -I wasn’t glad at all. I didn’t want her to marry any one; but when she -said, ‘It will make no difference. I shall always care for you and -father most,’ then I saw how selfish I was, and I told her she must -give him everything, everything, everything! I told her I should be -thankful to come second. But why, when everything’s turned out just as -one always hoped it would turn out, why then can one do nothing but -cry, nothing but feel a desolate old woman whose life’s been a failure, -and now is nearly over, and age is so cruel? But Katharine said to me, -‘I am happy. I’m very happy.’ And then I thought, though it all seemed -so desperately dismal at the time, Katharine had said she was happy, -and I should have a son, and it would all turn out so much more -wonderfully than I could possibly imagine, for though the sermons don’t -say so, I do believe the world is meant for us to be happy in. She told -me that they would live quite near us, and see us every day; and she -would go on with the Life, and we should finish it as we had meant to. -And, after all, it would be far more horrid if she didn’t marry—or -suppose she married some one we couldn’t endure? Suppose she had fallen -in love with some one who was married already? - -“And though one never thinks any one good enough for the people one’s -fond of, he has the kindest, truest instincts, I’m sure, and though he -seems nervous and his manner is not commanding, I only think these -things because it’s Katharine. And now I’ve written this, it comes over -me that, of course, all the time, Katharine has what he hasn’t. She -does command, she isn’t nervous; it comes naturally to her to rule and -control. It’s time that she should give all this to some one who will -need her when we aren’t there, save in our spirits, for whatever people -say, I’m sure I shall come back to this wonderful world where one’s -been so happy and so miserable, where, even now, I seem to see myself -stretching out my hands for another present from the great Fairy Tree -whose boughs are still hung with enchanting toys, though they are rarer -now, perhaps, and between the branches one sees no longer the blue sky, -but the stars and the tops of the mountains. - -“One doesn’t know any more, does one? One hasn’t any advice to give -one’s children. One can only hope that they will have the same vision -and the same power to believe, without which life would be so -meaningless. That is what I ask for Katharine and her husband.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -“Is Mr. Hilbery at home, or Mrs. Hilbery?” Denham asked, of the -parlor-maid in Chelsea, a week later. - -“No, sir. But Miss Hilbery is at home,” the girl answered. - -Ralph had anticipated many answers, but not this one, and now it was -unexpectedly made plain to him that it was the chance of seeing -Katharine that had brought him all the way to Chelsea on pretence of -seeing her father. - -He made some show of considering the matter, and was taken upstairs to -the drawing-room. As upon that first occasion, some weeks ago, the door -closed as if it were a thousand doors softly excluding the world; and -once more Ralph received an impression of a room full of deep shadows, -firelight, unwavering silver candle flames, and empty spaces to be -crossed before reaching the round table in the middle of the room, with -its frail burden of silver trays and china teacups. But this time -Katharine was there by herself; the volume in her hand showed that she -expected no visitors. - -Ralph said something about hoping to find her father. - -“My father is out,” she replied. “But if you can wait, I expect him -soon.” - -It might have been due merely to politeness, but Ralph felt that she -received him almost with cordiality. Perhaps she was bored by drinking -tea and reading a book all alone; at any rate, she tossed the book on -to a sofa with a gesture of relief. - -“Is that one of the moderns whom you despise?” he asked, smiling at the -carelessness of her gesture. - -“Yes,” she replied. “I think even you would despise him.” - -“Even I?” he repeated. “Why even I?” - -“You said you liked modern things; I said I hated them.” - -This was not a very accurate report of their conversation among the -relics, perhaps, but Ralph was flattered to think that she remembered -anything about it. - -“Or did I confess that I hated all books?” she went on, seeing him look -up with an air of inquiry. “I forget—” - -“Do you hate all books?” he asked. - -“It would be absurd to say that I hate all books when I’ve only read -ten, perhaps; but—’ Here she pulled herself up short. - -“Well?” - -“Yes, I do hate books,” she continued. “Why do you want to be for ever -talking about your feelings? That’s what I can’t make out. And poetry’s -all about feelings—novels are all about feelings.” - -She cut a cake vigorously into slices, and providing a tray with bread -and butter for Mrs. Hilbery, who was in her room with a cold, she rose -to go upstairs. - -Ralph held the door open for her, and then stood with clasped hands in -the middle of the room. His eyes were bright, and, indeed, he scarcely -knew whether they beheld dreams or realities. All down the street and -on the doorstep, and while he mounted the stairs, his dream of -Katharine possessed him; on the threshold of the room he had dismissed -it, in order to prevent too painful a collision between what he dreamt -of her and what she was. And in five minutes she had filled the shell -of the old dream with the flesh of life; looked with fire out of -phantom eyes. He glanced about him with bewilderment at finding himself -among her chairs and tables; they were solid, for he grasped the back -of the chair in which Katharine had sat; and yet they were unreal; the -atmosphere was that of a dream. He summoned all the faculties of his -spirit to seize what the minutes had to give him; and from the depths -of his mind there rose unchecked a joyful recognition of the truth that -human nature surpasses, in its beauty, all that our wildest dreams -bring us hints of. - -Katharine came into the room a moment later. He stood watching her come -towards him, and thought her more beautiful and strange than his dream -of her; for the real Katharine could speak the words which seemed to -crowd behind the forehead and in the depths of the eyes, and the -commonest sentence would be flashed on by this immortal light. And she -overflowed the edges of the dream; he remarked that her softness was -like that of some vast snowy owl; she wore a ruby on her finger. - -“My mother wants me to tell you,” she said, “that she hopes you have -begun your poem. She says every one ought to write poetry.... All my -relations write poetry,” she went on. “I can’t bear to think of it -sometimes—because, of course, it’s none of it any good. But then one -needn’t read it—” - -“You don’t encourage me to write a poem,” said Ralph. - -“But you’re not a poet, too, are you?” she inquired, turning upon him -with a laugh. - -“Should I tell you if I were?” - -“Yes. Because I think you speak the truth,” she said, searching him for -proof of this apparently, with eyes now almost impersonally direct. It -would be easy, Ralph thought, to worship one so far removed, and yet of -so straight a nature; easy to submit recklessly to her, without thought -of future pain. - -“Are you a poet?” she demanded. He felt that her question had an -unexplained weight of meaning behind it, as if she sought an answer to -a question that she did not ask. - -“No. I haven’t written any poetry for years,” he replied. “But all the -same, I don’t agree with you. I think it’s the only thing worth doing.” - -“Why do you say that?” she asked, almost with impatience, tapping her -spoon two or three times against the side of her cup. - -“Why?” Ralph laid hands on the first words that came to mind. “Because, -I suppose, it keeps an ideal alive which might die otherwise.” - -A curious change came over her face, as if the flame of her mind were -subdued; and she looked at him ironically and with the expression which -he had called sad before, for want of a better name for it. - -“I don’t know that there’s much sense in having ideals,” she said. - -“But you have them,” he replied energetically. “Why do we call them -ideals? It’s a stupid word. Dreams, I mean—” - -She followed his words with parted lips, as though to answer eagerly -when he had done; but as he said, “Dreams, I mean,” the door of the -drawing-room swung open, and so remained for a perceptible instant. -They both held themselves silent, her lips still parted. - -Far off, they heard the rustle of skirts. Then the owner of the skirts -appeared in the doorway, which she almost filled, nearly concealing the -figure of a very much smaller lady who accompanied her. - -“My aunts!” Katharine murmured, under her breath. Her tone had a hint -of tragedy in it, but no less, Ralph thought, than the situation -required. She addressed the larger lady as Aunt Millicent; the smaller -was Aunt Celia, Mrs. Milvain, who had lately undertaken the task of -marrying Cyril to his wife. Both ladies, but Mrs. Cosham (Aunt -Millicent) in particular, had that look of heightened, smoothed, -incarnadined existence which is proper to elderly ladies paying calls -in London about five o’clock in the afternoon. Portraits by Romney, -seen through glass, have something of their pink, mellow look, their -blooming softness, as of apricots hanging upon a red wall in the -afternoon sun. Mrs. Cosham was so appareled with hanging muffs, chains, -and swinging draperies that it was impossible to detect the shape of a -human being in the mass of brown and black which filled the arm-chair. -Mrs. Milvain was a much slighter figure; but the same doubt as to the -precise lines of her contour filled Ralph, as he regarded them, with -dismal foreboding. What remark of his would ever reach these fabulous -and fantastic characters?—for there was something fantastically unreal -in the curious swayings and noddings of Mrs. Cosham, as if her -equipment included a large wire spring. Her voice had a high-pitched, -cooing note, which prolonged words and cut them short until the English -language seemed no longer fit for common purposes. In a moment of -nervousness, so Ralph thought, Katharine had turned on innumerable -electric lights. But Mrs. Cosham had gained impetus (perhaps her -swaying movements had that end in view) for sustained speech; and she -now addressed Ralph deliberately and elaborately. - -“I come from Woking, Mr. Popham. You may well ask me, why Woking? and -to that I answer, for perhaps the hundredth time, because of the -sunsets. We went there for the sunsets, but that was five-and-twenty -years ago. Where are the sunsets now? Alas! There is no sunset now -nearer than the South Coast.” Her rich and romantic notes were -accompanied by a wave of a long white hand, which, when waved, gave off -a flash of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Ralph wondered whether she -more resembled an elephant, with a jeweled head-dress, or a superb -cockatoo, balanced insecurely upon its perch, and pecking capriciously -at a lump of sugar. - -“Where are the sunsets now?” she repeated. “Do you find sunsets now, -Mr. Popham?” - -“I live at Highgate,” he replied. - -“At Highgate? Yes, Highgate has its charms; your Uncle John lived at -Highgate,” she jerked in the direction of Katharine. She sank her head -upon her breast, as if for a moment’s meditation, which past, she -looked up and observed: “I dare say there are very pretty lanes in -Highgate. I can recollect walking with your mother, Katharine, through -lanes blossoming with wild hawthorn. But where is the hawthorn now? You -remember that exquisite description in De Quincey, Mr. Popham?—but I -forget, you, in your generation, with all your activity and -enlightenment, at which I can only marvel”—here she displayed both her -beautiful white hands—“do not read De Quincey. You have your Belloc, -your Chesterton, your Bernard Shaw—why should you read De Quincey?” - -“But I do read De Quincey,” Ralph protested, “more than Belloc and -Chesterton, anyhow.” - -“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Cosham, with a gesture of surprise and relief -mingled. “You are, then, a ‘rara avis’ in your generation. I am -delighted to meet anyone who reads De Quincey.” - -Here she hollowed her hand into a screen, and, leaning towards -Katharine, inquired, in a very audible whisper, “Does your friend -_write?_” - -“Mr. Denham,” said Katharine, with more than her usual clearness and -firmness, “writes for the Review. He is a lawyer.” - -“The clean-shaven lips, showing the expression of the mouth! I -recognize them at once. I always feel at home with lawyers, Mr. -Denham—” - -“They used to come about so much in the old days,” Mrs. Milvain -interposed, the frail, silvery notes of her voice falling with the -sweet tone of an old bell. - -“You say you live at Highgate,” she continued. “I wonder whether you -happen to know if there is an old house called Tempest Lodge still in -existence—an old white house in a garden?” - -Ralph shook his head, and she sighed. - -“Ah, no; it must have been pulled down by this time, with all the other -old houses. There were such pretty lanes in those days. That was how -your uncle met your Aunt Emily, you know,” she addressed Katharine. -“They walked home through the lanes.” - -“A sprig of May in her bonnet,” Mrs. Cosham ejaculated, reminiscently. - -“And next Sunday he had violets in his buttonhole. And that was how we -guessed.” - -Katharine laughed. She looked at Ralph. His eyes were meditative, and -she wondered what he found in this old gossip to make him ponder so -contentedly. She felt, she hardly knew why, a curious pity for him. - -“Uncle John—yes, ‘poor John,’ you always called him. Why was that?” she -asked, to make them go on talking, which, indeed, they needed little -invitation to do. - -“That was what his father, old Sir Richard, always called him. Poor -John, or the fool of the family,” Mrs. Milvain hastened to inform them. -“The other boys were so brilliant, and he could never pass his -examinations, so they sent him to India—a long voyage in those days, -poor fellow. You had your own room, you know, and you did it up. But he -will get his knighthood and a pension, I believe,” she said, turning to -Ralph, “only it is not England.” - -“No,” Mrs. Cosham confirmed her, “it is not England. In those days we -thought an Indian Judgeship about equal to a county-court judgeship at -home. His Honor—a pretty title, but still, not at the top of the tree. -However,” she sighed, “if you have a wife and seven children, and -people nowadays very quickly forget your father’s name—well, you have -to take what you can get,” she concluded. - -“And I fancy,” Mrs. Milvain resumed, lowering her voice rather -confidentially, “that John would have done more if it hadn’t been for -his wife, your Aunt Emily. She was a very good woman, devoted to him, -of course, but she was not ambitious for him, and if a wife isn’t -ambitious for her husband, especially in a profession like the law, -clients soon get to know of it. In our young days, Mr. Denham, we used -to say that we knew which of our friends would become judges, by -looking at the girls they married. And so it was, and so, I fancy, it -always will be. I don’t think,” she added, summing up these scattered -remarks, “that any man is really happy unless he succeeds in his -profession.” - -Mrs. Cosham approved of this sentiment with more ponderous sagacity -from her side of the tea-table, in the first place by swaying her head, -and in the second by remarking: - -“No, men are not the same as women. I fancy Alfred Tennyson spoke the -truth about that as about many other things. How I wish he’d lived to -write ‘The Prince’—a sequel to ‘The Princess’! I confess I’m almost -tired of Princesses. We want some one to show us what a good man can -be. We have Laura and Beatrice, Antigone and Cordelia, but we have no -heroic man. How do you, as a poet, account for that, Mr. Denham?” - -“I’m not a poet,” said Ralph good-humoredly. “I’m only a solicitor.” - -“But you write, too?” Mrs. Cosham demanded, afraid lest she should be -balked of her priceless discovery, a young man truly devoted to -literature. - -“In my spare time,” Denham reassured her. - -“In your spare time!” Mrs. Cosham echoed. “That is a proof of devotion, -indeed.” She half closed her eyes, and indulged herself in a -fascinating picture of a briefless barrister lodged in a garret, -writing immortal novels by the light of a farthing dip. But the romance -which fell upon the figures of great writers and illumined their pages -was no false radiance in her case. She carried her pocket Shakespeare -about with her, and met life fortified by the words of the poets. How -far she saw Denham, and how far she confused him with some hero of -fiction, it would be hard to say. Literature had taken possession even -of her memories. She was matching him, presumably, with certain -characters in the old novels, for she came out, after a pause, with: - -“Um—um—Pendennis—Warrington—I could never forgive Laura,” she -pronounced energetically, “for not marrying George, in spite of -everything. George Eliot did the very same thing; and Lewes was a -little frog-faced man, with the manner of a dancing master. But -Warrington, now, had everything in his favor; intellect, passion, -romance, distinction, and the connection was a mere piece of -undergraduate folly. Arthur, I confess, has always seemed to me a bit -of a fop; I can’t imagine how Laura married him. But you say you’re a -solicitor, Mr. Denham. Now there are one or two things I should like to -ask you—about Shakespeare—” She drew out her small, worn volume with -some difficulty, opened it, and shook it in the air. “They say, -nowadays, that Shakespeare was a lawyer. They say, that accounts for -his knowledge of human nature. There’s a fine example for you, Mr. -Denham. Study your clients, young man, and the world will be the richer -one of these days, I have no doubt. Tell me, how do we come out of it, -now; better or worse than you expected?” - -Thus called upon to sum up the worth of human nature in a few words, -Ralph answered unhesitatingly: - -“Worse, Mrs. Cosham, a good deal worse. I’m afraid the ordinary man is -a bit of a rascal—” - -“And the ordinary woman?” - -“No, I don’t like the ordinary woman either—” - -“Ah, dear me, I’ve no doubt that’s very true, very true.” Mrs. Cosham -sighed. “Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow—” She looked at him, -and thought that there were signs of distinct power in his brow. He -would do well, she thought, to devote himself to satire. - -“Charles Lavington, you remember, was a solicitor,” Mrs. Milvain -interposed, rather resenting the waste of time involved in talking -about fictitious people when you might be talking about real people. -“But you wouldn’t remember him, Katharine.” - -“Mr. Lavington? Oh, yes, I do,” said Katharine, waking from other -thoughts with her little start. “The summer we had a house near Tenby. -I remember the field and the pond with the tadpoles, and making -haystacks with Mr. Lavington.” - -“She is right. There _was_ a pond with tadpoles,” Mrs. Cosham -corroborated. “Millais made studies of it for ‘Ophelia.’ Some say that -is the best picture he ever painted—” - -“And I remember the dog chained up in the yard, and the dead snakes -hanging in the toolhouse.” - -“It was at Tenby that you were chased by the bull,” Mrs. Milvain -continued. “But that you couldn’t remember, though it’s true you were a -wonderful child. Such eyes she had, Mr. Denham! I used to say to her -father, ‘She’s watching us, and summing us all up in her little mind.’ -And they had a nurse in those days,” she went on, telling her story -with charming solemnity to Ralph, “who was a good woman, but engaged to -a sailor. When she ought to have been attending to the baby, her eyes -were on the sea. And Mrs. Hilbery allowed this girl—Susan her name -was—to have him to stay in the village. They abused her goodness, I’m -sorry to say, and while they walked in the lanes, they stood the -perambulator alone in a field where there was a bull. The animal became -enraged by the red blanket in the perambulator, and Heaven knows what -might have happened if a gentleman had not been walking by in the nick -of time, and rescued Katharine in his arms!” - -“I think the bull was only a cow, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine. - -“My darling, it was a great red Devonshire bull, and not long after it -gored a man to death and had to be destroyed. And your mother forgave -Susan—a thing I could never have done.” - -“Maggie’s sympathies were entirely with Susan and the sailor, I am -sure,” said Mrs. Cosham, rather tartly. “My sister-in-law,” she -continued, “has laid her burdens upon Providence at every crisis in her -life, and Providence, I must confess, has responded nobly, so far—” - -“Yes,” said Katharine, with a laugh, for she liked the rashness which -irritated the rest of the family. “My mother’s bulls always turn into -cows at the critical moment.” - -“Well,” said Mrs. Milvain, “I’m glad you have some one to protect you -from bulls now.” - -“I can’t imagine William protecting any one from bulls,” said -Katharine. - -It happened that Mrs. Cosham had once more produced her pocket volume -of Shakespeare, and was consulting Ralph upon an obscure passage in -“Measure for Measure.” He did not at once seize the meaning of what -Katharine and her aunt were saying; William, he supposed, referred to -some small cousin, for he now saw Katharine as a child in a pinafore; -but, nevertheless, he was so much distracted that his eye could hardly -follow the words on the paper. A moment later he heard them speak -distinctly of an engagement ring. - -“I like rubies,” he heard Katharine say. - - “To be imprison’d in the viewless winds, - And blown with restless violence round about - The pendant world....” - -Mrs. Cosham intoned; at the same instant “Rodney” fitted itself to -“William” in Ralph’s mind. He felt convinced that Katharine was engaged -to Rodney. His first sensation was one of violent rage with her for -having deceived him throughout the visit, fed him with pleasant old -wives’ tales, let him see her as a child playing in a meadow, shared -her youth with him, while all the time she was a stranger entirely, and -engaged to marry Rodney. - -But was it possible? Surely it was not possible. For in his eyes she -was still a child. He paused so long over the book that Mrs. Cosham had -time to look over his shoulder and ask her niece: - -“And have you settled upon a house yet, Katharine?” - -This convinced him of the truth of the monstrous idea. He looked up at -once and said: - -“Yes, it’s a difficult passage.” - -His voice had changed so much, he spoke with such curtness and even -with such contempt, that Mrs. Cosham looked at him fairly puzzled. -Happily she belonged to a generation which expected uncouthness in its -men, and she merely felt convinced that this Mr. Denham was very, very -clever. She took back her Shakespeare, as Denham seemed to have no more -to say, and secreted it once more about her person with the infinitely -pathetic resignation of the old. - -“Katharine’s engaged to William Rodney,” she said, by way of filling in -the pause; “a very old friend of ours. He has a wonderful knowledge of -literature, too—wonderful.” She nodded her head rather vaguely. “You -should meet each other.” - -Denham’s one wish was to leave the house as soon as he could; but the -elderly ladies had risen, and were proposing to visit Mrs. Hilbery in -her bedroom, so that any move on his part was impossible. At the same -time, he wished to say something, but he knew not what, to Katharine -alone. She took her aunts upstairs, and returned, coming towards him -once more with an air of innocence and friendliness that amazed him. - -“My father will be back,” she said. “Won’t you sit down?” and she -laughed, as if now they might share a perfectly friendly laugh at the -tea-party. - -But Ralph made no attempt to seat himself. - -“I must congratulate you,” he said. “It was news to me.” He saw her -face change, but only to become graver than before. - -“My engagement?” she asked. “Yes, I am going to marry William Rodney.” - -Ralph remained standing with his hand on the back of a chair in -absolute silence. Abysses seemed to plunge into darkness between them. -He looked at her, but her face showed that she was not thinking of him. -No regret or consciousness of wrong disturbed her. - -“Well, I must go,” he said at length. - -She seemed about to say something, then changed her mind and said -merely: - -“You will come again, I hope. We always seem”—she hesitated—“to be -interrupted.” - -He bowed and left the room. - -Ralph strode with extreme swiftness along the Embankment. Every muscle -was taut and braced as if to resist some sudden attack from outside. -For the moment it seemed as if the attack were about to be directed -against his body, and his brain thus was on the alert, but without -understanding. Finding himself, after a few minutes, no longer under -observation, and no attack delivered, he slackened his pace, the pain -spread all through him, took possession of every governing seat, and -met with scarcely any resistance from powers exhausted by their first -effort at defence. He took his way languidly along the river -embankment, away from home rather than towards it. The world had him at -its mercy. He made no pattern out of the sights he saw. He felt himself -now, as he had often fancied other people, adrift on the stream, and -far removed from control of it, a man with no grasp upon circumstances -any longer. Old battered men loafing at the doors of public-houses now -seemed to be his fellows, and he felt, as he supposed them to feel, a -mingling of envy and hatred towards those who passed quickly and -certainly to a goal of their own. They, too, saw things very thin and -shadowy, and were wafted about by the lightest breath of wind. For the -substantial world, with its prospect of avenues leading on and on to -the invisible distance, had slipped from him, since Katharine was -engaged. Now all his life was visible, and the straight, meager path -had its ending soon enough. Katharine was engaged, and she had deceived -him, too. He felt for corners of his being untouched by his disaster; -but there was no limit to the flood of damage; not one of his -possessions was safe now. Katharine had deceived him; she had mixed -herself with every thought of his, and reft of her they seemed false -thoughts which he would blush to think again. His life seemed -immeasurably impoverished. - -He sat himself down, in spite of the chilly fog which obscured the -farther bank and left its lights suspended upon a blank surface, upon -one of the riverside seats, and let the tide of disillusionment sweep -through him. For the time being all bright points in his life were -blotted out; all prominences leveled. At first he made himself believe -that Katharine had treated him badly, and drew comfort from the thought -that, left alone, she would recollect this, and think of him and tender -him, in silence, at any rate, an apology. But this grain of comfort -failed him after a second or two, for, upon reflection, he had to admit -that Katharine owed him nothing. Katharine had promised nothing, taken -nothing; to her his dreams had meant nothing. This, indeed, was the -lowest pitch of his despair. If the best of one’s feelings means -nothing to the person most concerned in those feelings, what reality is -left us? The old romance which had warmed his days for him, the -thoughts of Katharine which had painted every hour, were now made to -appear foolish and enfeebled. He rose, and looked into the river, whose -swift race of dun-colored waters seemed the very spirit of futility and -oblivion. - -“In what can one trust, then?” he thought, as he leant there. So feeble -and insubstantial did he feel himself that he repeated the word aloud. - -“In what can one trust? Not in men and women. Not in one’s dreams about -them. There’s nothing—nothing, nothing left at all.” - -Now Denham had reason to know that he could bring to birth and keep -alive a fine anger when he chose. Rodney provided a good target for -that emotion. And yet at the moment, Rodney and Katharine herself -seemed disembodied ghosts. He could scarcely remember the look of them. -His mind plunged lower and lower. Their marriage seemed of no -importance to him. All things had turned to ghosts; the whole mass of -the world was insubstantial vapor, surrounding the solitary spark in -his mind, whose burning point he could remember, for it burnt no more. -He had once cherished a belief, and Katharine had embodied this belief, -and she did so no longer. He did not blame her; he blamed nothing, -nobody; he saw the truth. He saw the dun-colored race of waters and the -blank shore. But life is vigorous; the body lives, and the body, no -doubt, dictated the reflection, which now urged him to movement, that -one may cast away the forms of human beings, and yet retain the passion -which seemed inseparable from their existence in the flesh. Now this -passion burnt on his horizon, as the winter sun makes a greenish pane -in the west through thinning clouds. His eyes were set on something -infinitely far and remote; by that light he felt he could walk, and -would, in future, have to find his way. But that was all there was left -to him of a populous and teeming world. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -The lunch hour in the office was only partly spent by Denham in the -consumption of food. Whether fine or wet, he passed most of it pacing -the gravel paths in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The children got to know his -figure, and the sparrows expected their daily scattering of -bread-crumbs. No doubt, since he often gave a copper and almost always -a handful of bread, he was not as blind to his surroundings as he -thought himself. - -He thought that these winter days were spent in long hours before white -papers radiant in electric light; and in short passages through -fog-dimmed streets. When he came back to his work after lunch he -carried in his head a picture of the Strand, scattered with omnibuses, -and of the purple shapes of leaves pressed flat upon the gravel, as if -his eyes had always been bent upon the ground. His brain worked -incessantly, but his thought was attended with so little joy that he -did not willingly recall it; but drove ahead, now in this direction, -now in that; and came home laden with dark books borrowed from a -library. - -Mary Datchet, coming from the Strand at lunch-time, saw him one day -taking his turn, closely buttoned in an overcoat, and so lost in -thought that he might have been sitting in his own room. - -She was overcome by something very like awe by the sight of him; then -she felt much inclined to laugh, although her pulse beat faster. She -passed him, and he never saw her. She came back and touched him on the -shoulder. - -“Gracious, Mary!” he exclaimed. “How you startled me!” - -“Yes. You looked as if you were walking in your sleep,” she said. “Are -you arranging some terrible love affair? Have you got to reconcile a -desperate couple?” - -“I wasn’t thinking about my work,” Ralph replied, rather hastily. “And, -besides, that sort of thing’s not in my line,” he added, rather grimly. - -The morning was fine, and they had still some minutes of leisure to -spend. They had not met for two or three weeks, and Mary had much to -say to Ralph; but she was not certain how far he wished for her -company. However, after a turn or two, in which a few facts were -communicated, he suggested sitting down, and she took the seat beside -him. The sparrows came fluttering about them, and Ralph produced from -his pocket the half of a roll saved from his luncheon. He threw a few -crumbs among them. - -“I’ve never seen sparrows so tame,” Mary observed, by way of saying -something. - -“No,” said Ralph. “The sparrows in Hyde Park aren’t as tame as this. If -we keep perfectly still, I’ll get one to settle on my arm.” - -Mary felt that she could have forgone this display of animal good -temper, but seeing that Ralph, for some curious reason, took a pride in -the sparrows, she bet him sixpence that he would not succeed. - -“Done!” he said; and his eye, which had been gloomy, showed a spark of -light. His conversation was now addressed entirely to a bald -cock-sparrow, who seemed bolder than the rest; and Mary took the -opportunity of looking at him. She was not satisfied; his face was -worn, and his expression stern. A child came bowling its hoop through -the concourse of birds, and Ralph threw his last crumbs of bread into -the bushes with a snort of impatience. - -“That’s what always happens—just as I’ve almost got him,” he said. -“Here’s your sixpence, Mary. But you’ve only got it thanks to that -brute of a boy. They oughtn’t to be allowed to bowl hoops here—” - -“Oughtn’t to be allowed to bowl hoops! My dear Ralph, what nonsense!” - -“You always say that,” he complained; “and it isn’t nonsense. What’s -the point of having a garden if one can’t watch birds in it? The street -does all right for hoops. And if children can’t be trusted in the -streets, their mothers should keep them at home.” - -Mary made no answer to this remark, but frowned. - -She leant back on the seat and looked about her at the great houses -breaking the soft gray-blue sky with their chimneys. - -“Ah, well,” she said, “London’s a fine place to live in. I believe I -could sit and watch people all day long. I like my -fellow-creatures....” - -Ralph sighed impatiently. - -“Yes, I think so, when you come to know them,” she added, as if his -disagreement had been spoken. - -“That’s just when I don’t like them,” he replied. “Still, I don’t see -why you shouldn’t cherish that illusion, if it pleases you.” He spoke -without much vehemence of agreement or disagreement. He seemed chilled. - -“Wake up, Ralph! You’re half asleep!” Mary cried, turning and pinching -his sleeve. “What have you been doing with yourself? Moping? Working? -Despising the world, as usual?” - -As he merely shook his head, and filled his pipe, she went on: - -“It’s a bit of a pose, isn’t it?” - -“Not more than most things,” he said. - -“Well,” Mary remarked, “I’ve a great deal to say to you, but I must go -on—we have a committee.” She rose, but hesitated, looking down upon him -rather gravely. “You don’t look happy, Ralph,” she said. “Is it -anything, or is it nothing?” - -He did not immediately answer her, but rose, too, and walked with her -towards the gate. As usual, he did not speak to her without considering -whether what he was about to say was the sort of thing that he could -say to her. - -“I’ve been bothered,” he said at length. “Partly by work, and partly by -family troubles. Charles has been behaving like a fool. He wants to go -out to Canada as a farmer—” - -“Well, there’s something to be said for that,” said Mary; and they -passed the gate, and walked slowly round the Fields again, discussing -difficulties which, as a matter of fact, were more or less chronic in -the Denham family, and only now brought forward to appease Mary’s -sympathy, which, however, soothed Ralph more than he was aware of. She -made him at least dwell upon problems which were real in the sense that -they were capable of solution; and the true cause of his melancholy, -which was not susceptible to such treatment, sank rather more deeply -into the shades of his mind. - -Mary was attentive; she was helpful. Ralph could not help feeling -grateful to her, the more so, perhaps, because he had not told her the -truth about his state; and when they reached the gate again he wished -to make some affectionate objection to her leaving him. But his -affection took the rather uncouth form of expostulating with her about -her work. - -“What d’you want to sit on a committee for?” he asked. “It’s waste of -your time, Mary.” - -“I agree with you that a country walk would benefit the world more,” -she said. “Look here,” she added suddenly, “why don’t you come to us at -Christmas? It’s almost the best time of year.” - -“Come to you at Disham?” Ralph repeated. - -“Yes. We won’t interfere with you. But you can tell me later,” she -said, rather hastily, and then started off in the direction of Russell -Square. She had invited him on the impulse of the moment, as a vision -of the country came before her; and now she was annoyed with herself -for having done so, and then she was annoyed at being annoyed. - -“If I can’t face a walk in a field alone with Ralph,” she reasoned, -“I’d better buy a cat and live in a lodging at Ealing, like Sally -Seal—and he won’t come. Or did he mean that he _would_ come?” - -She shook her head. She really did not know what he had meant. She -never felt quite certain; but now she was more than usually baffled. -Was he concealing something from her? His manner had been odd; his deep -absorption had impressed her; there was something in him that she had -not fathomed, and the mystery of his nature laid more of a spell upon -her than she liked. Moreover, she could not prevent herself from doing -now what she had often blamed others of her sex for doing—from endowing -her friend with a kind of heavenly fire, and passing her life before it -for his sanction. - -Under this process, the committee rather dwindled in importance; the -Suffrage shrank; she vowed she would work harder at the Italian -language; she thought she would take up the study of birds. But this -program for a perfect life threatened to become so absurd that she very -soon caught herself out in the evil habit, and was rehearsing her -speech to the committee by the time the chestnut-colored bricks of -Russell Square came in sight. Indeed, she never noticed them. She ran -upstairs as usual, and was completely awakened to reality by the sight -of Mrs. Seal, on the landing outside the office, inducing a very large -dog to drink water out of a tumbler. - -“Miss Markham has already arrived,” Mrs. Seal remarked, with due -solemnity, “and this is her dog.” - -“A very fine dog, too,” said Mary, patting him on the head. - -“Yes. A magnificent fellow,” Mrs. Seal agreed. “A kind of St. Bernard, -she tells me—so like Kit to have a St. Bernard. And you guard your -mistress well, don’t you, Sailor? You see that wicked men don’t break -into her larder when she’s out at _her_ work—helping poor souls who -have lost their way.... But we’re late—we must begin!” and scattering -the rest of the water indiscriminately over the floor, she hurried Mary -into the committee-room. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -Mr. Clacton was in his glory. The machinery which he had perfected and -controlled was now about to turn out its bi-monthly product, a -committee meeting; and his pride in the perfect structure of these -assemblies was great. He loved the jargon of committee-rooms; he loved -the way in which the door kept opening as the clock struck the hour, in -obedience to a few strokes of his pen on a piece of paper; and when it -had opened sufficiently often, he loved to issue from his inner chamber -with documents in his hands, visibly important, with a preoccupied -expression on his face that might have suited a Prime Minister -advancing to meet his Cabinet. By his orders the table had been -decorated beforehand with six sheets of blotting-paper, with six pens, -six ink-pots, a tumbler and a jug of water, a bell, and, in deference -to the taste of the lady members, a vase of hardy chrysanthemums. He -had already surreptitiously straightened the sheets of blotting-paper -in relation to the ink-pots, and now stood in front of the fire engaged -in conversation with Miss Markham. But his eye was on the door, and -when Mary and Mrs. Seal entered, he gave a little laugh and observed to -the assembly which was scattered about the room: - -“I fancy, ladies and gentlemen, that we are ready to commence.” - -So speaking, he took his seat at the head of the table, and arranging -one bundle of papers upon his right and another upon his left, called -upon Miss Datchet to read the minutes of the previous meeting. Mary -obeyed. A keen observer might have wondered why it was necessary for -the secretary to knit her brows so closely over the tolerably -matter-of-fact statement before her. Could there be any doubt in her -mind that it had been resolved to circularize the provinces with -Leaflet No. 3, or to issue a statistical diagram showing the proportion -of married women to spinsters in New Zealand; or that the net profits -of Mrs. Hipsley’s Bazaar had reached a total of five pounds eight -shillings and twopence half-penny? - -Could any doubt as to the perfect sense and propriety of these -statements be disturbing her? No one could have guessed, from the look -of her, that she was disturbed at all. A pleasanter and saner woman -than Mary Datchet was never seen within a committee-room. She seemed a -compound of the autumn leaves and the winter sunshine; less poetically -speaking, she showed both gentleness and strength, an indefinable -promise of soft maternity blending with her evident fitness for honest -labor. Nevertheless, she had great difficulty in reducing her mind to -obedience; and her reading lacked conviction, as if, as was indeed the -case, she had lost the power of visualizing what she read. And directly -the list was completed, her mind floated to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and -the fluttering wings of innumerable sparrows. Was Ralph still enticing -the bald-headed cock-sparrow to sit upon his hand? Had he succeeded? -Would he ever succeed? She had meant to ask him why it is that the -sparrows in Lincoln’s Inn Fields are tamer than the sparrows in Hyde -Park—perhaps it is that the passers-by are rarer, and they come to -recognize their benefactors. For the first half-hour of the committee -meeting, Mary had thus to do battle with the skeptical presence of -Ralph Denham, who threatened to have it all his own way. Mary tried -half a dozen methods of ousting him. She raised her voice, she -articulated distinctly, she looked firmly at Mr. Clacton’s bald head, -she began to write a note. To her annoyance, her pencil drew a little -round figure on the blotting-paper, which, she could not deny, was -really a bald-headed cock-sparrow. She looked again at Mr. Clacton; -yes, he was bald, and so are cock-sparrows. Never was a secretary -tormented by so many unsuitable suggestions, and they all came, alas! -with something ludicrously grotesque about them, which might, at any -moment, provoke her to such flippancy as would shock her colleagues for -ever. The thought of what she might say made her bite her lips, as if -her lips would protect her. - -But all these suggestions were but flotsam and jetsam cast to the -surface by a more profound disturbance, which, as she could not -consider it at present, manifested its existence by these grotesque -nods and beckonings. Consider it, she must, when the committee was -over. Meanwhile, she was behaving scandalously; she was looking out of -the window, and thinking of the color of the sky, and of the -decorations on the Imperial Hotel, when she ought to have been -shepherding her colleagues, and pinning them down to the matter in -hand. She could not bring herself to attach more weight to one project -than to another. Ralph had said—she could not stop to consider what he -had said, but he had somehow divested the proceedings of all reality. -And then, without conscious effort, by some trick of the brain, she -found herself becoming interested in some scheme for organizing a -newspaper campaign. Certain articles were to be written; certain -editors approached. What line was it advisable to take? She found -herself strongly disapproving of what Mr. Clacton was saying. She -committed herself to the opinion that now was the time to strike hard. -Directly she had said this, she felt that she had turned upon Ralph’s -ghost; and she became more and more in earnest, and anxious to bring -the others round to her point of view. Once more, she knew exactly and -indisputably what is right and what is wrong. As if emerging from a -mist, the old foes of the public good loomed ahead of her—capitalists, -newspaper proprietors, anti-suffragists, and, in some ways most -pernicious of all, the masses who take no interest one way or -another—among whom, for the time being, she certainly discerned the -features of Ralph Denham. Indeed, when Miss Markham asked her to -suggest the names of a few friends of hers, she expressed herself with -unusual bitterness: - -“My friends think all this kind of thing useless.” She felt that she -was really saying that to Ralph himself. - -“Oh, they’re that sort, are they?” said Miss Markham, with a little -laugh; and with renewed vigor their legions charged the foe. - -Mary’s spirits had been low when she entered the committee-room; but -now they were considerably improved. She knew the ways of this world; -it was a shapely, orderly place; she felt convinced of its right and -its wrong; and the feeling that she was fit to deal a heavy blow -against her enemies warmed her heart and kindled her eye. In one of -those flights of fancy, not characteristic of her but tiresomely -frequent this afternoon, she envisaged herself battered with rotten -eggs upon a platform, from which Ralph vainly begged her to descend. -But— - -“What do I matter compared with the cause?” she said, and so on. Much -to her credit, however teased by foolish fancies, she kept the surface -of her brain moderate and vigilant, and subdued Mrs. Seal very -tactfully more than once when she demanded, “Action!—everywhere!—at -once!” as became her father’s daughter. - -The other members of the committee, who were all rather elderly people, -were a good deal impressed by Mary, and inclined to side with her and -against each other, partly, perhaps, because of her youth. The feeling -that she controlled them all filled Mary with a sense of power; and she -felt that no work can equal in importance, or be so exciting as, the -work of making other people do what you want them to do. Indeed, when -she had won her point she felt a slight degree of contempt for the -people who had yielded to her. - -The committee now rose, gathered together their papers, shook them -straight, placed them in their attache-cases, snapped the locks firmly -together, and hurried away, having, for the most part, to catch trains, -in order to keep other appointments with other committees, for they -were all busy people. Mary, Mrs. Seal, and Mr. Clacton were left alone; -the room was hot and untidy, the pieces of pink blotting-paper were -lying at different angles upon the table, and the tumbler was half full -of water, which some one had poured out and forgotten to drink. - -Mrs. Seal began preparing the tea, while Mr. Clacton retired to his -room to file the fresh accumulation of documents. Mary was too much -excited even to help Mrs. Seal with the cups and saucers. She flung up -the window and stood by it, looking out. The street lamps were already -lit; and through the mist in the square one could see little figures -hurrying across the road and along the pavement, on the farther side. -In her absurd mood of lustful arrogance, Mary looked at the little -figures and thought, “If I liked I could make you go in there or stop -short; I could make you walk in single file or in double file; I could -do what I liked with you.” Then Mrs. Seal came and stood by her. - -“Oughtn’t you to put something round your shoulders, Sally?” Mary -asked, in rather a condescending tone of voice, feeling a sort of pity -for the enthusiastic ineffective little woman. But Mrs. Seal paid no -attention to the suggestion. - -“Well, did you enjoy yourself?” Mary asked, with a little laugh. - -Mrs. Seal drew a deep breath, restrained herself, and then burst out, -looking out, too, upon Russell Square and Southampton Row, and at the -passers-by, “Ah, if only one could get every one of those people into -this room, and make them understand for five minutes! But they _must_ -see the truth some day.... If only one could _make_ them see it....” - -Mary knew herself to be very much wiser than Mrs. Seal, and when Mrs. -Seal said anything, even if it was what Mary herself was feeling, she -automatically thought of all that there was to be said against it. On -this occasion her arrogant feeling that she could direct everybody -dwindled away. - -“Let’s have our tea,” she said, turning back from the window and -pulling down the blind. “It was a good meeting—didn’t you think so, -Sally?” she let fall, casually, as she sat down at the table. Surely -Mrs. Seal must realize that Mary had been extraordinarily efficient? - -“But we go at such a snail’s pace,” said Sally, shaking her head -impatiently. - -At this Mary burst out laughing, and all her arrogance was dissipated. - -“You can afford to laugh,” said Sally, with another shake of her head, -“but I can’t. I’m fifty-five, and I dare say I shall be in my grave by -the time we get it—if we ever do.” - -“Oh, no, you won’t be in your grave,” said Mary, kindly. - -“It’ll be such a great day,” said Mrs. Seal, with a toss of her locks. -“A great day, not only for us, but for civilization. That’s what I -feel, you know, about these meetings. Each one of them is a step -onwards in the great march—humanity, you know. We do want the people -after us to have a better time of it—and so many don’t see it. I wonder -how it is that they don’t see it?” - -She was carrying plates and cups from the cupboard as she spoke, so -that her sentences were more than usually broken apart. Mary could not -help looking at the odd little priestess of humanity with something -like admiration. While she had been thinking about herself, Mrs. Seal -had thought of nothing but her vision. - -“You mustn’t wear yourself out, Sally, if you want to see the great -day,” she said, rising and trying to take a plate of biscuits from Mrs. -Seal’s hands. - -“My dear child, what else is my old body good for?” she exclaimed, -clinging more tightly than before to her plate of biscuits. “Shouldn’t -I be proud to give everything I have to the cause?—for I’m not an -intelligence like you. There were domestic circumstances—I’d like to -tell you one of these days—so I say foolish things. I lose my head, you -know. You don’t. Mr. Clacton doesn’t. It’s a great mistake, to lose -one’s head. But my heart’s in the right place. And I’m so glad Kit has -a big dog, for I didn’t think her looking well.” - -They had their tea, and went over many of the points that had been -raised in the committee rather more intimately than had been possible -then; and they all felt an agreeable sense of being in some way behind -the scenes; of having their hands upon strings which, when pulled, -would completely change the pageant exhibited daily to those who read -the newspapers. Although their views were very different, this sense -united them and made them almost cordial in their manners to each -other. - -Mary, however, left the tea-party rather early, desiring both to be -alone, and then to hear some music at the Queen’s Hall. She fully -intended to use her loneliness to think out her position with regard to -Ralph; but although she walked back to the Strand with this end in -view, she found her mind uncomfortably full of different trains of -thought. She started one and then another. They seemed even to take -their color from the street she happened to be in. Thus the vision of -humanity appeared to be in some way connected with Bloomsbury, and -faded distinctly by the time she crossed the main road; then a belated -organ-grinder in Holborn set her thoughts dancing incongruously; and by -the time she was crossing the great misty square of Lincoln’s Inn -Fields, she was cold and depressed again, and horribly clear-sighted. -The dark removed the stimulus of human companionship, and a tear -actually slid down her cheek, accompanying a sudden conviction within -her that she loved Ralph, and that he didn’t love her. All dark and -empty now was the path where they had walked that morning, and the -sparrows silent in the bare trees. But the lights in her own building -soon cheered her; all these different states of mind were submerged in -the deep flood of desires, thoughts, perceptions, antagonisms, which -washed perpetually at the base of her being, to rise into prominence in -turn when the conditions of the upper world were favorable. She put off -the hour of clear thought until Christmas, saying to herself, as she -lit her fire, that it is impossible to think anything out in London; -and, no doubt, Ralph wouldn’t come at Christmas, and she would take -long walks into the heart of the country, and decide this question and -all the others that puzzled her. Meanwhile, she thought, drawing her -feet up on to the fender, life was full of complexity; life was a thing -one must love to the last fiber of it. - -She had sat there for five minutes or so, and her thoughts had had time -to grow dim, when there came a ring at her bell. Her eye brightened; -she felt immediately convinced that Ralph had come to visit her. -Accordingly, she waited a moment before opening the door; she wanted to -feel her hands secure upon the reins of all the troublesome emotions -which the sight of Ralph would certainly arouse. She composed herself -unnecessarily, however, for she had to admit, not Ralph, but Katharine -and William Rodney. Her first impression was that they were both -extremely well dressed. She felt herself shabby and slovenly beside -them, and did not know how she should entertain them, nor could she -guess why they had come. She had heard nothing of their engagement. But -after the first disappointment, she was pleased, for she felt instantly -that Katharine was a personality, and, moreover, she need not now -exercise her self-control. - -“We were passing and saw a light in your window, so we came up,” -Katharine explained, standing and looking very tall and distinguished -and rather absent-minded. - -“We have been to see some pictures,” said William. “Oh, dear,” he -exclaimed, looking about him, “this room reminds me of one of the worst -hours in my existence—when I read a paper, and you all sat round and -jeered at me. Katharine was the worst. I could feel her gloating over -every mistake I made. Miss Datchet was kind. Miss Datchet just made it -possible for me to get through, I remember.” - -Sitting down, he drew off his light yellow gloves, and began slapping -his knees with them. His vitality was pleasant, Mary thought, although -he made her laugh. The very look of him was inclined to make her laugh. -His rather prominent eyes passed from one young woman to the other, and -his lips perpetually formed words which remained unspoken. - -“We have been seeing old masters at the Grafton Gallery,” said -Katharine, apparently paying no attention to William, and accepting a -cigarette which Mary offered her. She leant back in her chair, and the -smoke which hung about her face seemed to withdraw her still further -from the others. - -“Would you believe it, Miss Datchet,” William continued, “Katharine -doesn’t like Titian. She doesn’t like apricots, she doesn’t like -peaches, she doesn’t like green peas. She likes the Elgin marbles, and -gray days without any sun. She’s a typical example of the cold northern -nature. I come from Devonshire—” - -Had they been quarreling, Mary wondered, and had they, for that reason, -sought refuge in her room, or were they engaged, or had Katharine just -refused him? She was completely baffled. - -Katharine now reappeared from her veil of smoke, knocked the ash from -her cigarette into the fireplace, and looked, with an odd expression of -solicitude, at the irritable man. - -“Perhaps, Mary,” she said tentatively, “you wouldn’t mind giving us -some tea? We did try to get some, but the shop was so crowded, and in -the next one there was a band playing; and most of the pictures, at any -rate, were very dull, whatever you may say, William.” She spoke with a -kind of guarded gentleness. - -Mary, accordingly, retired to make preparations in the pantry. - -“What in the world are they after?” she asked of her own reflection in -the little looking-glass which hung there. She was not left to doubt -much longer, for, on coming back into the sitting-room with the -tea-things, Katharine informed her, apparently having been instructed -so to do by William, of their engagement. - -“William,” she said, “thinks that perhaps you don’t know. We are going -to be married.” - -Mary found herself shaking William’s hand, and addressing her -congratulations to him, as if Katharine were inaccessible; she had, -indeed, taken hold of the tea-kettle. - -“Let me see,” Katharine said, “one puts hot water into the cups first, -doesn’t one? You have some dodge of your own, haven’t you, William, -about making tea?” - -Mary was half inclined to suspect that this was said in order to -conceal nervousness, but if so, the concealment was unusually perfect. -Talk of marriage was dismissed. Katharine might have been seated in her -own drawing-room, controlling a situation which presented no sort of -difficulty to her trained mind. Rather to her surprise, Mary found -herself making conversation with William about old Italian pictures, -while Katharine poured out tea, cut cake, kept William’s plate -supplied, without joining more than was necessary in the conversation. -She seemed to have taken possession of Mary’s room, and to handle the -cups as if they belonged to her. But it was done so naturally that it -bred no resentment in Mary; on the contrary, she found herself putting -her hand on Katharine’s knee, affectionately, for an instant. Was there -something maternal in this assumption of control? And thinking of -Katharine as one who would soon be married, these maternal airs filled -Mary’s mind with a new tenderness, and even with awe. Katharine seemed -very much older and more experienced than she was. - -Meanwhile Rodney talked. If his appearance was superficially against -him, it had the advantage of making his solid merits something of a -surprise. He had kept notebooks; he knew a great deal about pictures. -He could compare different examples in different galleries, and his -authoritative answers to intelligent questions gained not a little, -Mary felt, from the smart taps which he dealt, as he delivered them, -upon the lumps of coal. She was impressed. - -“Your tea, William,” said Katharine gently. - -He paused, gulped it down, obediently, and continued. - -And then it struck Mary that Katharine, in the shade of her -broad-brimmed hat, and in the midst of the smoke, and in the obscurity -of her character, was, perhaps, smiling to herself, not altogether in -the maternal spirit. What she said was very simple, but her words, even -“Your tea, William,” were set down as gently and cautiously and exactly -as the feet of a Persian cat stepping among China ornaments. For the -second time that day Mary felt herself baffled by something inscrutable -in the character of a person to whom she felt herself much attracted. -She thought that if she were engaged to Katharine, she, too, would find -herself very soon using those fretful questions with which William -evidently teased his bride. And yet Katharine’s voice was humble. - -“I wonder how you find the time to know all about pictures as well as -books?” she asked. - -“How do I find the time?” William answered, delighted, Mary guessed, at -this little compliment. “Why, I always travel with a notebook. And I -ask my way to the picture gallery the very first thing in the morning. -And then I meet men, and talk to them. There’s a man in my office who -knows all about the Flemish school. I was telling Miss Datchet about -the Flemish school. I picked up a lot of it from him—it’s a way men -have—Gibbons, his name is. You must meet him. We’ll ask him to lunch. -And this not caring about art,” he explained, turning to Mary, “it’s -one of Katharine’s poses, Miss Datchet. Did you know she posed? She -pretends that she’s never read Shakespeare. And why should she read -Shakespeare, since she IS Shakespeare—Rosalind, you know,” and he gave -his queer little chuckle. Somehow this compliment appeared very -old-fashioned and almost in bad taste. Mary actually felt herself -blush, as if he had said “the sex” or “the ladies.” Constrained, -perhaps, by nervousness, Rodney continued in the same vein. - -“She knows enough—enough for all decent purposes. What do you women -want with learning, when you have so much else—everything, I should -say—everything. Leave us something, eh, Katharine?” - -“Leave you something?” said Katharine, apparently waking from a brown -study. “I was thinking we must be going—” - -“Is it to-night that Lady Ferrilby dines with us? No, we mustn’t be -late,” said Rodney, rising. “D’you know the Ferrilbys, Miss Datchet? -They own Trantem Abbey,” he added, for her information, as she looked -doubtful. “And if Katharine makes herself very charming to-night, -perhaps’ll lend it to us for the honeymoon.” - -“I agree that may be a reason. Otherwise she’s a dull woman,” said -Katharine. “At least,” she added, as if to qualify her abruptness, “I -find it difficult to talk to her.” - -“Because you expect every one else to take all the trouble. I’ve seen -her sit silent a whole evening,” he said, turning to Mary, as he had -frequently done already. “Don’t you find that, too? Sometimes when -we’re alone, I’ve counted the time on my watch”—here he took out a -large gold watch, and tapped the glass—“the time between one remark and -the next. And once I counted ten minutes and twenty seconds, and then, -if you’ll believe me, she only said ‘Um!’” - -“I’m sure I’m sorry,” Katharine apologized. “I know it’s a bad habit, -but then, you see, at home—” - -The rest of her excuse was cut short, so far as Mary was concerned, by -the closing of the door. She fancied she could hear William finding -fresh fault on the stairs. A moment later, the door-bell rang again, -and Katharine reappeared, having left her purse on a chair. She soon -found it, and said, pausing for a moment at the door, and speaking -differently as they were alone: - -“I think being engaged is very bad for the character.” She shook her -purse in her hand until the coins jingled, as if she alluded merely to -this example of her forgetfulness. But the remark puzzled Mary; it -seemed to refer to something else; and her manner had changed so -strangely, now that William was out of hearing, that she could not help -looking at her for an explanation. She looked almost stern, so that -Mary, trying to smile at her, only succeeded in producing a silent -stare of interrogation. - -As the door shut for the second time, she sank on to the floor in front -of the fire, trying, now that their bodies were not there to distract -her, to piece together her impressions of them as a whole. And, though -priding herself, with all other men and women, upon an infallible eye -for character, she could not feel at all certain that she knew what -motives inspired Katharine Hilbery in life. There was something that -carried her on smoothly, out of reach—something, yes, but -what?—something that reminded Mary of Ralph. Oddly enough, he gave her -the same feeling, too, and with him, too, she felt baffled. Oddly -enough, for no two people, she hastily concluded, were more unlike. And -yet both had this hidden impulse, this incalculable force—this thing -they cared for and didn’t talk about—oh, what was it? - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -The village of Disham lies somewhere on the rolling piece of cultivated -ground in the neighborhood of Lincoln, not so far inland but that a -sound, bringing rumors of the sea, can be heard on summer nights or -when the winter storms fling the waves upon the long beach. So large is -the church, and in particular the church tower, in comparison with the -little street of cottages which compose the village, that the traveler -is apt to cast his mind back to the Middle Ages, as the only time when -so much piety could have been kept alive. So great a trust in the -Church can surely not belong to our day, and he goes on to conjecture -that every one of the villagers has reached the extreme limit of human -life. Such are the reflections of the superficial stranger, and his -sight of the population, as it is represented by two or three men -hoeing in a turnip-field, a small child carrying a jug, and a young -woman shaking a piece of carpet outside her cottage door, will not lead -him to see anything very much out of keeping with the Middle Ages in -the village of Disham as it is to-day. These people, though they seem -young enough, look so angular and so crude that they remind him of the -little pictures painted by monks in the capital letters of their -manuscripts. He only half understands what they say, and speaks very -loud and clearly, as though, indeed, his voice had to carry through a -hundred years or more before it reached them. He would have a far -better chance of understanding some dweller in Paris or Rome, Berlin or -Madrid, than these countrymen of his who have lived for the last two -thousand years not two hundred miles from the City of London. - -The Rectory stands about half a mile beyond the village. It is a large -house, and has been growing steadily for some centuries round the great -kitchen, with its narrow red tiles, as the Rector would point out to -his guests on the first night of their arrival, taking his brass -candlestick, and bidding them mind the steps up and the steps down, and -notice the immense thickness of the walls, the old beams across the -ceiling, the staircases as steep as ladders, and the attics, with their -deep, tent-like roofs, in which swallows bred, and once a white owl. -But nothing very interesting or very beautiful had resulted from the -different additions made by the different rectors. - -The house, however, was surrounded by a garden, in which the Rector -took considerable pride. The lawn, which fronted the drawing-room -windows, was a rich and uniform green, unspotted by a single daisy, and -on the other side of it two straight paths led past beds of tall, -standing flowers to a charming grassy walk, where the Rev. Wyndham -Datchet would pace up and down at the same hour every morning, with a -sundial to measure the time for him. As often as not, he carried a book -in his hand, into which he would glance, then shut it up, and repeat -the rest of the ode from memory. He had most of Horace by heart, and -had got into the habit of connecting this particular walk with certain -odes which he repeated duly, at the same time noting the condition of -his flowers, and stooping now and again to pick any that were withered -or overblown. On wet days, such was the power of habit over him, he -rose from his chair at the same hour, and paced his study for the same -length of time, pausing now and then to straighten some book in the -bookcase, or alter the position of the two brass crucifixes standing -upon cairns of serpentine stone upon the mantelpiece. His children had -a great respect for him, credited him with far more learning than he -actually possessed, and saw that his habits were not interfered with, -if possible. Like most people who do things methodically, the Rector -himself had more strength of purpose and power of self-sacrifice than -of intellect or of originality. On cold and windy nights he rode off to -visit sick people, who might need him, without a murmur; and by virtue -of doing dull duties punctually, he was much employed upon committees -and local Boards and Councils; and at this period of his life (he was -sixty-eight) he was beginning to be commiserated by tender old ladies -for the extreme leanness of his person, which, they said, was worn out -upon the roads when it should have been resting before a comfortable -fire. His elder daughter, Elizabeth, lived with him and managed the -house, and already much resembled him in dry sincerity and methodical -habit of mind; of the two sons one, Richard, was an estate agent, the -other, Christopher, was reading for the Bar. At Christmas, naturally, -they met together; and for a month past the arrangement of the -Christmas week had been much in the mind of mistress and maid, who -prided themselves every year more confidently upon the excellence of -their equipment. The late Mrs. Datchet had left an excellent cupboard -of linen, to which Elizabeth had succeeded at the age of nineteen, when -her mother died, and the charge of the family rested upon the shoulders -of the eldest daughter. She kept a fine flock of yellow chickens, -sketched a little, certain rose-trees in the garden were committed -specially to her care; and what with the care of the house, the care of -the chickens, and the care of the poor, she scarcely knew what it was -to have an idle minute. An extreme rectitude of mind, rather than any -gift, gave her weight in the family. When Mary wrote to say that she -had asked Ralph Denham to stay with them, she added, out of deference -to Elizabeth’s character, that he was very nice, though rather queer, -and had been overworking himself in London. No doubt Elizabeth would -conclude that Ralph was in love with her, but there could be no doubt -either that not a word of this would be spoken by either of them, -unless, indeed, some catastrophe made mention of it unavoidable. - -Mary went down to Disham without knowing whether Ralph intended to -come; but two or three days before Christmas she received a telegram -from Ralph, asking her to take a room for him in the village. This was -followed by a letter explaining that he hoped he might have his meals -with them; but quiet, essential for his work, made it necessary to -sleep out. - -Mary was walking in the garden with Elizabeth, and inspecting the -roses, when the letter arrived. - -“But that’s absurd,” said Elizabeth decidedly, when the plan was -explained to her. “There are five spare rooms, even when the boys are -here. Besides, he wouldn’t get a room in the village. And he oughtn’t -to work if he’s overworked.” - -“But perhaps he doesn’t want to see so much of us,” Mary thought to -herself, although outwardly she assented, and felt grateful to -Elizabeth for supporting her in what was, of course, her desire. They -were cutting roses at the time, and laying them, head by head, in a -shallow basket. - -“If Ralph were here, he’d find this very dull,” Mary thought, with a -little shiver of irritation, which led her to place her rose the wrong -way in the basket. Meanwhile, they had come to the end of the path, and -while Elizabeth straightened some flowers, and made them stand upright -within their fence of string, Mary looked at her father, who was pacing -up and down, with his hand behind his back and his head bowed in -meditation. Obeying an impulse which sprang from some desire to -interrupt this methodical marching, Mary stepped on to the grass walk -and put her hand on his arm. - -“A flower for your buttonhole, father,” she said, presenting a rose. - -“Eh, dear?” said Mr. Datchet, taking the flower, and holding it at an -angle which suited his bad eyesight, without pausing in his walk. - -“Where does this fellow come from? One of Elizabeth’s roses—I hope you -asked her leave. Elizabeth doesn’t like having her roses picked without -her leave, and quite right, too.” - -He had a habit, Mary remarked, and she had never noticed it so clearly -before, of letting his sentences tail away in a continuous murmur, -whereupon he passed into a state of abstraction, presumed by his -children to indicate some train of thought too profound for utterance. - -“What?” said Mary, interrupting, for the first time in her life, -perhaps, when the murmur ceased. He made no reply. She knew very well -that he wished to be left alone, but she stuck to his side much as she -might have stuck to some sleep-walker, whom she thought it right -gradually to awaken. She could think of nothing to rouse him with -except: - -“The garden’s looking very nice, father.” - -“Yes, yes, yes,” said Mr. Datchet, running his words together in the -same abstracted manner, and sinking his head yet lower upon his breast. -And suddenly, as they turned their steps to retrace their way, he -jerked out: - -“The traffic’s very much increased, you know. More rolling-stock needed -already. Forty trucks went down yesterday by the 12.15—counted them -myself. They’ve taken off the 9.3, and given us an 8.30 instead—suits -the business men, you know. You came by the old 3.10 yesterday, I -suppose?” - -She said “Yes,” as he seemed to wish for a reply, and then he looked at -his watch, and made off down the path towards the house, holding the -rose at the same angle in front of him. Elizabeth had gone round to the -side of the house, where the chickens lived, so that Mary found herself -alone, holding Ralph’s letter in her hand. She was uneasy. She had put -off the season for thinking things out very successfully, and now that -Ralph was actually coming, the next day, she could only wonder how her -family would impress him. She thought it likely that her father would -discuss the train service with him; Elizabeth would be bright and -sensible, and always leaving the room to give messages to the servants. -Her brothers had already said that they would give him a day’s -shooting. She was content to leave the problem of Ralph’s relations to -the young men obscure, trusting that they would find some common ground -of masculine agreement. But what would he think of _her?_ Would he see -that she was different from the rest of the family? She devised a plan -for taking him to her sitting-room, and artfully leading the talk -towards the English poets, who now occupied prominent places in her -little bookcase. Moreover, she might give him to understand, privately, -that she, too, thought her family a queer one—queer, yes, but not dull. -That was the rock past which she was bent on steering him. And she -thought how she would draw his attention to Edward’s passion for -Jorrocks, and the enthusiasm which led Christopher to collect moths and -butterflies though he was now twenty-two. Perhaps Elizabeth’s -sketching, if the fruits were invisible, might lend color to the -general effect which she wished to produce of a family, eccentric and -limited, perhaps, but not dull. Edward, she perceived, was rolling the -lawn, for the sake of exercise; and the sight of him, with pink cheeks, -bright little brown eyes, and a general resemblance to a clumsy young -cart-horse in its winter coat of dusty brown hair, made Mary violently -ashamed of her ambitious scheming. She loved him precisely as he was; -she loved them all; and as she walked by his side, up and down, and -down and up, her strong moral sense administered a sound drubbing to -the vain and romantic element aroused in her by the mere thought of -Ralph. She felt quite certain that, for good or for bad, she was very -like the rest of her family. - -Sitting in the corner of a third-class railway carriage, on the -afternoon of the following day, Ralph made several inquiries of a -commercial traveler in the opposite corner. They centered round a -village called Lampsher, not three miles, he understood, from Lincoln; -was there a big house in Lampsher, he asked, inhabited by a gentleman -of the name of Otway? - -The traveler knew nothing, but rolled the name of Otway on his tongue, -reflectively, and the sound of it gratified Ralph amazingly. It gave -him an excuse to take a letter from his pocket in order to verify the -address. - -“Stogdon House, Lampsher, Lincoln,” he read out. - -“You’ll find somebody to direct you at Lincoln,” said the man; and -Ralph had to confess that he was not bound there this very evening. - -“I’ve got to walk over from Disham,” he said, and in the heart of him -could not help marveling at the pleasure which he derived from making a -bagman in a train believe what he himself did not believe. For the -letter, though signed by Katharine’s father, contained no invitation or -warrant for thinking that Katharine herself was there; the only fact it -disclosed was that for a fortnight this address would be Mr. Hilbery’s -address. But when he looked out of the window, it was of her he -thought; she, too, had seen these gray fields, and, perhaps, she was -there where the trees ran up a slope, and one yellow light shone now, -and then went out again, at the foot of the hill. The light shone in -the windows of an old gray house, he thought. He lay back in his corner -and forgot the commercial traveler altogether. The process of -visualizing Katharine stopped short at the old gray manor-house; -instinct warned him that if he went much further with this process -reality would soon force itself in; he could not altogether neglect the -figure of William Rodney. Since the day when he had heard from -Katharine’s lips of her engagement, he had refrained from investing his -dream of her with the details of real life. But the light of the late -afternoon glowed green behind the straight trees, and became a symbol -of her. The light seemed to expand his heart. She brooded over the gray -fields, and was with him now in the railway carriage, thoughtful, -silent, and infinitely tender; but the vision pressed too close, and -must be dismissed, for the train was slackening. Its abrupt jerks shook -him wide awake, and he saw Mary Datchet, a sturdy russet figure, with a -dash of scarlet about it, as the carriage slid down the platform. A -tall youth who accompanied her shook him by the hand, took his bag, and -led the way without uttering one articulate word. - -Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter’s evening, when dusk -almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a -note of intimacy seldom heard by day. Such an edge was there in Mary’s -voice when she greeted him. About her seemed to hang the mist of the -winter hedges, and the clear red of the bramble leaves. He felt himself -at once stepping on to the firm ground of an entirely different world, -but he did not allow himself to yield to the pleasure of it directly. -They gave him his choice of driving with Edward or of walking home -across the fields with Mary—not a shorter way, they explained, but Mary -thought it a nicer way. He decided to walk with her, being conscious, -indeed, that he got comfort from her presence. What could be the cause -of her cheerfulness, he wondered, half ironically, and half enviously, -as the pony-cart started briskly away, and the dusk swam between their -eyes and the tall form of Edward, standing up to drive, with the reins -in one hand and the whip in the other. People from the village, who had -been to the market town, were climbing into their gigs, or setting off -home down the road together in little parties. Many salutations were -addressed to Mary, who shouted back, with the addition of the speaker’s -name. But soon she led the way over a stile, and along a path worn -slightly darker than the dim green surrounding it. In front of them the -sky now showed itself of a reddish-yellow, like a slice of some -semilucent stone behind which a lamp burnt, while a fringe of black -trees with distinct branches stood against the light, which was -obscured in one direction by a hump of earth, in all other directions -the land lying flat to the very verge of the sky. One of the swift and -noiseless birds of the winter’s night seemed to follow them across the -field, circling a few feet in front of them, disappearing and returning -again and again. - -Mary had gone this walk many hundred times in the course of her life, -generally alone, and at different stages the ghosts of past moods would -flood her mind with a whole scene or train of thought merely at the -sight of three trees from a particular angle, or at the sound of the -pheasant clucking in the ditch. But to-night the circumstances were -strong enough to oust all other scenes; and she looked at the field and -the trees with an involuntary intensity as if they had no such -associations for her. - -“Well, Ralph,” she said, “this is better than Lincoln’s Inn Fields, -isn’t it? Look, there’s a bird for you! Oh, you’ve brought glasses, -have you? Edward and Christopher mean to make you shoot. Can you shoot? -I shouldn’t think so—” - -“Look here, you must explain,” said Ralph. “Who are these young men? -Where am I staying?” - -“You are staying with us, of course,” she said boldly. “Of course, -you’re staying with us—you don’t mind coming, do you?” - -“If I had, I shouldn’t have come,” he said sturdily. They walked on in -silence; Mary took care not to break it for a time. She wished Ralph to -feel, as she thought he would, all the fresh delights of the earth and -air. She was right. In a moment he expressed his pleasure, much to her -comfort. - -“This is the sort of country I thought you’d live in, Mary,” he said, -pushing his hat back on his head, and looking about him. “Real country. -No gentlemen’s seats.” - -He snuffed the air, and felt more keenly than he had done for many -weeks the pleasure of owning a body. - -“Now we have to find our way through a hedge,” said Mary. In the gap of -the hedge Ralph tore up a poacher’s wire, set across a hole to trap a -rabbit. - -“It’s quite right that they should poach,” said Mary, watching him -tugging at the wire. “I wonder whether it was Alfred Duggins or Sid -Rankin? How can one expect them not to, when they only make fifteen -shillings a week? Fifteen shillings a week,” she repeated, coming out -on the other side of the hedge, and running her fingers through her -hair to rid herself of a bramble which had attached itself to her. “I -could live on fifteen shillings a week—easily.” - -“Could you?” said Ralph. “I don’t believe you could,” he added. - -“Oh yes. They have a cottage thrown in, and a garden where one can grow -vegetables. It wouldn’t be half bad,” said Mary, with a soberness which -impressed Ralph very much. - -“But you’d get tired of it,” he urged. - -“I sometimes think it’s the only thing one would never get tired of,” -she replied. - -The idea of a cottage where one grew one’s own vegetables and lived on -fifteen shillings a week, filled Ralph with an extraordinary sense of -rest and satisfaction. - -“But wouldn’t it be on the main road, or next door to a woman with six -squalling children, who’d always be hanging her washing out to dry -across your garden?” - -“The cottage I’m thinking of stands by itself in a little orchard.” - -“And what about the Suffrage?” he asked, attempting sarcasm. - -“Oh, there are other things in the world besides the Suffrage,” she -replied, in an off-hand manner which was slightly mysterious. - -Ralph fell silent. It annoyed him that she should have plans of which -he knew nothing; but he felt that he had no right to press her further. -His mind settled upon the idea of life in a country cottage. -Conceivably, for he could not examine into it now, here lay a -tremendous possibility; a solution of many problems. He struck his -stick upon the earth, and stared through the dusk at the shape of the -country. - -“D’you know the points of the compass?” he asked. - -“Well, of course,” said Mary. “What d’you take me for?—a Cockney like -you?” She then told him exactly where the north lay, and where the -south. - -“It’s my native land, this,” she said. “I could smell my way about it -blindfold.” - -As if to prove this boast, she walked a little quicker, so that Ralph -found it difficult to keep pace with her. At the same time, he felt -drawn to her as he had never been before; partly, no doubt, because she -was more independent of him than in London, and seemed to be attached -firmly to a world where he had no place at all. Now the dusk had fallen -to such an extent that he had to follow her implicitly, and even lean -his hand on her shoulder when they jumped a bank into a very narrow -lane. And he felt curiously shy of her when she began to shout through -her hands at a spot of light which swung upon the mist in a neighboring -field. He shouted, too, and the light stood still. - -“That’s Christopher, come in already, and gone to feed his chickens,” -she said. - -She introduced him to Ralph, who could see only a tall figure in -gaiters, rising from a fluttering circle of soft feathery bodies, upon -whom the light fell in wavering discs, calling out now a bright spot of -yellow, now one of greenish-black and scarlet. Mary dipped her hand in -the bucket he carried, and was at once the center of a circle also; and -as she cast her grain she talked alternately to the birds and to her -brother, in the same clucking, half-inarticulate voice, as it sounded -to Ralph, standing on the outskirts of the fluttering feathers in his -black overcoat. - -He had removed his overcoat by the time they sat round the -dinner-table, but nevertheless he looked very strange among the others. -A country life and breeding had preserved in them all a look which Mary -hesitated to call either innocent or youthful, as she compared them, -now sitting round in an oval, softly illuminated by candlelight; and -yet it was something of the kind, yes, even in the case of the Rector -himself. Though superficially marked with lines, his face was a clear -pink, and his blue eyes had the long-sighted, peaceful expression of -eyes seeking the turn of the road, or a distant light through rain, or -the darkness of winter. She looked at Ralph. He had never appeared to -her more concentrated and full of purpose; as if behind his forehead -were massed so much experience that he could choose for himself which -part of it he would display and which part he would keep to himself. -Compared with that dark and stern countenance, her brothers’ faces, -bending low over their soup-plates, were mere circles of pink, unmolded -flesh. - -“You came by the 3.10, Mr. Denham?” said the Reverend Wyndham Datchet, -tucking his napkin into his collar, so that almost the whole of his -body was concealed by a large white diamond. “They treat us very well, -on the whole. Considering the increase of traffic, they treat us very -well indeed. I have the curiosity sometimes to count the trucks on the -goods’ trains, and they’re well over fifty—well over fifty, at this -season of the year.” - -The old gentleman had been roused agreeably by the presence of this -attentive and well-informed young man, as was evident by the care with -which he finished the last words in his sentences, and his slight -exaggeration in the number of trucks on the trains. Indeed, the chief -burden of the talk fell upon him, and he sustained it to-night in a -manner which caused his sons to look at him admiringly now and then; -for they felt shy of Denham, and were glad not to have to talk -themselves. The store of information about the present and past of this -particular corner of Lincolnshire which old Mr. Datchet produced really -surprised his children, for though they knew of its existence, they had -forgotten its extent, as they might have forgotten the amount of family -plate stored in the plate-chest, until some rare celebration brought it -forth. - -After dinner, parish business took the Rector to his study, and Mary -proposed that they should sit in the kitchen. - -“It’s not the kitchen really,” Elizabeth hastened to explain to her -guest, “but we call it so—” - -“It’s the nicest room in the house,” said Edward. - -“It’s got the old rests by the side of the fireplace, where the men -hung their guns,” said Elizabeth, leading the way, with a tall brass -candlestick in her hand, down a passage. “Show Mr. Denham the steps, -Christopher.... When the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were here two -years ago they said this was the most interesting part of the house. -These narrow bricks prove that it is five hundred years old—five -hundred years, I think—they may have said six.” She, too, felt an -impulse to exaggerate the age of the bricks, as her father had -exaggerated the number of trucks. A big lamp hung down from the center -of the ceiling and, together with a fine log fire, illuminated a large -and lofty room, with rafters running from wall to wall, a floor of red -tiles, and a substantial fireplace built up of those narrow red bricks -which were said to be five hundred years old. A few rugs and a -sprinkling of arm-chairs had made this ancient kitchen into a -sitting-room. Elizabeth, after pointing out the gun-racks, and the -hooks for smoking hams, and other evidence of incontestable age, and -explaining that Mary had had the idea of turning the room into a -sitting-room—otherwise it was used for hanging out the wash and for the -men to change in after shooting—considered that she had done her duty -as hostess, and sat down in an upright chair directly beneath the lamp, -beside a very long and narrow oak table. She placed a pair of horn -spectacles upon her nose, and drew towards her a basketful of threads -and wools. In a few minutes a smile came to her face, and remained -there for the rest of the evening. - -“Will you come out shooting with us to-morrow?” said Christopher, who -had, on the whole, formed a favorable impression of his sister’s -friend. - -“I won’t shoot, but I’ll come with you,” said Ralph. - -“Don’t you care about shooting?” asked Edward, whose suspicions were -not yet laid to rest. - -“I’ve never shot in my life,” said Ralph, turning and looking him in -the face, because he was not sure how this confession would be -received. - -“You wouldn’t have much chance in London, I suppose,” said Christopher. -“But won’t you find it rather dull—just watching us?” - -“I shall watch birds,” Ralph replied, with a smile. - -“I can show you the place for watching birds,” said Edward, “if that’s -what you like doing. I know a fellow who comes down from London about -this time every year to watch them. It’s a great place for the wild -geese and the ducks. I’ve heard this man say that it’s one of the best -places for birds in the country.” - -“It’s about the best place in England,” Ralph replied. They were all -gratified by this praise of their native county; and Mary now had the -pleasure of hearing these short questions and answers lose their -undertone of suspicious inspection, so far as her brothers were -concerned, and develop into a genuine conversation about the habits of -birds which afterwards turned to a discussion as to the habits of -solicitors, in which it was scarcely necessary for her to take part. -She was pleased to see that her brothers liked Ralph, to the extent, -that is, of wishing to secure his good opinion. Whether or not he liked -them it was impossible to tell from his kind but experienced manner. -Now and then she fed the fire with a fresh log, and as the room filled -with the fine, dry heat of burning wood, they all, with the exception -of Elizabeth, who was outside the range of the fire, felt less and less -anxious about the effect they were making, and more and more inclined -for sleep. At this moment a vehement scratching was heard on the door. - -“Piper!—oh, damn!—I shall have to get up,” murmured Christopher. - -“It’s not Piper, it’s Pitch,” Edward grunted. - -“All the same, I shall have to get up,” Christopher grumbled. He let in -the dog, and stood for a moment by the door, which opened into the -garden, to revive himself with a draught of the black, starlit air. - -“Do come in and shut the door!” Mary cried, half turning in her chair. - -“We shall have a fine day to-morrow,” said Christopher with -complacency, and he sat himself on the floor at her feet, and leant his -back against her knees, and stretched out his long stockinged legs to -the fire—all signs that he felt no longer any restraint at the presence -of the stranger. He was the youngest of the family, and Mary’s -favorite, partly because his character resembled hers, as Edward’s -character resembled Elizabeth’s. She made her knees a comfortable rest -for his head, and ran her fingers through his hair. - -“I should like Mary to stroke my head like that,” Ralph thought to -himself suddenly, and he looked at Christopher, almost affectionately, -for calling forth his sister’s caresses. Instantly he thought of -Katharine, the thought of her being surrounded by the spaces of night -and the open air; and Mary, watching him, saw the lines upon his -forehead suddenly deepen. He stretched out an arm and placed a log upon -the fire, constraining himself to fit it carefully into the frail red -scaffolding, and also to limit his thoughts to this one room. - -Mary had ceased to stroke her brother’s head; he moved it impatiently -between her knees, and, much as though he were a child, she began once -more to part the thick, reddish-colored locks this way and that. But a -far stronger passion had taken possession of her soul than any her -brother could inspire in her, and, seeing Ralph’s change of expression, -her hand almost automatically continued its movements, while her mind -plunged desperately for some hold upon slippery banks. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -Into that same black night, almost, indeed, into the very same layer of -starlit air, Katharine Hilbery was now gazing, although not with a view -to the prospects of a fine day for duck shooting on the morrow. She was -walking up and down a gravel path in the garden of Stogdon House, her -sight of the heavens being partially intercepted by the light leafless -hoops of a pergola. Thus a spray of clematis would completely obscure -Cassiopeia, or blot out with its black pattern myriads of miles of the -Milky Way. At the end of the pergola, however, there was a stone seat, -from which the sky could be seen completely swept clear of any earthly -interruption, save to the right, indeed, where a line of elm-trees was -beautifully sprinkled with stars, and a low stable building had a full -drop of quivering silver just issuing from the mouth of the chimney. It -was a moonless night, but the light of the stars was sufficient to show -the outline of the young woman’s form, and the shape of her face gazing -gravely, indeed almost sternly, into the sky. She had come out into the -winter’s night, which was mild enough, not so much to look with -scientific eyes upon the stars, as to shake herself free from certain -purely terrestrial discontents. Much as a literary person in like -circumstances would begin, absent-mindedly, pulling out volume after -volume, so she stepped into the garden in order to have the stars at -hand, even though she did not look at them. Not to be happy, when she -was supposed to be happier than she would ever be again—that, as far as -she could see, was the origin of a discontent which had begun almost as -soon as she arrived, two days before, and seemed now so intolerable -that she had left the family party, and come out here to consider it by -herself. It was not she who thought herself unhappy, but her cousins, -who thought it for her. The house was full of cousins, much of her age, -or even younger, and among them they had some terribly bright eyes. -They seemed always on the search for something between her and Rodney, -which they expected to find, and yet did not find; and when they -searched, Katharine became aware of wanting what she had not been -conscious of wanting in London, alone with William and her parents. Or, -if she did not want it, she missed it. And this state of mind depressed -her, because she had been accustomed always to give complete -satisfaction, and her self-love was now a little ruffled. She would -have liked to break through the reserve habitual to her in order to -justify her engagement to some one whose opinion she valued. No one had -spoken a word of criticism, but they left her alone with William; not -that that would have mattered, if they had not left her alone so -politely; and, perhaps, that would not have mattered if they had not -seemed so queerly silent, almost respectful, in her presence, which -gave way to criticism, she felt, out of it. - -Looking now and then at the sky, she went through the list of her -cousins’ names: Eleanor, Humphrey, Marmaduke, Silvia, Henry, Cassandra, -Gilbert, and Mostyn—Henry, the cousin who taught the young ladies of -Bungay to play upon the violin, was the only one in whom she could -confide, and as she walked up and down beneath the hoops of the -pergola, she did begin a little speech to him, which ran something like -this: - -“To begin with, I’m very fond of William. You can’t deny that. I know -him better than any one, almost. But why I’m marrying him is, partly, I -admit—I’m being quite honest with you, and you mustn’t tell any -one—partly because I want to get married. I want to have a house of my -own. It isn’t possible at home. It’s all very well for you, Henry; you -can go your own way. I have to be there always. Besides, you know what -our house is. You wouldn’t be happy either, if you didn’t do something. -It isn’t that I haven’t the time at home—it’s the atmosphere.” Here, -presumably, she imagined that her cousin, who had listened with his -usual intelligent sympathy, raised his eyebrows a little, and -interposed: - -“Well, but what do you want to do?” - -Even in this purely imaginary dialogue, Katharine found it difficult to -confide her ambition to an imaginary companion. - -“I should like,” she began, and hesitated quite a long time before she -forced herself to add, with a change of voice, “to study mathematics—to -know about the stars.” - -Henry was clearly amazed, but too kind to express all his doubts; he -only said something about the difficulties of mathematics, and remarked -that very little was known about the stars. - -Katharine thereupon went on with the statement of her case. - -“I don’t care much whether I ever get to know anything—but I want to -work out something in figures—something that hasn’t got to do with -human beings. I don’t want people particularly. In some ways, Henry, -I’m a humbug—I mean, I’m not what you all take me for. I’m not -domestic, or very practical or sensible, really. And if I could -calculate things, and use a telescope, and have to work out figures, -and know to a fraction where I was wrong, I should be perfectly happy, -and I believe I should give William all he wants.” - -Having reached this point, instinct told her that she had passed beyond -the region in which Henry’s advice could be of any good; and, having -rid her mind of its superficial annoyance, she sat herself upon the -stone seat, raised her eyes unconsciously and thought about the deeper -questions which she had to decide, she knew, for herself. Would she, -indeed, give William all he wanted? In order to decide the question, -she ran her mind rapidly over her little collection of significant -sayings, looks, compliments, gestures, which had marked their -intercourse during the last day or two. He had been annoyed because a -box, containing some clothes specially chosen by him for her to wear, -had been taken to the wrong station, owing to her neglect in the matter -of labels. The box had arrived in the nick of time, and he had -remarked, as she came downstairs on the first night, that he had never -seen her look more beautiful. She outshone all her cousins. He had -discovered that she never made an ugly movement; he also said that the -shape of her head made it possible for her, unlike most women, to wear -her hair low. He had twice reproved her for being silent at dinner; and -once for never attending to what he said. He had been surprised at the -excellence of her French accent, but he thought it was selfish of her -not to go with her mother to call upon the Middletons, because they -were old family friends and very nice people. On the whole, the balance -was nearly even; and, writing down a kind of conclusion in her mind -which finished the sum for the present, at least, she changed the focus -of her eyes, and saw nothing but the stars. - -To-night they seemed fixed with unusual firmness in the blue, and -flashed back such a ripple of light into her eyes that she found -herself thinking that to-night the stars were happy. Without knowing or -caring more for Church practices than most people of her age, Katharine -could not look into the sky at Christmas time without feeling that, at -this one season, the Heavens bend over the earth with sympathy, and -signal with immortal radiance that they, too, take part in her -festival. Somehow, it seemed to her that they were even now beholding -the procession of kings and wise men upon some road on a distant part -of the earth. And yet, after gazing for another second, the stars did -their usual work upon the mind, froze to cinders the whole of our short -human history, and reduced the human body to an ape-like, furry form, -crouching amid the brushwood of a barbarous clod of mud. This stage was -soon succeeded by another, in which there was nothing in the universe -save stars and the light of stars; as she looked up the pupils of her -eyes so dilated with starlight that the whole of her seemed dissolved -in silver and spilt over the ledges of the stars for ever and ever -indefinitely through space. Somehow simultaneously, though -incongruously, she was riding with the magnanimous hero upon the shore -or under forest trees, and so might have continued were it not for the -rebuke forcibly administered by the body, which, content with the -normal conditions of life, in no way furthers any attempt on the part -of the mind to alter them. She grew cold, shook herself, rose, and -walked towards the house. - -By the light of the stars, Stogdon House looked pale and romantic, and -about twice its natural size. Built by a retired admiral in the early -years of the nineteenth century, the curving bow windows of the front, -now filled with reddish-yellow light, suggested a portly three-decker, -sailing seas where those dolphins and narwhals who disport themselves -upon the edges of old maps were scattered with an impartial hand. A -semicircular flight of shallow steps led to a very large door, which -Katharine had left ajar. She hesitated, cast her eyes over the front of -the house, marked that a light burnt in one small window upon an upper -floor, and pushed the door open. For a moment she stood in the square -hall, among many horned skulls, sallow globes, cracked oil-paintings, -and stuffed owls, hesitating, it seemed, whether she should open the -door on her right, through which the stir of life reached her ears. -Listening for a moment, she heard a sound which decided her, -apparently, not to enter; her uncle, Sir Francis, was playing his -nightly game of whist; it appeared probable that he was losing. - -She went up the curving stairway, which represented the one attempt at -ceremony in the otherwise rather dilapidated mansion, and down a narrow -passage until she came to the room whose light she had seen from the -garden. Knocking, she was told to come in. A young man, Henry Otway, -was reading, with his feet on the fender. He had a fine head, the brow -arched in the Elizabethan manner, but the gentle, honest eyes were -rather skeptical than glowing with the Elizabethan vigor. He gave the -impression that he had not yet found the cause which suited his -temperament. - -He turned, put down his book, and looked at her. He noticed her rather -pale, dew-drenched look, as of one whose mind is not altogether settled -in the body. He had often laid his difficulties before her, and -guessed, in some ways hoped, that perhaps she now had need of him. At -the same time, she carried on her life with such independence that he -scarcely expected any confidence to be expressed in words. - -“You have fled, too, then?” he said, looking at her cloak. Katharine -had forgotten to remove this token of her star-gazing. - -“Fled?” she asked. “From whom d’you mean? Oh, the family party. Yes, it -was hot down there, so I went into the garden.” - -“And aren’t you very cold?” Henry inquired, placing coal on the fire, -drawing a chair up to the grate, and laying aside her cloak. Her -indifference to such details often forced Henry to act the part -generally taken by women in such dealings. It was one of the ties -between them. - -“Thank you, Henry,” she said. “I’m not disturbing you?” - -“I’m not here. I’m at Bungay,” he replied. “I’m giving a music lesson -to Harold and Julia. That was why I had to leave the table with the -ladies—I’m spending the night there, and I shan’t be back till late on -Christmas Eve.” - -“How I wish—” Katharine began, and stopped short. “I think these -parties are a great mistake,” she added briefly, and sighed. - -“Oh, horrible!” he agreed; and they both fell silent. - -Her sigh made him look at her. Should he venture to ask her why she -sighed? Was her reticence about her own affairs as inviolable as it had -often been convenient for rather an egoistical young man to think it? -But since her engagement to Rodney, Henry’s feeling towards her had -become rather complex; equally divided between an impulse to hurt her -and an impulse to be tender to her; and all the time he suffered a -curious irritation from the sense that she was drifting away from him -for ever upon unknown seas. On her side, directly Katharine got into -his presence, and the sense of the stars dropped from her, she knew -that any intercourse between people is extremely partial; from the -whole mass of her feelings, only one or two could be selected for -Henry’s inspection, and therefore she sighed. Then she looked at him, -and their eyes meeting, much more seemed to be in common between them -than had appeared possible. At any rate they had a grandfather in -common; at any rate there was a kind of loyalty between them sometimes -found between relations who have no other cause to like each other, as -these two had. - -“Well, what’s the date of the wedding?” said Henry, the malicious mood -now predominating. - -“I think some time in March,” she replied. - -“And afterwards?” he asked. - -“We take a house, I suppose, somewhere in Chelsea.” - -“It’s very interesting,” he observed, stealing another look at her. - -She lay back in her arm-chair, her feet high upon the side of the -grate, and in front of her, presumably to screen her eyes, she held a -newspaper from which she picked up a sentence or two now and again. -Observing this, Henry remarked: - -“Perhaps marriage will make you more human.” - -At this she lowered the newspaper an inch or two, but said nothing. -Indeed, she sat quite silent for over a minute. - -“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to -matter very much, do they?” she said suddenly. - -“I don’t think I ever do consider things like the stars,” Henry -replied. “I’m not sure that that’s not the explanation, though,” he -added, now observing her steadily. - -“I doubt whether there is an explanation,” she replied rather -hurriedly, not clearly understanding what he meant. - -“What? No explanation of anything?” he inquired, with a smile. - -“Oh, things happen. That’s about all,” she let drop in her casual, -decided way. - -“That certainly seems to explain some of your actions,” Henry thought -to himself. - -“One thing’s about as good as another, and one’s got to do something,” -he said aloud, expressing what he supposed to be her attitude, much in -her accent. Perhaps she detected the imitation, for looking gently at -him, she said, with ironical composure: - -“Well, if you believe that your life must be simple, Henry.” - -“But I don’t believe it,” he said shortly. - -“No more do I,” she replied. - -“What about the stars?” he asked a moment later. “I understand that you -rule your life by the stars?” - -She let this pass, either because she did not attend to it, or because -the tone was not to her liking. - -Once more she paused, and then she inquired: - -“But do you always understand why you do everything? Ought one to -understand? People like my mother understand,” she reflected. “Now I -must go down to them, I suppose, and see what’s happening.” - -“What could be happening?” Henry protested. - -“Oh, they may want to settle something,” she replied vaguely, putting -her feet on the ground, resting her chin on her hands, and looking out -of her large dark eyes contemplatively at the fire. - -“And then there’s William,” she added, as if by an afterthought. - -Henry very nearly laughed, but restrained himself. - -“Do they know what coals are made of, Henry?” she asked, a moment -later. - -“Mares’ tails, I believe,” he hazarded. - -“Have you ever been down a coal-mine?” she went on. - -“Don’t let’s talk about coal-mines, Katharine,” he protested. “We shall -probably never see each other again. When you’re married—” - -Tremendously to his surprise, he saw the tears stand in her eyes. - -“Why do you all tease me?” she said. “It isn’t kind.” - -Henry could not pretend that he was altogether ignorant of her meaning, -though, certainly, he had never guessed that she minded the teasing. -But before he knew what to say, her eyes were clear again, and the -sudden crack in the surface was almost filled up. - -“Things aren’t easy, anyhow,” she stated. - -Obeying an impulse of genuine affection, Henry spoke. - -“Promise me, Katharine, that if I can ever help you, you will let me.” - -She seemed to consider, looking once more into the red of the fire, and -decided to refrain from any explanation. - -“Yes, I promise that,” she said at length, and Henry felt himself -gratified by her complete sincerity, and began to tell her now about -the coal-mine, in obedience to her love of facts. - -They were, indeed, descending the shaft in a small cage, and could hear -the picks of the miners, something like the gnawing of rats, in the -earth beneath them, when the door was burst open, without any knocking. - -“Well, here you are!” Rodney exclaimed. Both Katharine and Henry turned -round very quickly and rather guiltily. Rodney was in evening dress. It -was clear that his temper was ruffled. - -“That’s where you’ve been all the time,” he repeated, looking at -Katharine. - -“I’ve only been here about ten minutes,” she replied. - -“My dear Katharine, you left the drawing-room over an hour ago.” - -She said nothing. - -“Does it very much matter?” Henry asked. - -Rodney found it hard to be unreasonable in the presence of another man, -and did not answer him. - -“They don’t like it,” he said. “It isn’t kind to old people to leave -them alone—although I’ve no doubt it’s much more amusing to sit up here -and talk to Henry.” - -“We were discussing coal-mines,” said Henry urbanely. - -“Yes. But we were talking about much more interesting things before -that,” said Katharine. - -From the apparent determination to hurt him with which she spoke, Henry -thought that some sort of explosion on Rodney’s part was about to take -place. - -“I can quite understand that,” said Rodney, with his little chuckle, -leaning over the back of his chair and tapping the woodwork lightly -with his fingers. They were all silent, and the silence was acutely -uncomfortable to Henry, at least. - -“Was it very dull, William?” Katharine suddenly asked, with a complete -change of tone and a little gesture of her hand. - -“Of course it was dull,” William said sulkily. - -“Well, you stay and talk to Henry, and I’ll go down,” she replied. - -She rose as she spoke, and as she turned to leave the room, she laid -her hand, with a curiously caressing gesture, upon Rodney’s shoulder. -Instantly Rodney clasped her hand in his, with such an impulse of -emotion that Henry was annoyed, and rather ostentatiously opened a -book. - -“I shall come down with you,” said William, as she drew back her hand, -and made as if to pass him. - -“Oh no,” she said hastily. “You stay here and talk to Henry.” - -“Yes, do,” said Henry, shutting up his book again. His invitation was -polite, without being precisely cordial. Rodney evidently hesitated as -to the course he should pursue, but seeing Katharine at the door, he -exclaimed: - -“No. I want to come with you.” - -She looked back, and said in a very commanding tone, and with an -expression of authority upon her face: - -“It’s useless for you to come. I shall go to bed in ten minutes. Good -night.” - -She nodded to them both, but Henry could not help noticing that her -last nod was in his direction. Rodney sat down rather heavily. - -His mortification was so obvious that Henry scarcely liked to open the -conversation with some remark of a literary character. On the other -hand, unless he checked him, Rodney might begin to talk about his -feelings, and irreticence is apt to be extremely painful, at any rate -in prospect. He therefore adopted a middle course; that is to say, he -wrote a note upon the fly-leaf of his book, which ran, “The situation -is becoming most uncomfortable.” This he decorated with those -flourishes and decorative borders which grow of themselves upon these -occasions; and as he did so, he thought to himself that whatever -Katharine’s difficulties might be, they did not justify her behavior. -She had spoken with a kind of brutality which suggested that, whether -it is natural or assumed, women have a peculiar blindness to the -feelings of men. - -The penciling of this note gave Rodney time to recover himself. -Perhaps, for he was a very vain man, he was more hurt that Henry had -seen him rebuffed than by the rebuff itself. He was in love with -Katharine, and vanity is not decreased but increased by love; -especially, one may hazard, in the presence of one’s own sex. But -Rodney enjoyed the courage which springs from that laughable and -lovable defect, and when he had mastered his first impulse, in some way -to make a fool of himself, he drew inspiration from the perfect fit of -his evening dress. He chose a cigarette, tapped it on the back of his -hand, displayed his exquisite pumps on the edge of the fender, and -summoned his self-respect. - -“You’ve several big estates round here, Otway,” he began. “Any good -hunting? Let me see, what pack would it be? Who’s your great man?” - -“Sir William Budge, the sugar king, has the biggest estate. He bought -out poor Stanham, who went bankrupt.” - -“Which Stanham would that be? Verney or Alfred?” - -“Alfred.... I don’t hunt myself. You’re a great huntsman, aren’t you? -You have a great reputation as a horseman, anyhow,” he added, desiring -to help Rodney in his effort to recover his complacency. - -“Oh, I love riding,” Rodney replied. “Could I get a horse down here? -Stupid of me! I forgot to bring any clothes. I can’t imagine, though, -who told you I was anything of a rider?” - -To tell the truth, Henry labored under the same difficulty; he did not -wish to introduce Katharine’s name, and, therefore, he replied vaguely -that he had always heard that Rodney was a great rider. In truth, he -had heard very little about him, one way or another, accepting him as a -figure often to be found in the background at his aunt’s house, and -inevitably, though inexplicably, engaged to his cousin. - -“I don’t care much for shooting,” Rodney continued; “but one has to do -it, unless one wants to be altogether out of things. I dare say there’s -some very pretty country round here. I stayed once at Bolham Hall. -Young Cranthorpe was up with you, wasn’t he? He married old Lord -Bolham’s daughter. Very nice people—in their way.” - -“I don’t mix in that society,” Henry remarked, rather shortly. But -Rodney, now started on an agreeable current of reflection, could not -resist the temptation of pursuing it a little further. He appeared to -himself as a man who moved easily in very good society, and knew enough -about the true values of life to be himself above it. - -“Oh, but you should,” he went on. “It’s well worth staying there, -anyhow, once a year. They make one very comfortable, and the women are -ravishing.” - -“The women?” Henry thought to himself, with disgust. “What could any -woman see in you?” His tolerance was rapidly becoming exhausted, but he -could not help liking Rodney nevertheless, and this appeared to him -strange, for he was fastidious, and such words in another mouth would -have condemned the speaker irreparably. He began, in short, to wonder -what kind of creature this man who was to marry his cousin might be. -Could any one, except a rather singular character, afford to be so -ridiculously vain? - -“I don’t think I should get on in that society,” he replied. “I don’t -think I should know what to say to Lady Rose if I met her.” - -“I don’t find any difficulty,” Rodney chuckled. “You talk to them about -their children, if they have any, or their accomplishments—painting, -gardening, poetry—they’re so delightfully sympathetic. Seriously, you -know I think a woman’s opinion of one’s poetry is always worth having. -Don’t ask them for their reasons. Just ask them for their feelings. -Katharine, for example—” - -“Katharine,” said Henry, with an emphasis upon the name, almost as if -he resented Rodney’s use of it, “Katharine is very unlike most women.” - -“Quite,” Rodney agreed. “She is—” He seemed about to describe her, and -he hesitated for a long time. “She’s looking very well,” he stated, or -rather almost inquired, in a different tone from that in which he had -been speaking. Henry bent his head. - -“But, as a family, you’re given to moods, eh?” - -“Not Katharine,” said Henry, with decision. - -“Not Katharine,” Rodney repeated, as if he weighed the meaning of the -words. “No, perhaps you’re right. But her engagement has changed her. -Naturally,” he added, “one would expect that to be so.” He waited for -Henry to confirm this statement, but Henry remained silent. - -“Katharine has had a difficult life, in some ways,” he continued. “I -expect that marriage will be good for her. She has great powers.” - -“Great,” said Henry, with decision. - -“Yes—but now what direction d’you think they take?” - -Rodney had completely dropped his pose as a man of the world, and -seemed to be asking Henry to help him in a difficulty. - -“I don’t know,” Henry hesitated cautiously. - -“D’you think children—a household—that sort of thing—d’you think -that’ll satisfy her? Mind, I’m out all day.” - -“She would certainly be very competent,” Henry stated. - -“Oh, she’s wonderfully competent,” said Rodney. “But—I get absorbed in -my poetry. Well, Katharine hasn’t got that. She admires my poetry, you -know, but that wouldn’t be enough for her?” - -“No,” said Henry. He paused. “I think you’re right,” he added, as if he -were summing up his thoughts. “Katharine hasn’t found herself yet. Life -isn’t altogether real to her yet—I sometimes think—” - -“Yes?” Rodney inquired, as if he were eager for Henry to continue. -“That is what I—” he was going on, as Henry remained silent, but the -sentence was not finished, for the door opened, and they were -interrupted by Henry’s younger brother Gilbert, much to Henry’s relief, -for he had already said more than he liked. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -When the sun shone, as it did with unusual brightness that Christmas -week, it revealed much that was faded and not altogether well-kept-up -in Stogdon House and its grounds. In truth, Sir Francis had retired -from service under the Government of India with a pension that was not -adequate, in his opinion, to his services, as it certainly was not -adequate to his ambitions. His career had not come up to his -expectations, and although he was a very fine, white-whiskered, -mahogany-colored old man to look at, and had laid down a very choice -cellar of good reading and good stories, you could not long remain -ignorant of the fact that some thunder-storm had soured them; he had a -grievance. This grievance dated back to the middle years of the last -century, when, owing to some official intrigue, his merits had been -passed over in a disgraceful manner in favor of another, his junior. - -The rights and wrongs of the story, presuming that they had some -existence in fact, were no longer clearly known to his wife and -children; but this disappointment had played a very large part in their -lives, and had poisoned the life of Sir Francis much as a -disappointment in love is said to poison the whole life of a woman. -Long brooding on his failure, continual arrangement and rearrangement -of his deserts and rebuffs, had made Sir Francis much of an egoist, and -in his retirement his temper became increasingly difficult and -exacting. - -His wife now offered so little resistance to his moods that she was -practically useless to him. He made his daughter Eleanor into his chief -confidante, and the prime of her life was being rapidly consumed by her -father. To her he dictated the memoirs which were to avenge his memory, -and she had to assure him constantly that his treatment had been a -disgrace. Already, at the age of thirty-five, her cheeks were whitening -as her mother’s had whitened, but for her there would be no memories of -Indian suns and Indian rivers, and clamor of children in a nursery; she -would have very little of substance to think about when she sat, as -Lady Otway now sat, knitting white wool, with her eyes fixed almost -perpetually upon the same embroidered bird upon the same fire-screen. -But then Lady Otway was one of the people for whom the great -make-believe game of English social life has been invented; she spent -most of her time in pretending to herself and her neighbors that she -was a dignified, important, much-occupied person, of considerable -social standing and sufficient wealth. In view of the actual state of -things this game needed a great deal of skill; and, perhaps, at the age -she had reached—she was over sixty—she played far more to deceive -herself than to deceive any one else. Moreover, the armor was wearing -thin; she forgot to keep up appearances more and more. - -The worn patches in the carpets, and the pallor of the drawing-room, -where no chair or cover had been renewed for some years, were due not -only to the miserable pension, but to the wear and tear of twelve -children, eight of whom were sons. As often happens in these large -families, a distinct dividing-line could be traced, about half-way in -the succession, where the money for educational purposes had run short, -and the six younger children had grown up far more economically than -the elder. If the boys were clever, they won scholarships, and went to -school; if they were not clever, they took what the family connection -had to offer them. The girls accepted situations occasionally, but -there were always one or two at home, nursing sick animals, tending -silkworms, or playing the flute in their bedrooms. The distinction -between the elder children and the younger corresponded almost to the -distinction between a higher class and a lower one, for with only a -haphazard education and insufficient allowances, the younger children -had picked up accomplishments, friends, and points of view which were -not to be found within the walls of a public school or of a Government -office. Between the two divisions there was considerable hostility, the -elder trying to patronize the younger, the younger refusing to respect -the elder; but one feeling united them and instantly closed any risk of -a breach—their common belief in the superiority of their own family to -all others. Henry was the eldest of the younger group, and their -leader; he bought strange books and joined odd societies; he went -without a tie for a whole year, and had six shirts made of black -flannel. He had long refused to take a seat either in a shipping office -or in a tea-merchant’s warehouse; and persisted, in spite of the -disapproval of uncles and aunts, in practicing both violin and piano, -with the result that he could not perform professionally upon either. -Indeed, for thirty-two years of life he had nothing more substantial to -show than a manuscript book containing the score of half an opera. In -this protest of his, Katharine had always given him her support, and as -she was generally held to be an extremely sensible person, who dressed -too well to be eccentric, he had found her support of some use. Indeed, -when she came down at Christmas she usually spent a great part of her -time in private conferences with Henry and with Cassandra, the youngest -girl, to whom the silkworms belonged. With the younger section she had -a great reputation for common sense, and for something that they -despised but inwardly respected and called knowledge of the world—that -is to say, of the way in which respectable elderly people, going to -their clubs and dining out with ministers, think and behave. She had -more than once played the part of ambassador between Lady Otway and her -children. That poor lady, for instance, consulted her for advice when, -one day, she opened Cassandra’s bedroom door on a mission of discovery, -and found the ceiling hung with mulberry-leaves, the windows blocked -with cages, and the tables stacked with home-made machines for the -manufacture of silk dresses. - -“I wish you could help her to take an interest in something that other -people are interested in, Katharine,” she observed, rather plaintively, -detailing her grievances. “It’s all Henry’s doing, you know, giving up -her parties and taking to these nasty insects. It doesn’t follow that -if a man can do a thing a woman may too.” - -The morning was sufficiently bright to make the chairs and sofas in -Lady Otway’s private sitting-room appear more than usually shabby, and -the gallant gentlemen, her brothers and cousins, who had defended the -Empire and left their bones on many frontiers, looked at the world -through a film of yellow which the morning light seemed to have drawn -across their photographs. Lady Otway sighed, it may be at the faded -relics, and turned, with resignation, to her balls of wool, which, -curiously and characteristically, were not an ivory-white, but rather a -tarnished yellow-white. She had called her niece in for a little chat. -She had always trusted her, and now more than ever, since her -engagement to Rodney, which seemed to Lady Otway extremely suitable, -and just what one would wish for one’s own daughter. Katharine -unwittingly increased her reputation for wisdom by asking to be given -knitting-needles too. - -“It’s so very pleasant,” said Lady Otway, “to knit while one’s talking. -And now, my dear Katharine, tell me about your plans.” - -The emotions of the night before, which she had suppressed in such a -way as to keep her awake till dawn, had left Katharine a little jaded, -and thus more matter-of-fact than usual. She was quite ready to discuss -her plans—houses and rents, servants and economy—without feeling that -they concerned her very much. As she spoke, knitting methodically -meanwhile, Lady Otway noted, with approval, the upright, responsible -bearing of her niece, to whom the prospect of marriage had brought some -gravity most becoming in a bride, and yet, in these days, most rare. -Yes, Katharine’s engagement had changed her a little. - -“What a perfect daughter, or daughter-in-law!” she thought to herself, -and could not help contrasting her with Cassandra, surrounded by -innumerable silkworms in her bedroom. - -“Yes,” she continued, glancing at Katharine, with the round, greenish -eyes which were as inexpressive as moist marbles, “Katharine is like -the girls of my youth. We took the serious things of life seriously.” -But just as she was deriving satisfaction from this thought, and was -producing some of the hoarded wisdom which none of her own daughters, -alas! seemed now to need, the door opened, and Mrs. Hilbery came in, or -rather, did not come in, but stood in the doorway and smiled, having -evidently mistaken the room. - -“I never _shall_ know my way about this house!” she exclaimed. “I’m on -my way to the library, and I don’t want to interrupt. You and Katharine -were having a little chat?” - -The presence of her sister-in-law made Lady Otway slightly uneasy. How -could she go on with what she was saying in Maggie’s presence? for she -was saying something that she had never said, all these years, to -Maggie herself. - -“I was telling Katharine a few little commonplaces about marriage,” she -said, with a little laugh. “Are none of my children looking after you, -Maggie?” - -“Marriage,” said Mrs. Hilbery, coming into the room, and nodding her -head once or twice, “I always say marriage is a school. And you don’t -get the prizes unless you go to school. Charlotte has won all the -prizes,” she added, giving her sister-in-law a little pat, which made -Lady Otway more uncomfortable still. She half laughed, muttered -something, and ended on a sigh. - -“Aunt Charlotte was saying that it’s no good being married unless you -submit to your husband,” said Katharine, framing her aunt’s words into -a far more definite shape than they had really worn; and when she spoke -thus she did not appear at all old-fashioned. Lady Otway looked at her -and paused for a moment. - -“Well, I really don’t advise a woman who wants to have things her own -way to get married,” she said, beginning a fresh row rather -elaborately. - -Mrs. Hilbery knew something of the circumstances which, as she thought, -had inspired this remark. In a moment her face was clouded with -sympathy which she did not quite know how to express. - -“What a shame it was!” she exclaimed, forgetting that her train of -thought might not be obvious to her listeners. “But, Charlotte, it -would have been much worse if Frank had disgraced himself in any way. -And it isn’t what our husbands GET, but what they _are_. I used to -dream of white horses and palanquins, too; but still, I like the -ink-pots best. And who knows?” she concluded, looking at Katharine, -“your father may be made a baronet to-morrow.” - -Lady Otway, who was Mr. Hilbery’s sister, knew quite well that, in -private, the Hilberys called Sir Francis “that old Turk,” and though -she did not follow the drift of Mrs. Hilbery’s remarks, she knew what -prompted them. - -“But if you can give way to your husband,” she said, speaking to -Katharine, as if there were a separate understanding between them, “a -happy marriage is the happiest thing in the world.” - -“Yes,” said Katharine, “but—” She did not mean to finish her sentence, -she merely wished to induce her mother and her aunt to go on talking -about marriage, for she was in the mood to feel that other people could -help her if they would. She went on knitting, but her fingers worked -with a decision that was oddly unlike the smooth and contemplative -sweep of Lady Otway’s plump hand. Now and then she looked swiftly at -her mother, then at her aunt. Mrs. Hilbery held a book in her hand, and -was on her way, as Katharine guessed, to the library, where another -paragraph was to be added to that varied assortment of paragraphs, the -Life of Richard Alardyce. Normally, Katharine would have hurried her -mother downstairs, and seen that no excuse for distraction came her -way. Her attitude towards the poet’s life, however, had changed with -other changes; and she was content to forget all about her scheme of -hours. Mrs. Hilbery was secretly delighted. Her relief at finding -herself excused manifested itself in a series of sidelong glances of -sly humor in her daughter’s direction, and the indulgence put her in -the best of spirits. Was she to be allowed merely to sit and talk? It -was so much pleasanter to sit in a nice room filled with all sorts of -interesting odds and ends which she hadn’t looked at for a year, at -least, than to seek out one date which contradicted another in a -dictionary. - -“We’ve all had perfect husbands,” she concluded, generously forgiving -Sir Francis all his faults in a lump. “Not that I think a bad temper is -really a fault in a man. I don’t mean a bad temper,” she corrected -herself, with a glance obviously in the direction of Sir Francis. “I -should say a quick, impatient temper. Most, in fact _all_ great men -have had bad tempers—except your grandfather, Katharine,” and here she -sighed, and suggested that, perhaps, she ought to go down to the -library. - -“But in the ordinary marriage, is it necessary to give way to one’s -husband?” said Katharine, taking no notice of her mother’s suggestion, -blind even to the depression which had now taken possession of her at -the thought of her own inevitable death. - -“I should say yes, certainly,” said Lady Otway, with a decision most -unusual for her. - -“Then one ought to make up one’s mind to that before one is married,” -Katharine mused, seeming to address herself. - -Mrs. Hilbery was not much interested in these remarks, which seemed to -have a melancholy tendency, and to revive her spirits she had recourse -to an infallible remedy—she looked out of the window. - -“Do look at that lovely little blue bird!” she exclaimed, and her eye -looked with extreme pleasure at the soft sky. at the trees, at the -green fields visible behind those trees, and at the leafless branches -which surrounded the body of the small blue tit. Her sympathy with -nature was exquisite. - -“Most women know by instinct whether they can give it or not,” Lady -Otway slipped in quickly, in rather a low voice, as if she wanted to -get this said while her sister-in-law’s attention was diverted. “And if -not—well then, my advice would be—don’t marry.” - -“Oh, but marriage is the happiest life for a woman,” said Mrs. Hilbery, -catching the word marriage, as she brought her eyes back to the room -again. Then she turned her mind to what she had said. - -“It’s the most _interesting_ life,” she corrected herself. She looked -at her daughter with a look of vague alarm. It was the kind of maternal -scrutiny which suggests that, in looking at her daughter a mother is -really looking at herself. She was not altogether satisfied; but she -purposely made no attempt to break down the reserve which, as a matter -of fact, was a quality she particularly admired and depended upon in -her daughter. But when her mother said that marriage was the most -interesting life, Katharine felt, as she was apt to do suddenly, for no -definite reason, that they understood each other, in spite of differing -in every possible way. Yet the wisdom of the old seems to apply more to -feelings which we have in common with the rest of the human race than -to our feelings as individuals, and Katharine knew that only some one -of her own age could follow her meaning. Both these elderly women -seemed to her to have been content with so little happiness, and at the -moment she had not sufficient force to feel certain that their version -of marriage was the wrong one. In London, certainly, this temperate -attitude toward her own marriage had seemed to her just. Why had she -now changed? Why did it now depress her? It never occurred to her that -her own conduct could be anything of a puzzle to her mother, or that -elder people are as much affected by the young as the young are by -them. And yet it was true that love—passion—whatever one chose to call -it, had played far less part in Mrs. Hilbery’s life than might have -seemed likely, judging from her enthusiastic and imaginative -temperament. She had always been more interested by other things. Lady -Otway, strange though it seemed, guessed more accurately at Katharine’s -state of mind than her mother did. - -“Why don’t we all live in the country?” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery, once -more looking out of the window. “I’m sure one would think such -beautiful things if one lived in the country. No horrid slum houses to -depress one, no trams or motor-cars; and the people all looking so -plump and cheerful. Isn’t there some little cottage near you, -Charlotte, which would do for us, with a spare room, perhaps, in case -we asked a friend down? And we should save so much money that we should -be able to travel—” - -“Yes. You would find it very nice for a week or two, no doubt,” said -Lady Otway. “But what hour would you like the carriage this morning?” -she continued, touching the bell. - -“Katharine shall decide,” said Mrs. Hilbery, feeling herself unable to -prefer one hour to another. “And I was just going to tell you, -Katharine, how, when I woke this morning, everything seemed so clear in -my head that if I’d had a pencil I believe I could have written quite a -long chapter. When we’re out on our drive I shall find us a house. A -few trees round it, and a little garden, a pond with a Chinese duck, a -study for your father, a study for me, and a sitting room for -Katharine, because then she’ll be a married lady.” - -At this Katharine shivered a little, drew up to the fire, and warmed -her hands by spreading them over the topmost peak of the coal. She -wished to bring the talk back to marriage again, in order to hear Aunt -Charlotte’s views, but she did not know how to do this. - -“Let me look at your engagement-ring, Aunt Charlotte,” she said, -noticing her own. - -She took the cluster of green stones and turned it round and round, but -she did not know what to say next. - -“That poor old ring was a sad disappointment to me when I first had -it,” Lady Otway mused. “I’d set my heart on a diamond ring, but I never -liked to tell Frank, naturally. He bought it at Simla.” - -Katharine turned the ring round once more, and gave it back to her aunt -without speaking. And while she turned it round her lips set themselves -firmly together, and it seemed to her that she could satisfy William as -these women had satisfied their husbands; she could pretend to like -emeralds when she preferred diamonds. Having replaced her ring, Lady -Otway remarked that it was chilly, though not more so than one must -expect at this time of year. Indeed, one ought to be thankful to see -the sun at all, and she advised them both to dress warmly for their -drive. Her aunt’s stock of commonplaces, Katharine sometimes suspected, -had been laid in on purpose to fill silences with, and had little to do -with her private thoughts. But at this moment they seemed terribly in -keeping with her own conclusions, so that she took up her knitting -again and listened, chiefly with a view to confirming herself in the -belief that to be engaged to marry some one with whom you are not in -love is an inevitable step in a world where the existence of passion is -only a traveller’s story brought from the heart of deep forests and -told so rarely that wise people doubt whether the story can be true. -She did her best to listen to her mother asking for news of John, and -to her aunt replying with the authentic history of Hilda’s engagement -to an officer in the Indian Army, but she cast her mind alternately -towards forest paths and starry blossoms, and towards pages of neatly -written mathematical signs. When her mind took this turn her marriage -seemed no more than an archway through which it was necessary to pass -in order to have her desire. At such times the current of her nature -ran in its deep narrow channel with great force and with an alarming -lack of consideration for the feelings of others. Just as the two elder -ladies had finished their survey of the family prospects, and Lady -Otway was nervously anticipating some general statement as to life and -death from her sister-in-law, Cassandra burst into the room with the -news that the carriage was at the door. - -“Why didn’t Andrews tell me himself?” said Lady Otway, peevishly, -blaming her servants for not living up to her ideals. - -When Mrs. Hilbery and Katharine arrived in the hall, ready dressed for -their drive, they found that the usual discussion was going forward as -to the plans of the rest of the family. In token of this, a great many -doors were opening and shutting, two or three people stood irresolutely -on the stairs, now going a few steps up, and now a few steps down, and -Sir Francis himself had come out from his study, with the “Times” under -his arm, and a complaint about noise and draughts from the open door -which, at least, had the effect of bundling the people who did not want -to go into the carriage, and sending those who did not want to stay -back to their rooms. It was decided that Mrs. Hilbery, Katharine, -Rodney, and Henry should drive to Lincoln, and any one else who wished -to go should follow on bicycles or in the pony-cart. Every one who -stayed at Stogdon House had to make this expedition to Lincoln in -obedience to Lady Otway’s conception of the right way to entertain her -guests, which she had imbibed from reading in fashionable papers of the -behavior of Christmas parties in ducal houses. The carriage horses were -both fat and aged, still they matched; the carriage was shaky and -uncomfortable, but the Otway arms were visible on the panels. Lady -Otway stood on the topmost step, wrapped in a white shawl, and waved -her hand almost mechanically until they had turned the corner under the -laurel-bushes, when she retired indoors with a sense that she had -played her part, and a sigh at the thought that none of her children -felt it necessary to play theirs. - -The carriage bowled along smoothly over the gently curving road. Mrs. -Hilbery dropped into a pleasant, inattentive state of mind, in which -she was conscious of the running green lines of the hedges, of the -swelling ploughland, and of the mild blue sky, which served her, after -the first five minutes, for a pastoral background to the drama of human -life; and then she thought of a cottage garden, with the flash of -yellow daffodils against blue water; and what with the arrangement of -these different prospects, and the shaping of two or three lovely -phrases, she did not notice that the young people in the carriage were -almost silent. Henry, indeed, had been included against his wish, and -revenged himself by observing Katharine and Rodney with disillusioned -eyes; while Katharine was in a state of gloomy self-suppression which -resulted in complete apathy. When Rodney spoke to her she either said -“Hum!” or assented so listlessly that he addressed his next remark to -her mother. His deference was agreeable to her, his manners were -exemplary; and when the church towers and factory chimneys of the town -came into sight, she roused herself, and recalled memories of the fair -summer of 1853, which fitted in harmoniously with what she was dreaming -of the future. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -But other passengers were approaching Lincoln meanwhile by other roads -on foot. A county town draws the inhabitants of all vicarages, farms, -country houses, and wayside cottages, within a radius of ten miles at -least, once or twice a week to its streets; and among them, on this -occasion, were Ralph Denham and Mary Datchet. They despised the roads, -and took their way across the fields; and yet, from their appearance, -it did not seem as if they cared much where they walked so long as the -way did not actually trip them up. When they left the Vicarage, they -had begun an argument which swung their feet along so rhythmically in -time with it that they covered the ground at over four miles an hour, -and saw nothing of the hedgerows, the swelling plowland, or the mild -blue sky. What they saw were the Houses of Parliament and the -Government Offices in Whitehall. They both belonged to the class which -is conscious of having lost its birthright in these great structures -and is seeking to build another kind of lodging for its own notion of -law and government. Purposely, perhaps, Mary did not agree with Ralph; -she loved to feel her mind in conflict with his, and to be certain that -he spared her female judgment no ounce of his male muscularity. He -seemed to argue as fiercely with her as if she were his brother. They -were alike, however, in believing that it behooved them to take in hand -the repair and reconstruction of the fabric of England. They agreed in -thinking that nature has not been generous in the endowment of our -councilors. They agreed, unconsciously, in a mute love for the muddy -field through which they tramped, with eyes narrowed close by the -concentration of their minds. At length they drew breath, let the -argument fly away into the limbo of other good arguments, and, leaning -over a gate, opened their eyes for the first time and looked about -them. Their feet tingled with warm blood and their breath rose in steam -around them. The bodily exercise made them both feel more direct and -less self-conscious than usual, and Mary, indeed, was overcome by a -sort of light-headedness which made it seem to her that it mattered -very little what happened next. It mattered so little, indeed, that she -felt herself on the point of saying to Ralph: - -“I love you; I shall never love anybody else. Marry me or leave me; -think what you like of me—I don’t care a straw.” At the moment, -however, speech or silence seemed immaterial, and she merely clapped -her hands together, and looked at the distant woods with the rust-like -bloom on their brown, and the green and blue landscape through the -steam of her own breath. It seemed a mere toss-up whether she said, “I -love you,” or whether she said, “I love the beech-trees,” or only “I -love—I love.” - -“Do you know, Mary,” Ralph suddenly interrupted her, “I’ve made up my -mind.” - -Her indifference must have been superficial, for it disappeared at -once. Indeed, she lost sight of the trees, and saw her own hand upon -the topmost bar of the gate with extreme distinctness, while he went -on: - -“I’ve made up my mind to chuck my work and live down here. I want you -to tell me about that cottage you spoke of. However, I suppose there’ll -be no difficulty about getting a cottage, will there?” He spoke with an -assumption of carelessness as if expecting her to dissuade him. - -She still waited, as if for him to continue; she was convinced that in -some roundabout way he approached the subject of their marriage. - -“I can’t stand the office any longer,” he proceeded. “I don’t know what -my family will say; but I’m sure I’m right. Don’t you think so?” - -“Live down here by yourself?” she asked. - -“Some old woman would do for me, I suppose,” he replied. “I’m sick of -the whole thing,” he went on, and opened the gate with a jerk. They -began to cross the next field walking side by side. - -“I tell you, Mary, it’s utter destruction, working away, day after day, -at stuff that doesn’t matter a damn to any one. I’ve stood eight years -of it, and I’m not going to stand it any longer. I suppose this all -seems to you mad, though?” - -By this time Mary had recovered her self-control. - -“No. I thought you weren’t happy,” she said. - -“Why did you think that?” he asked, with some surprise. - -“Don’t you remember that morning in Lincoln’s Inn Fields?” she asked. - -“Yes,” said Ralph, slackening his pace and remembering Katharine and -her engagement, the purple leaves stamped into the path, the white -paper radiant under the electric light, and the hopelessness which -seemed to surround all these things. - -“You’re right, Mary,” he said, with something of an effort, “though I -don’t know how you guessed it.” - -She was silent, hoping that he might tell her the reason of his -unhappiness, for his excuses had not deceived her. - -“I was unhappy—very unhappy,” he repeated. Some six weeks separated him -from that afternoon when he had sat upon the Embankment watching his -visions dissolve in mist as the waters swam past and the sense of his -desolation still made him shiver. He had not recovered in the least -from that depression. Here was an opportunity for making himself face -it, as he felt that he ought to; for, by this time, no doubt, it was -only a sentimental ghost, better exorcised by ruthless exposure to such -an eye as Mary’s, than allowed to underlie all his actions and thoughts -as had been the case ever since he first saw Katharine Hilbery pouring -out tea. He must begin, however, by mentioning her name, and this he -found it impossible to do. He persuaded himself that he could make an -honest statement without speaking her name; he persuaded himself that -his feeling had very little to do with her. - -“Unhappiness is a state of mind,” he said, “by which I mean that it is -not necessarily the result of any particular cause.” - -This rather stilted beginning did not please him, and it became more -and more obvious to him that, whatever he might say, his unhappiness -had been directly caused by Katharine. - -“I began to find my life unsatisfactory,” he started afresh. “It seemed -to me meaningless.” He paused again, but felt that this, at any rate, -was true, and that on these lines he could go on. - -“All this money-making and working ten hours a day in an office, what’s -it FOR? When one’s a boy, you see, one’s head is so full of dreams that -it doesn’t seem to matter what one does. And if you’re ambitious, -you’re all right; you’ve got a reason for going on. Now my reasons -ceased to satisfy me. Perhaps I never had any. That’s very likely now I -come to think of it. (What reason is there for anything, though?) -Still, it’s impossible, after a certain age, to take oneself in -satisfactorily. And I know what carried me on”—for a good reason now -occurred to him—“I wanted to be the savior of my family and all that -kind of thing. I wanted them to get on in the world. That was a lie, of -course—a kind of self-glorification, too. Like most people, I suppose, -I’ve lived almost entirely among delusions, and now I’m at the awkward -stage of finding it out. I want another delusion to go on with. That’s -what my unhappiness amounts to, Mary.” - -There were two reasons that kept Mary very silent during this speech, -and drew curiously straight lines upon her face. In the first place, -Ralph made no mention of marriage; in the second, he was not speaking -the truth. - -“I don’t think it will be difficult to find a cottage,” she said, with -cheerful hardness, ignoring the whole of this statement. “You’ve got a -little money, haven’t you? Yes,” she concluded, “I don’t see why it -shouldn’t be a very good plan.” - -They crossed the field in complete silence. Ralph was surprised by her -remark and a little hurt, and yet, on the whole, rather pleased. He had -convinced himself that it was impossible to lay his case truthfully -before Mary, and, secretly, he was relieved to find that he had not -parted with his dream to her. She was, as he had always found her, the -sensible, loyal friend, the woman he trusted; whose sympathy he could -count upon, provided he kept within certain limits. He was not -displeased to find that those limits were very clearly marked. When -they had crossed the next hedge she said to him: - -“Yes, Ralph, it’s time you made a break. I’ve come to the same -conclusion myself. Only it won’t be a country cottage in my case; it’ll -be America. America!” she cried. “That’s the place for me! They’ll -teach me something about organizing a movement there, and I’ll come -back and show you how to do it.” - -If she meant consciously or unconsciously to belittle the seclusion and -security of a country cottage, she did not succeed; for Ralph’s -determination was genuine. But she made him visualize her in her own -character, so that he looked quickly at her, as she walked a little in -front of him across the plowed field; for the first time that morning -he saw her independently of him or of his preoccupation with Katharine. -He seemed to see her marching ahead, a rather clumsy but powerful and -independent figure, for whose courage he felt the greatest respect. - -“Don’t go away, Mary!” he exclaimed, and stopped. - -“That’s what you said before, Ralph,” she returned, without looking at -him. “You want to go away yourself and you don’t want me to go away. -That’s not very sensible, is it?” - -“Mary,” he cried, stung by the remembrance of his exacting and -dictatorial ways with her, “what a brute I’ve been to you!” - -It took all her strength to keep the tears from springing, and to -thrust back her assurance that she would forgive him till Doomsday if -he chose. She was preserved from doing so only by a stubborn kind of -respect for herself which lay at the root of her nature and forbade -surrender, even in moments of almost overwhelming passion. Now, when -all was tempest and high-running waves, she knew of a land where the -sun shone clear upon Italian grammars and files of docketed papers. -Nevertheless, from the skeleton pallor of that land and the rocks that -broke its surface, she knew that her life there would be harsh and -lonely almost beyond endurance. She walked steadily a little in front -of him across the plowed field. Their way took them round the verge of -a wood of thin trees standing at the edge of a steep fold in the land. -Looking between the tree-trunks, Ralph saw laid out on the perfectly -flat and richly green meadow at the bottom of the hill a small gray -manor-house, with ponds, terraces, and clipped hedges in front of it, a -farm building or so at the side, and a screen of fir-trees rising -behind, all perfectly sheltered and self-sufficient. Behind the house -the hill rose again, and the trees on the farther summit stood upright -against the sky, which appeared of a more intense blue between their -trunks. His mind at once was filled with a sense of the actual presence -of Katharine; the gray house and the intense blue sky gave him the -feeling of her presence close by. He leant against a tree, forming her -name beneath his breath: - -“Katharine, Katharine,” he said aloud, and then, looking round, saw -Mary walking slowly away from him, tearing a long spray of ivy from the -trees as she passed them. She seemed so definitely opposed to the -vision he held in his mind that he returned to it with a gesture of -impatience. - -“Katharine, Katharine,” he repeated, and seemed to himself to be with -her. He lost his sense of all that surrounded him; all substantial -things—the hour of the day, what we have done and are about to do, the -presence of other people and the support we derive from seeing their -belief in a common reality—all this slipped from him. So he might have -felt if the earth had dropped from his feet, and the empty blue had -hung all round him, and the air had been steeped in the presence of one -woman. The chirp of a robin on the bough above his head awakened him, -and his awakenment was accompanied by a sigh. Here was the world in -which he had lived; here the plowed field, the high road yonder, and -Mary, stripping ivy from the trees. When he came up with her he linked -his arm through hers and said: - -“Now, Mary, what’s all this about America?” - -There was a brotherly kindness in his voice which seemed to her -magnanimous, when she reflected that she had cut short his explanations -and shown little interest in his change of plan. She gave him her -reasons for thinking that she might profit by such a journey, omitting -the one reason which had set all the rest in motion. He listened -attentively, and made no attempt to dissuade her. In truth, he found -himself curiously eager to make certain of her good sense, and accepted -each fresh proof of it with satisfaction, as though it helped him to -make up his mind about something. She forgot the pain he had caused -her, and in place of it she became conscious of a steady tide of -well-being which harmonized very aptly with the tramp of their feet -upon the dry road and the support of his arm. The comfort was the more -glowing in that it seemed to be the reward of her determination to -behave to him simply and without attempting to be other than she was. -Instead of making out an interest in the poets, she avoided them -instinctively, and dwelt rather insistently upon the practical nature -of her gifts. - -In a practical way she asked for particulars of his cottage, which -hardly existed in his mind, and corrected his vagueness. - -“You must see that there’s water,” she insisted, with an exaggeration -of interest. She avoided asking him what he meant to do in this -cottage, and, at last, when all the practical details had been thrashed -out as much as possible, he rewarded her by a more intimate statement. - -“One of the rooms,” he said, “must be my study, for, you see, Mary, I’m -going to write a book.” Here he withdrew his arm from hers, lit his -pipe, and they tramped on in a sagacious kind of comradeship, the most -complete they had attained in all their friendship. - -“And what’s your book to be about?” she said, as boldly as if she had -never come to grief with Ralph in talking about books. He told her -unhesitatingly that he meant to write the history of the English -village from Saxon days to the present time. Some such plan had lain as -a seed in his mind for many years; and now that he had decided, in a -flash, to give up his profession, the seed grew in the space of twenty -minutes both tall and lusty. He was surprised himself at the positive -way in which he spoke. It was the same with the question of his -cottage. That had come into existence, too, in an unromantic shape—a -square white house standing just off the high road, no doubt, with a -neighbor who kept a pig and a dozen squalling children; for these plans -were shorn of all romance in his mind, and the pleasure he derived from -thinking of them was checked directly it passed a very sober limit. So -a sensible man who has lost his chance of some beautiful inheritance -might tread out the narrow bounds of his actual dwelling-place, and -assure himself that life is supportable within its demesne, only one -must grow turnips and cabbages, not melons and pomegranates. Certainly -Ralph took some pride in the resources of his mind, and was insensibly -helped to right himself by Mary’s trust in him. She wound her ivy spray -round her ash-plant, and for the first time for many days, when alone -with Ralph, set no spies upon her motives, sayings, and feelings, but -surrendered herself to complete happiness. - -Thus talking, with easy silences and some pauses to look at the view -over the hedge and to decide upon the species of a little gray-brown -bird slipping among the twigs, they walked into Lincoln, and after -strolling up and down the main street, decided upon an inn where the -rounded window suggested substantial fare, nor were they mistaken. For -over a hundred and fifty years hot joints, potatoes, greens, and apple -puddings had been served to generations of country gentlemen, and now, -sitting at a table in the hollow of the bow window, Ralph and Mary took -their share of this perennial feast. Looking across the joint, half-way -through the meal, Mary wondered whether Ralph would ever come to look -quite like the other people in the room. Would he be absorbed among the -round pink faces, pricked with little white bristles, the calves fitted -in shiny brown leather, the black-and-white check suits, which were -sprinkled about in the same room with them? She half hoped so; she -thought that it was only in his mind that he was different. She did not -wish him to be too different from other people. The walk had given him -a ruddy color, too, and his eyes were lit up by a steady, honest light, -which could not make the simplest farmer feel ill at ease, or suggest -to the most devout of clergymen a disposition to sneer at his faith. -She loved the steep cliff of his forehead, and compared it to the brow -of a young Greek horseman, who reins his horse back so sharply that it -half falls on its haunches. He always seemed to her like a rider on a -spirited horse. And there was an exaltation to her in being with him, -because there was a risk that he would not be able to keep to the right -pace among other people. Sitting opposite him at the little table in -the window, she came back to that state of careless exaltation which -had overcome her when they halted by the gate, but now it was -accompanied by a sense of sanity and security, for she felt that they -had a feeling in common which scarcely needed embodiment in words. How -silent he was! leaning his forehead on his hand, now and then, and -again looking steadily and gravely at the backs of the two men at the -next table, with so little self-consciousness that she could almost -watch his mind placing one thought solidly upon the top of another; she -thought that she could feel him thinking, through the shade of her -fingers, and she could anticipate the exact moment when he would put an -end to his thought and turn a little in his chair and say: - -“Well, Mary—?” inviting her to take up the thread of thought where he -had dropped it. - -And at that very moment he turned just so, and said: - -“Well, Mary?” with the curious touch of diffidence which she loved in -him. - -She laughed, and she explained her laugh on the spur of the moment by -the look of the people in the street below. There was a motor-car with -an old lady swathed in blue veils, and a lady’s maid on the seat -opposite, holding a King Charles’s spaniel; there was a country-woman -wheeling a perambulator full of sticks down the middle of the road; -there was a bailiff in gaiters discussing the state of the cattle -market with a dissenting minister—so she defined them. - -She ran over this list without any fear that her companion would think -her trivial. Indeed, whether it was due to the warmth of the room or to -the good roast beef, or whether Ralph had achieved the process which is -called making up one’s mind, certainly he had given up testing the good -sense, the independent character, the intelligence shown in her -remarks. He had been building one of those piles of thought, as -ramshackle and fantastic as a Chinese pagoda, half from words let fall -by gentlemen in gaiters, half from the litter in his own mind, about -duck shooting and legal history, about the Roman occupation of Lincoln -and the relations of country gentlemen with their wives, when, from all -this disconnected rambling, there suddenly formed itself in his mind -the idea that he would ask Mary to marry him. The idea was so -spontaneous that it seemed to shape itself of its own accord before his -eyes. It was then that he turned round and made use of his old, -instinctive phrase: - -“Well, Mary—?” - -As it presented itself to him at first, the idea was so new and -interesting that he was half inclined to address it, without more ado, -to Mary herself. His natural instinct to divide his thoughts carefully -into two different classes before he expressed them to her prevailed. -But as he watched her looking out of the window and describing the old -lady, the woman with the perambulator, the bailiff and the dissenting -minister, his eyes filled involuntarily with tears. He would have liked -to lay his head on her shoulder and sob, while she parted his hair with -her fingers and soothed him and said: - -“There, there. Don’t cry! Tell me why you’re crying—“; and they would -clasp each other tight, and her arms would hold him like his mother’s. -He felt that he was very lonely, and that he was afraid of the other -people in the room. - -“How damnable this all is!” he exclaimed abruptly. - -“What are you talking about?” she replied, rather vaguely, still -looking out of the window. - -He resented this divided attention more than, perhaps, he knew, and he -thought how Mary would soon be on her way to America. - -“Mary,” he said, “I want to talk to you. Haven’t we nearly done? Why -don’t they take away these plates?” - -Mary felt his agitation without looking at him; she felt convinced that -she knew what it was that he wished to say to her. - -“They’ll come all in good time,” she said; and felt it necessary to -display her extreme calmness by lifting a salt-cellar and sweeping up a -little heap of bread-crumbs. - -“I want to apologize,” Ralph continued, not quite knowing what he was -about to say, but feeling some curious instinct which urged him to -commit himself irrevocably, and to prevent the moment of intimacy from -passing. - -“I think I’ve treated you very badly. That is, I’ve told you lies. Did -you guess that I was lying to you? Once in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and -again to-day on our walk. I am a liar, Mary. Did you know that? Do you -think you do know me?” - -“I think I do,” she said. - -At this point the waiter changed their plates. - -“It’s true I don’t want you to go to America,” he said, looking fixedly -at the table-cloth. “In fact, my feelings towards you seem to be -utterly and damnably bad,” he said energetically, although forced to -keep his voice low. - -“If I weren’t a selfish beast I should tell you to have nothing more to -do with me. And yet, Mary, in spite of the fact that I believe what I’m -saying, I also believe that it’s good we should know each other—the -world being what it is, you see—” and by a nod of his head he indicated -the other occupants of the room, “for, of course, in an ideal state of -things, in a decent community even, there’s no doubt you shouldn’t have -anything to do with me—seriously, that is.” - -“You forget that I’m not an ideal character, either,” said Mary, in the -same low and very earnest tones, which, in spite of being almost -inaudible, surrounded their table with an atmosphere of concentration -which was quite perceptible to the other diners, who glanced at them -now and then with a queer mixture of kindness, amusement, and -curiosity. - -“I’m much more selfish than I let on, and I’m worldly a little—more -than you think, anyhow. I like bossing things—perhaps that’s my -greatest fault. I’ve none of your passion for—” here she hesitated, and -glanced at him, as if to ascertain what his passion was for—“for the -truth,” she added, as if she had found what she sought indisputably. - -“I’ve told you I’m a liar,” Ralph repeated obstinately. - -“Oh, in little things, I dare say,” she said impatiently. “But not in -real ones, and that’s what matters. I dare say I’m more truthful than -you are in small ways. But I could never care”—she was surprised to -find herself speaking the word, and had to force herself to speak it -out—“for any one who was a liar in that way. I love the truth a certain -amount—a considerable amount—but not in the way you love it.” Her voice -sank, became inaudible, and wavered as if she could scarcely keep -herself from tears. - -“Good heavens!” Ralph exclaimed to himself. “She loves me! Why did I -never see it before? She’s going to cry; no, but she can’t speak.” - -The certainty overwhelmed him so that he scarcely knew what he was -doing; the blood rushed to his cheeks, and although he had quite made -up his mind to ask her to marry him, the certainty that she loved him -seemed to change the situation so completely that he could not do it. -He did not dare to look at her. If she cried, he did not know what he -should do. It seemed to him that something of a terrible and -devastating nature had happened. The waiter changed their plates once -more. - -In his agitation Ralph rose, turned his back upon Mary, and looked out -of the window. The people in the street seemed to him only a dissolving -and combining pattern of black particles; which, for the moment, -represented very well the involuntary procession of feelings and -thoughts which formed and dissolved in rapid succession in his own -mind. At one moment he exulted in the thought that Mary loved him; at -the next, it seemed that he was without feeling for her; her love was -repulsive to him. Now he felt urged to marry her at once; now to -disappear and never see her again. In order to control this disorderly -race of thought he forced himself to read the name on the chemist’s -shop directly opposite him; then to examine the objects in the shop -windows, and then to focus his eyes exactly upon a little group of -women looking in at the great windows of a large draper’s shop. This -discipline having given him at least a superficial control of himself, -he was about to turn and ask the waiter to bring the bill, when his eye -was caught by a tall figure walking quickly along the opposite -pavement—a tall figure, upright, dark, and commanding, much detached -from her surroundings. She held her gloves in her left hand, and the -left hand was bare. All this Ralph noticed and enumerated and -recognized before he put a name to the whole—Katharine Hilbery. She -seemed to be looking for somebody. Her eyes, in fact, scanned both -sides of the street, and for one second were raised directly to the bow -window in which Ralph stood; but she looked away again instantly -without giving any sign that she had seen him. This sudden apparition -had an extraordinary effect upon him. It was as if he had thought of -her so intensely that his mind had formed the shape of her, rather than -that he had seen her in the flesh outside in the street. And yet he had -not been thinking of her at all. The impression was so intense that he -could not dismiss it, nor even think whether he had seen her or merely -imagined her. He sat down at once, and said, briefly and strangely, -rather to himself than to Mary: - -“That was Katharine Hilbery.” - -“Katharine Hilbery? What do you mean?” she asked, hardly understanding -from his manner whether he had seen her or not. - -“Katharine Hilbery,” he repeated. “But she’s gone now.” - -“Katharine Hilbery!” Mary thought, in an instant of blinding -revelation; “I’ve always known it was Katharine Hilbery!” She knew it -all now. - -After a moment of downcast stupor, she raised her eyes, looked steadily -at Ralph, and caught his fixed and dreamy gaze leveled at a point far -beyond their surroundings, a point that she had never reached in all -the time that she had known him. She noticed the lips just parted, the -fingers loosely clenched, the whole attitude of rapt contemplation, -which fell like a veil between them. She noticed everything about him; -if there had been other signs of his utter alienation she would have -sought them out, too, for she felt that it was only by heaping one -truth upon another that she could keep herself sitting there, upright. -The truth seemed to support her; it struck her, even as she looked at -his face, that the light of truth was shining far away beyond him; the -light of truth, she seemed to frame the words as she rose to go, shines -on a world not to be shaken by our personal calamities. - -Ralph handed her her coat and her stick. She took them, fastened the -coat securely, grasped the stick firmly. The ivy spray was still -twisted about the handle; this one sacrifice, she thought, she might -make to sentimentality and personality, and she picked two leaves from -the ivy and put them in her pocket before she disencumbered her stick -of the rest of it. She grasped the stick in the middle, and settled her -fur cap closely upon her head, as if she must be in trim for a long and -stormy walk. Next, standing in the middle of the road, she took a slip -of paper from her purse, and read out loud a list of commissions -entrusted to her—fruit, butter, string, and so on; and all the time she -never spoke directly to Ralph or looked at him. - -Ralph heard her giving orders to attentive, rosy-checked men in white -aprons, and in spite of his own preoccupation, he commented upon the -determination with which she made her wishes known. Once more he began, -automatically, to take stock of her characteristics. Standing thus, -superficially observant and stirring the sawdust on the floor -meditatively with the toe of his boot, he was roused by a musical and -familiar voice behind him, accompanied by a light touch upon his -shoulder. - -“I’m not mistaken? Surely Mr. Denham? I caught a glimpse of your coat -through the window, and I felt sure that I knew your coat. Have you -seen Katharine or William? I’m wandering about Lincoln looking for the -ruins.” - -It was Mrs. Hilbery; her entrance created some stir in the shop; many -people looked at her. - -“First of all, tell me where I am,” she demanded, but, catching sight -of the attentive shopman, she appealed to him. “The ruins—my party is -waiting for me at the ruins. The Roman ruins—or Greek, Mr. Denham? Your -town has a great many beautiful things in it, but I wish it hadn’t so -many ruins. I never saw such delightful little pots of honey in my -life—are they made by your own bees? Please give me one of those little -pots, and tell me how I shall find my way to the ruins.” - -“And now,” she continued, having received the information and the pot -of honey, having been introduced to Mary, and having insisted that they -should accompany her back to the ruins, since in a town with so many -turnings, such prospects, such delightful little half-naked boys -dabbling in pools, such Venetian canals, such old blue china in the -curiosity shops, it was impossible for one person all alone to find her -way to the ruins. “Now,” she exclaimed, “please tell me what you’re -doing here, Mr. Denham—for you _are_ Mr. Denham, aren’t you?” she -inquired, gazing at him with a sudden suspicion of her own accuracy. -“The brilliant young man who writes for the Review, I mean? Only -yesterday my husband was telling me he thought you one of the cleverest -young men he knew. Certainly, you’ve been the messenger of Providence -to me, for unless I’d seen you I’m sure I should never have found the -ruins at all.” - -They had reached the Roman arch when Mrs. Hilbery caught sight of her -own party, standing like sentinels facing up and down the road so as to -intercept her if, as they expected, she had got lodged in some shop. - -“I’ve found something much better than ruins!” she exclaimed. “I’ve -found two friends who told me how to find you, which I could never have -done without them. They must come and have tea with us. What a pity -that we’ve just had luncheon.” Could they not somehow revoke that meal? - -Katharine, who had gone a few steps by herself down the road, and was -investigating the window of an ironmonger, as if her mother might have -got herself concealed among mowing-machines and garden-shears, turned -sharply on hearing her voice, and came towards them. She was a great -deal surprised to see Denham and Mary Datchet. Whether the cordiality -with which she greeted them was merely that which is natural to a -surprise meeting in the country, or whether she was really glad to see -them both, at any rate she exclaimed with unusual pleasure as she shook -hands: - -“I never knew you lived here. Why didn’t you say so, and we could have -met? And are you staying with Mary?” she continued, turning to Ralph. -“What a pity we didn’t meet before.” - -Thus confronted at a distance of only a few feet by the real body of -the woman about whom he had dreamt so many million dreams, Ralph -stammered; he made a clutch at his self-control; the color either came -to his cheeks or left them, he knew not which; but he was determined to -face her and track down in the cold light of day whatever vestige of -truth there might be in his persistent imaginations. He did not succeed -in saying anything. It was Mary who spoke for both of them. He was -struck dumb by finding that Katharine was quite different, in some -strange way, from his memory, so that he had to dismiss his old view in -order to accept the new one. The wind was blowing her crimson scarf -across her face; the wind had already loosened her hair, which looped -across the corner of one of the large, dark eyes which, so he used to -think, looked sad; now they looked bright with the brightness of the -sea struck by an unclouded ray; everything about her seemed rapid, -fragmentary, and full of a kind of racing speed. He realized suddenly -that he had never seen her in the daylight before. - -Meanwhile, it was decided that it was too late to go in search of ruins -as they had intended; and the whole party began to walk towards the -stables where the carriage had been put up. - -“Do you know,” said Katharine, keeping slightly in advance of the rest -with Ralph, “I thought I saw you this morning, standing at a window. -But I decided that it couldn’t be you. And it must have been you all -the same.” - -“Yes, I thought I saw you—but it wasn’t you,” he replied. - -This remark, and the rough strain in his voice, recalled to her memory -so many difficult speeches and abortive meetings that she was jerked -directly back to the London drawing-room, the family relics, and the -tea-table; and at the same time recalled some half-finished or -interrupted remark which she had wanted to make herself or to hear from -him—she could not remember what it was. - -“I expect it was me,” she said. “I was looking for my mother. It -happens every time we come to Lincoln. In fact, there never was a -family so unable to take care of itself as ours is. Not that it very -much matters, because some one always turns up in the nick of time to -help us out of our scrapes. Once I was left in a field with a bull when -I was a baby—but where did we leave the carriage? Down that street or -the next? The next, I think.” She glanced back and saw that the others -were following obediently, listening to certain memories of Lincoln -upon which Mrs. Hilbery had started. “But what are you doing here?” she -asked. - -“I’m buying a cottage. I’m going to live here—as soon as I can find a -cottage, and Mary tells me there’ll be no difficulty about that.” - -“But,” she exclaimed, almost standing still in her surprise, “you will -give up the Bar, then?” It flashed across her mind that he must already -be engaged to Mary. - -“The solicitor’s office? Yes. I’m giving that up.” - -“But why?” she asked. She answered herself at once, with a curious -change from rapid speech to an almost melancholy tone. “I think you’re -very wise to give it up. You will be much happier.” - -At this very moment, when her words seemed to be striking a path into -the future for him, they stepped into the yard of an inn, and there -beheld the family coach of the Otways, to which one sleek horse was -already attached, while the second was being led out of the stable door -by the hostler. - -“I don’t know what one means by happiness,” he said briefly, having to -step aside in order to avoid a groom with a bucket. “Why do you think I -shall be happy? I don’t expect to be anything of the kind. I expect to -be rather less unhappy. I shall write a book and curse my charwoman—if -happiness consists in that. What do you think?” - -She could not answer because they were immediately surrounded by other -members of the party—by Mrs. Hilbery, and Mary, Henry Otway, and -William. - -Rodney went up to Katharine immediately and said to her: - -“Henry is going to drive home with your mother, and I suggest that they -should put us down half-way and let us walk back.” - -Katharine nodded her head. She glanced at him with an oddly furtive -expression. - -“Unfortunately we go in opposite directions, or we might have given you -a lift,” he continued to Denham. His manner was unusually peremptory; -he seemed anxious to hasten the departure, and Katharine looked at him -from time to time, as Denham noticed, with an expression half of -inquiry, half of annoyance. She at once helped her mother into her -cloak, and said to Mary: - -“I want to see you. Are you going back to London at once? I will -write.” She half smiled at Ralph, but her look was a little overcast by -something she was thinking, and in a very few minutes the Otway -carriage rolled out of the stable yard and turned down the high road -leading to the village of Lampsher. - -The return drive was almost as silent as the drive from home had been -in the morning; indeed, Mrs. Hilbery leant back with closed eyes in her -corner, and either slept or feigned sleep, as her habit was in the -intervals between the seasons of active exertion, or continued the -story which she had begun to tell herself that morning. - -About two miles from Lampsher the road ran over the rounded summit of -the heath, a lonely spot marked by an obelisk of granite, setting forth -the gratitude of some great lady of the eighteenth century who had been -set upon by highwaymen at this spot and delivered from death just as -hope seemed lost. In summer it was a pleasant place, for the deep woods -on either side murmured, and the heather, which grew thick round the -granite pedestal, made the light breeze taste sweetly; in winter the -sighing of the trees was deepened to a hollow sound, and the heath was -as gray and almost as solitary as the empty sweep of the clouds above -it. - -Here Rodney stopped the carriage and helped Katharine to alight. Henry, -too, gave her his hand, and fancied that she pressed it very slightly -in parting as if she sent him a message. But the carriage rolled on -immediately, without wakening Mrs. Hilbery, and left the couple -standing by the obelisk. That Rodney was angry with her and had made -this opportunity for speaking to her, Katharine knew very well; she was -neither glad nor sorry that the time had come, nor, indeed, knew what -to expect, and thus remained silent. The carriage grew smaller and -smaller upon the dusky road, and still Rodney did not speak. Perhaps, -she thought, he waited until the last sign of the carriage had -disappeared beneath the curve of the road and they were left entirely -alone. To cloak their silence she read the writing on the obelisk, to -do which she had to walk completely round it. She was murmuring a word -to two of the pious lady’s thanks above her breath when Rodney joined -her. In silence they set out along the cart-track which skirted the -verge of the trees. - -To break the silence was exactly what Rodney wished to do, and yet -could not do to his own satisfaction. In company it was far easier to -approach Katharine; alone with her, the aloofness and force of her -character checked all his natural methods of attack. He believed that -she had behaved very badly to him, but each separate instance of -unkindness seemed too petty to be advanced when they were alone -together. - -“There’s no need for us to race,” he complained at last; upon which she -immediately slackened her pace, and walked too slowly to suit him. In -desperation he said the first thing he thought of, very peevishly and -without the dignified prelude which he had intended. - -“I’ve not enjoyed my holiday.” - -“No?” - -“No. I shall be glad to get back to work again.” - -“Saturday, Sunday, Monday—there are only three days more,” she counted. - -“No one enjoys being made a fool of before other people,” he blurted -out, for his irritation rose as she spoke, and got the better of his -awe of her, and was inflamed by that awe. - -“That refers to me, I suppose,” she said calmly. - -“Every day since we’ve been here you’ve done something to make me -appear ridiculous,” he went on. “Of course, so long as it amuses you, -you’re welcome; but we have to remember that we are going to spend our -lives together. I asked you, only this morning, for example, to come -out and take a turn with me in the garden. I was waiting for you ten -minutes, and you never came. Every one saw me waiting. The stable-boys -saw me. I was so ashamed that I went in. Then, on the drive you hardly -spoke to me. Henry noticed it. Every one notices it.... You find no -difficulty in talking to Henry, though.” - -She noted these various complaints and determined philosophically to -answer none of them, although the last stung her to considerable -irritation. She wished to find out how deep his grievance lay. - -“None of these things seem to me to matter,” she said. - -“Very well, then. I may as well hold my tongue,” he replied. - -“In themselves they don’t seem to me to matter; if they hurt you, of -course they matter,” she corrected herself scrupulously. Her tone of -consideration touched him, and he walked on in silence for a space. - -“And we might be so happy, Katharine!” he exclaimed impulsively, and -drew her arm through his. She withdrew it directly. - -“As long as you let yourself feel like this we shall never be happy,” -she said. - -The harshness, which Henry had noticed, was again unmistakable in her -manner. William flinched and was silent. Such severity, accompanied by -something indescribably cold and impersonal in her manner, had -constantly been meted out to him during the last few days, always in -the company of others. He had recouped himself by some ridiculous -display of vanity which, as he knew, put him still more at her mercy. -Now that he was alone with her there was no stimulus from outside to -draw his attention from his injury. By a considerable effort of -self-control he forced himself to remain silent, and to make himself -distinguish what part of his pain was due to vanity, what part to the -certainty that no woman really loving him could speak thus. - -“What do I feel about Katharine?” he thought to himself. It was clear -that she had been a very desirable and distinguished figure, the -mistress of her little section of the world; but more than that, she -was the person of all others who seemed to him the arbitress of life, -the woman whose judgment was naturally right and steady, as his had -never been in spite of all his culture. And then he could not see her -come into a room without a sense of the flowing of robes, of the -flowering of blossoms, of the purple waves of the sea, of all things -that are lovely and mutable on the surface but still and passionate in -their heart. - -“If she were callous all the time and had only led me on to laugh at me -I couldn’t have felt that about her,” he thought. “I’m not a fool, -after all. I can’t have been utterly mistaken all these years. And yet, -when she speaks to me like that! The truth of it is,” he thought, “that -I’ve got such despicable faults that no one could help speaking to me -like that. Katharine is quite right. And yet those are not my serious -feelings, as she knows quite well. How can I change myself? What would -make her care for me?” He was terribly tempted here to break the -silence by asking Katharine in what respects he could change himself to -suit her; but he sought consolation instead by running over the list of -his gifts and acquirements, his knowledge of Greek and Latin, his -knowledge of art and literature, his skill in the management of meters, -and his ancient west-country blood. But the feeling that underlay all -these feelings and puzzled him profoundly and kept him silent was the -certainty that he loved Katharine as sincerely as he had it in him to -love any one. And yet she could speak to him like that! In a sort of -bewilderment he lost all desire to speak, and would quite readily have -taken up some different topic of conversation if Katharine had started -one. This, however, she did not do. - -He glanced at her, in case her expression might help him to understand -her behavior. As usual, she had quickened her pace unconsciously, and -was now walking a little in front of him; but he could gain little -information from her eyes, which looked steadily at the brown heather, -or from the lines drawn seriously upon her forehead. Thus to lose touch -with her, for he had no idea what she was thinking, was so unpleasant -to him that he began to talk about his grievances again, without, -however, much conviction in his voice. - -“If you have no feeling for me, wouldn’t it be kinder to say so to me -in private?” - -“Oh, William,” she burst out, as if he had interrupted some absorbing -train of thought, “how you go on about feelings! Isn’t it better not to -talk so much, not to be worrying always about small things that don’t -really matter?” - -“That’s the question precisely,” he exclaimed. “I only want you to tell -me that they don’t matter. There are times when you seem indifferent to -everything. I’m vain, I’ve a thousand faults; but you know they’re not -everything; you know I care for you.” - -“And if I say that I care for you, don’t you believe me?” - -“Say it, Katharine! Say it as if you meant it! Make me feel that you -care for me!” - -She could not force herself to speak a word. The heather was growing -dim around them, and the horizon was blotted out by white mist. To ask -her for passion or for certainty seemed like asking that damp prospect -for fierce blades of fire, or the faded sky for the intense blue vault -of June. - -He went on now to tell her of his love for her, in words which bore, -even to her critical senses, the stamp of truth; but none of this -touched her, until, coming to a gate whose hinge was rusty, he heaved -it open with his shoulder, still talking and taking no account of his -effort. The virility of this deed impressed her; and yet, normally, she -attached no value to the power of opening gates. The strength of -muscles has nothing to do on the face of it with the strength of -affections; nevertheless, she felt a sudden concern for this power -running to waste on her account, which, combined with a desire to keep -possession of that strangely attractive masculine power, made her rouse -herself from her torpor. - -Why should she not simply tell him the truth—which was that she had -accepted him in a misty state of mind when nothing had its right shape -or size? that it was deplorable, but that with clearer eyesight -marriage was out of the question? She did not want to marry any one. -She wanted to go away by herself, preferably to some bleak northern -moor, and there study mathematics and the science of astronomy. Twenty -words would explain the whole situation to him. He had ceased to speak; -he had told her once more how he loved her and why. She summoned her -courage, fixed her eyes upon a lightning-splintered ash-tree, and, -almost as if she were reading a writing fixed to the trunk, began: - -“I was wrong to get engaged to you. I shall never make you happy. I -have never loved you.” - -“Katharine!” he protested. - -“No, never,” she repeated obstinately. “Not rightly. Don’t you see, I -didn’t know what I was doing?” - -“You love some one else?” he cut her short. - -“Absolutely no one.” - -“Henry?” he demanded. - -“Henry? I should have thought, William, even you—” - -“There is some one,” he persisted. “There has been a change in the last -few weeks. You owe it to me to be honest, Katharine.” - -“If I could, I would,” she replied. - -“Why did you tell me you would marry me, then?” he demanded. - -Why, indeed? A moment of pessimism, a sudden conviction of the -undeniable prose of life, a lapse of the illusion which sustains youth -midway between heaven and earth, a desperate attempt to reconcile -herself with facts—she could only recall a moment, as of waking from a -dream, which now seemed to her a moment of surrender. But who could -give reasons such as these for doing what she had done? She shook her -head very sadly. - -“But you’re not a child—you’re not a woman of moods,” Rodney persisted. -“You couldn’t have accepted me if you hadn’t loved me!” he cried. - -A sense of her own misbehavior, which she had succeeded in keeping from -her by sharpening her consciousness of Rodney’s faults, now swept over -her and almost overwhelmed her. What were his faults in comparison with -the fact that he cared for her? What were her virtues in comparison -with the fact that she did not care for him? In a flash the conviction -that not to care is the uttermost sin of all stamped itself upon her -inmost thought; and she felt herself branded for ever. - -He had taken her arm, and held her hand firmly in his, nor had she the -force to resist what now seemed to her his enormously superior -strength. Very well; she would submit, as her mother and her aunt and -most women, perhaps, had submitted; and yet she knew that every second -of such submission to his strength was a second of treachery to him. - -“I did say I would marry you, but it was wrong,” she forced herself to -say, and she stiffened her arm as if to annul even the seeming -submission of that separate part of her; “for I don’t love you, -William; you’ve noticed it, every one’s noticed it; why should we go on -pretending? When I told you I loved you, I was wrong. I said what I -knew to be untrue.” - -As none of her words seemed to her at all adequate to represent what -she felt, she repeated them, and emphasized them without realizing the -effect that they might have upon a man who cared for her. She was -completely taken aback by finding her arm suddenly dropped; then she -saw his face most strangely contorted; was he laughing, it flashed -across her? In another moment she saw that he was in tears. In her -bewilderment at this apparition she stood aghast for a second. With a -desperate sense that this horror must, at all costs, be stopped, she -then put her arms about him, drew his head for a moment upon her -shoulder, and led him on, murmuring words of consolation, until he -heaved a great sigh. They held fast to each other; her tears, too, ran -down her cheeks; and were both quite silent. Noticing the difficulty -with which he walked, and feeling the same extreme lassitude in her own -limbs, she proposed that they should rest for a moment where the -bracken was brown and shriveled beneath an oak-tree. He assented. Once -more he gave a great sigh, and wiped his eyes with a childlike -unconsciousness, and began to speak without a trace of his previous -anger. The idea came to her that they were like the children in the -fairy tale who were lost in a wood, and with this in her mind she -noticed the scattering of dead leaves all round them which had been -blown by the wind into heaps, a foot or two deep, here and there. - -“When did you begin to feel this, Katharine?” he said; “for it isn’t -true to say that you’ve always felt it. I admit I was unreasonable the -first night when you found that your clothes had been left behind. -Still, where’s the fault in that? I could promise you never to -interfere with your clothes again. I admit I was cross when I found you -upstairs with Henry. Perhaps I showed it too openly. But that’s not -unreasonable either when one’s engaged. Ask your mother. And now this -terrible thing—” He broke off, unable for the moment to proceed any -further. “This decision you say you’ve come to—have you discussed it -with any one? Your mother, for example, or Henry?” - -“No, no, of course not,” she said, stirring the leaves with her hand. -“But you don’t understand me, William—” - -“Help me to understand you—” - -“You don’t understand, I mean, my real feelings; how could you? I’ve -only now faced them myself. But I haven’t got the sort of feeling—love, -I mean—I don’t know what to call it”—she looked vaguely towards the -horizon sunk under mist—“but, anyhow, without it our marriage would be -a farce—” - -“How a farce?” he asked. “But this kind of analysis is disastrous!” he -exclaimed. - -“I should have done it before,” she said gloomily. - -“You make yourself think things you don’t think,” he continued, -becoming demonstrative with his hands, as his manner was. “Believe me, -Katharine, before we came here we were perfectly happy. You were full -of plans for our house—the chair-covers, don’t you remember?—like any -other woman who is about to be married. Now, for no reason whatever, -you begin to fret about your feeling and about my feeling, with the -usual result. I assure you, Katharine, I’ve been through it all myself. -At one time I was always asking myself absurd questions which came to -nothing either. What you want, if I may say so, is some occupation to -take you out of yourself when this morbid mood comes on. If it hadn’t -been for my poetry, I assure you, I should often have been very much in -the same state myself. To let you into a secret,” he continued, with -his little chuckle, which now sounded almost assured, “I’ve often gone -home from seeing you in such a state of nerves that I had to force -myself to write a page or two before I could get you out of my head. -Ask Denham; he’ll tell you how he met me one night; he’ll tell you what -a state he found me in.” - -Katharine started with displeasure at the mention of Ralph’s name. The -thought of the conversation in which her conduct had been made a -subject for discussion with Denham roused her anger; but, as she -instantly felt, she had scarcely the right to grudge William any use of -her name, seeing what her fault against him had been from first to -last. And yet Denham! She had a view of him as a judge. She figured him -sternly weighing instances of her levity in this masculine court of -inquiry into feminine morality and gruffly dismissing both her and her -family with some half-sarcastic, half-tolerant phrase which sealed her -doom, as far as he was concerned, for ever. Having met him so lately, -the sense of his character was strong in her. The thought was not a -pleasant one for a proud woman, but she had yet to learn the art of -subduing her expression. Her eyes fixed upon the ground, her brows -drawn together, gave William a very fair picture of the resentment that -she was forcing herself to control. A certain degree of apprehension, -occasionally culminating in a kind of fear, had always entered into his -love for her, and had increased, rather to his surprise, in the greater -intimacy of their engagement. Beneath her steady, exemplary surface ran -a vein of passion which seemed to him now perverse, now completely -irrational, for it never took the normal channel of glorification of -him and his doings; and, indeed, he almost preferred the steady good -sense, which had always marked their relationship, to a more romantic -bond. But passion she had, he could not deny it, and hitherto he had -tried to see it employed in his thoughts upon the lives of the children -who were to be born to them. - -“She will make a perfect mother—a mother of sons,” he thought; but -seeing her sitting there, gloomy and silent, he began to have his -doubts on this point. “A farce, a farce,” he thought to himself. “She -said that our marriage would be a farce,” and he became suddenly aware -of their situation, sitting upon the ground, among the dead leaves, not -fifty yards from the main road, so that it was quite possible for some -one passing to see and recognize them. He brushed off his face any -trace that might remain of that unseemly exhibition of emotion. But he -was more troubled by Katharine’s appearance, as she sat rapt in thought -upon the ground, than by his own; there was something improper to him -in her self-forgetfulness. A man naturally alive to the conventions of -society, he was strictly conventional where women were concerned, and -especially if the women happened to be in any way connected with him. -He noticed with distress the long strand of dark hair touching her -shoulder and two or three dead beech-leaves attached to her dress; but -to recall her mind in their present circumstances to a sense of these -details was impossible. She sat there, seeming unconscious of -everything. He suspected that in her silence she was reproaching -herself; but he wished that she would think of her hair and of the dead -beech-leaves, which were of more immediate importance to him than -anything else. Indeed, these trifles drew his attention strangely from -his own doubtful and uneasy state of mind; for relief, mixing itself -with pain, stirred up a most curious hurry and tumult in his breast, -almost concealing his first sharp sense of bleak and overwhelming -disappointment. In order to relieve this restlessness and close a -distressingly ill-ordered scene, he rose abruptly and helped Katharine -to her feet. She smiled a little at the minute care with which he -tidied her and yet, when he brushed the dead leaves from his own coat, -she flinched, seeing in that action the gesture of a lonely man. - -“William,” she said, “I will marry you. I will try to make you happy.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -The afternoon was already growing dark when the two other wayfarers, -Mary and Ralph Denham, came out on the high road beyond the outskirts -of Lincoln. The high road, as they both felt, was better suited to this -return journey than the open country, and for the first mile or so of -the way they spoke little. In his own mind Ralph was following the -passage of the Otway carriage over the heath; he then went back to the -five or ten minutes that he had spent with Katharine, and examined each -word with the care that a scholar displays upon the irregularities of -an ancient text. He was determined that the glow, the romance, the -atmosphere of this meeting should not paint what he must in future -regard as sober facts. On her side Mary was silent, not because her -thoughts took much handling, but because her mind seemed empty of -thought as her heart of feeling. Only Ralph’s presence, as she knew, -preserved this numbness, for she could foresee a time of loneliness -when many varieties of pain would beset her. At the present moment her -effort was to preserve what she could of the wreck of her self-respect, -for such she deemed that momentary glimpse of her love so involuntarily -revealed to Ralph. In the light of reason it did not much matter, -perhaps, but it was her instinct to be careful of that vision of -herself which keeps pace so evenly beside every one of us, and had been -damaged by her confession. The gray night coming down over the country -was kind to her; and she thought that one of these days she would find -comfort in sitting upon the earth, alone, beneath a tree. Looking -through the darkness, she marked the swelling ground and the tree. -Ralph made her start by saying abruptly; - -“What I was going to say when we were interrupted at lunch was that if -you go to America I shall come, too. It can’t be harder to earn a -living there than it is here. However, that’s not the point. The point -is, Mary, that I want to marry you. Well, what do you say?” He spoke -firmly, waited for no answer, and took her arm in his. “You know me by -this time, the good and the bad,” he went on. “You know my tempers. -I’ve tried to let you know my faults. Well, what do you say, Mary?” - -She said nothing, but this did not seem to strike him. - -“In most ways, at least in the important ways, as you said, we know -each other and we think alike. I believe you are the only person in the -world I could live with happily. And if you feel the same about me—as -you do, don’t you, Mary?—we should make each other happy.” Here he -paused, and seemed to be in no hurry for an answer; he seemed, indeed, -to be continuing his own thoughts. - -“Yes, but I’m afraid I couldn’t do it,” Mary said at last. The casual -and rather hurried way in which she spoke, together with the fact that -she was saying the exact opposite of what he expected her to say, -baffled him so much that he instinctively loosened his clasp upon her -arm and she withdrew it quietly. - -“You couldn’t do it?” he asked. - -“No, I couldn’t marry you,” she replied. - -“You don’t care for me?” - -She made no answer. - -“Well, Mary,” he said, with a curious laugh, “I must be an arrant fool, -for I thought you did.” They walked for a minute or two in silence, and -suddenly he turned to her, looked at her, and exclaimed: “I don’t -believe you, Mary. You’re not telling me the truth.” - -“I’m too tired to argue, Ralph,” she replied, turning her head away -from him. “I ask you to believe what I say. I can’t marry you; I don’t -want to marry you.” - -The voice in which she stated this was so evidently the voice of one in -some extremity of anguish that Ralph had no course but to obey her. And -as soon as the tone of her voice had died out, and the surprise faded -from his mind, he found himself believing that she had spoken the -truth, for he had but little vanity, and soon her refusal seemed a -natural thing to him. He slipped through all the grades of despondency -until he reached a bottom of absolute gloom. Failure seemed to mark the -whole of his life; he had failed with Katharine, and now he had failed -with Mary. Up at once sprang the thought of Katharine, and with it a -sense of exulting freedom, but this he checked instantly. No good had -ever come to him from Katharine; his whole relationship with her had -been made up of dreams; and as he thought of the little substance there -had been in his dreams he began to lay the blame of the present -catastrophe upon his dreams. - -“Haven’t I always been thinking of Katharine while I was with Mary? I -might have loved Mary if it hadn’t been for that idiocy of mine. She -cared for me once, I’m certain of that, but I tormented her so with my -humors that I let my chances slip, and now she won’t risk marrying me. -And this is what I’ve made of my life—nothing, nothing, nothing.” - -The tramp of their boots upon the dry road seemed to asseverate -nothing, nothing, nothing. Mary thought that this silence was the -silence of relief; his depression she ascribed to the fact that he had -seen Katharine and parted from her, leaving her in the company of -William Rodney. She could not blame him for loving Katharine, but that, -when he loved another, he should ask her to marry him—that seemed to -her the cruellest treachery. Their old friendship and its firm base -upon indestructible qualities of character crumbled, and her whole past -seemed foolish, herself weak and credulous, and Ralph merely the shell -of an honest man. Oh, the past—so much made up of Ralph; and now, as -she saw, made up of something strange and false and other than she had -thought it. She tried to recapture a saying she had made to help -herself that morning, as Ralph paid the bill for luncheon; but she -could see him paying the bill more vividly than she could remember the -phrase. Something about truth was in it; how to see the truth is our -great chance in this world. - -“If you don’t want to marry me,” Ralph now began again, without -abruptness, with diffidence rather, “there is no need why we should -cease to see each other, is there? Or would you rather that we should -keep apart for the present?” - -“Keep apart? I don’t know—I must think about it.” - -“Tell me one thing, Mary,” he resumed; “have I done anything to make -you change your mind about me?” - -She was immensely tempted to give way to her natural trust in him, -revived by the deep and now melancholy tones of his voice, and to tell -him of her love, and of what had changed it. But although it seemed -likely that she would soon control her anger with him, the certainty -that he did not love her, confirmed by every word of his proposal, -forbade any freedom of speech. To hear him speak and to feel herself -unable to reply, or constrained in her replies, was so painful that she -longed for the time when she should be alone. A more pliant woman would -have taken this chance of an explanation, whatever risks attached to -it; but to one of Mary’s firm and resolute temperament there was -degradation in the idea of self-abandonment; let the waves of emotion -rise ever so high, she could not shut her eyes to what she conceived to -be the truth. Her silence puzzled Ralph. He searched his memory for -words or deeds that might have made her think badly of him. In his -present mood instances came but too quickly, and on top of them this -culminating proof of his baseness—that he had asked her to marry him -when his reasons for such a proposal were selfish and half-hearted. - -“You needn’t answer,” he said grimly. “There are reasons enough, I -know. But must they kill our friendship, Mary? Let me keep that, at -least.” - -“Oh,” she thought to herself, with a sudden rush of anguish which -threatened disaster to her self-respect, “it has come to this—to -this—when I could have given him everything!” - -“Yes, we can still be friends,” she said, with what firmness she could -muster. - -“I shall want your friendship,” he said. He added, “If you find it -possible, let me see you as often as you can. The oftener the better. I -shall want your help.” - -She promised this, and they went on to talk calmly of things that had -no reference to their feelings—a talk which, in its constraint, was -infinitely sad to both of them. - -One more reference was made to the state of things between them late -that night, when Elizabeth had gone to her room, and the two young men -had stumbled off to bed in such a state of sleep that they hardly felt -the floor beneath their feet after a day’s shooting. - -Mary drew her chair a little nearer to the fire, for the logs were -burning low, and at this time of night it was hardly worth while to -replenish them. Ralph was reading, but she had noticed for some time -that his eyes instead of following the print were fixed rather above -the page with an intensity of gloom that came to weigh upon her mind. -She had not weakened in her resolve not to give way, for reflection had -only made her more bitterly certain that, if she gave way, it would be -to her own wish and not to his. But she had determined that there was -no reason why he should suffer if her reticence were the cause of his -suffering. Therefore, although she found it painful, she spoke: - -“You asked me if I had changed my mind about you, Ralph,” she said. “I -think there’s only one thing. When you asked me to marry you, I don’t -think you meant it. That made me angry—for the moment. Before, you’d -always spoken the truth.” - -Ralph’s book slid down upon his knee and fell upon the floor. He rested -his forehead on his hand and looked into the fire. He was trying to -recall the exact words in which he had made his proposal to Mary. - -“I never said I loved you,” he said at last. - -She winced; but she respected him for saying what he did, for this, -after all, was a fragment of the truth which she had vowed to live by. - -“And to me marriage without love doesn’t seem worth while,” she said. - -“Well, Mary, I’m not going to press you,” he said. “I see you don’t -want to marry me. But love—don’t we all talk a great deal of nonsense -about it? What does one mean? I believe I care for you more genuinely -than nine men out of ten care for the women they’re in love with. It’s -only a story one makes up in one’s mind about another person, and one -knows all the time it isn’t true. Of course one knows; why, one’s -always taking care not to destroy the illusion. One takes care not to -see them too often, or to be alone with them for too long together. -It’s a pleasant illusion, but if you’re thinking of the risks of -marriage, it seems to me that the risk of marrying a person you’re in -love with is something colossal.” - -“I don’t believe a word of that, and what’s more you don’t, either,” -she replied with anger. “However, we don’t agree; I only wanted you to -understand.” She shifted her position, as if she were about to go. An -instinctive desire to prevent her from leaving the room made Ralph rise -at this point and begin pacing up and down the nearly empty kitchen, -checking his desire, each time he reached the door, to open it and step -out into the garden. A moralist might have said that at this point his -mind should have been full of self-reproach for the suffering he had -caused. On the contrary, he was extremely angry, with the confused -impotent anger of one who finds himself unreasonably but efficiently -frustrated. He was trapped by the illogicality of human life. The -obstacles in the way of his desire seemed to him purely artificial, and -yet he could see no way of removing them. Mary’s words, the tone of her -voice even, angered him, for she would not help him. She was part of -the insanely jumbled muddle of a world which impedes the sensible life. -He would have liked to slam the door or break the hind legs of a chair, -for the obstacles had taken some such curiously substantial shape in -his mind. - -“I doubt that one human being ever understands another,” he said, -stopping in his march and confronting Mary at a distance of a few feet. - -“Such damned liars as we all are, how can we? But we can try. If you -don’t want to marry me, don’t; but the position you take up about love, -and not seeing each other—isn’t that mere sentimentality? You think -I’ve behaved very badly,” he continued, as she did not speak. “Of -course I behave badly; but you can’t judge people by what they do. You -can’t go through life measuring right and wrong with a foot-rule. -That’s what you’re always doing, Mary; that’s what you’re doing now.” - -She saw herself in the Suffrage Office, delivering judgment, meting out -right and wrong, and there seemed to her to be some justice in the -charge, although it did not affect her main position. - -“I’m not angry with you,” she said slowly. “I will go on seeing you, as -I said I would.” - -It was true that she had promised that much already, and it was -difficult for him to say what more it was that he wanted—some intimacy, -some help against the ghost of Katharine, perhaps, something that he -knew he had no right to ask; and yet, as he sank into his chair and -looked once more at the dying fire it seemed to him that he had been -defeated, not so much by Mary as by life itself. He felt himself thrown -back to the beginning of life again, where everything has yet to be -won; but in extreme youth one has an ignorant hope. He was no longer -certain that he would triumph. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -Happily for Mary Datchet she returned to the office to find that by -some obscure Parliamentary maneuver the vote had once more slipped -beyond the attainment of women. Mrs. Seal was in a condition bordering -upon frenzy. The duplicity of Ministers, the treachery of mankind, the -insult to womanhood, the setback to civilization, the ruin of her -life’s work, the feelings of her father’s daughter—all these topics -were discussed in turn, and the office was littered with newspaper -cuttings branded with the blue, if ambiguous, marks of her displeasure. -She confessed herself at fault in her estimate of human nature. - -“The simple elementary acts of justice,” she said, waving her hand -towards the window, and indicating the foot-passengers and omnibuses -then passing down the far side of Russell Square, “are as far beyond -them as they ever were. We can only look upon ourselves, Mary, as -pioneers in a wilderness. We can only go on patiently putting the truth -before them. It isn’t _them_,” she continued, taking heart from her -sight of the traffic, “it’s their leaders. It’s those gentlemen sitting -in Parliament and drawing four hundred a year of the people’s money. If -we had to put our case to the people, we should soon have justice done -to us. I have always believed in the people, and I do so still. But—” -She shook her head and implied that she would give them one more -chance, and if they didn’t take advantage of that she couldn’t answer -for the consequences. - -Mr. Clacton’s attitude was more philosophical and better supported by -statistics. He came into the room after Mrs. Seal’s outburst and -pointed out, with historical illustrations, that such reverses had -happened in every political campaign of any importance. If anything, -his spirits were improved by the disaster. The enemy, he said, had -taken the offensive; and it was now up to the Society to outwit the -enemy. He gave Mary to understand that he had taken the measure of -their cunning, and had already bent his mind to the task which, so far -as she could make out, depended solely upon him. It depended, so she -came to think, when invited into his room for a private conference, -upon a systematic revision of the card-index, upon the issue of certain -new lemon-colored leaflets, in which the facts were marshaled once more -in a very striking way, and upon a large scale map of England dotted -with little pins tufted with differently colored plumes of hair -according to their geographical position. Each district, under the new -system, had its flag, its bottle of ink, its sheaf of documents -tabulated and filed for reference in a drawer, so that by looking under -M or S, as the case might be, you had all the facts with respect to the -Suffrage organizations of that county at your fingers’ ends. This would -require a great deal of work, of course. - -“We must try to consider ourselves rather in the light of a telephone -exchange—for the exchange of ideas, Miss Datchet,” he said; and taking -pleasure in his image, he continued it. “We should consider ourselves -the center of an enormous system of wires, connecting us up with every -district of the country. We must have our fingers upon the pulse of the -community; we want to know what people all over England are thinking; -we want to put them in the way of thinking rightly.” The system, of -course, was only roughly sketched so far—jotted down, in fact, during -the Christmas holidays. - -“When you ought to have been taking a rest, Mr. Clacton,” said Mary -dutifully, but her tone was flat and tired. - -“We learn to do without holidays, Miss Datchet,” said Mr. Clacton, with -a spark of satisfaction in his eye. - -He wished particularly to have her opinion of the lemon-colored -leaflet. According to his plan, it was to be distributed in immense -quantities immediately, in order to stimulate and generate, “to -generate and stimulate,” he repeated, “right thoughts in the country -before the meeting of Parliament.” - -“We have to take the enemy by surprise,” he said. “They don’t let the -grass grow under their feet. Have you seen Bingham’s address to his -constituents? That’s a hint of the sort of thing we’ve got to meet, -Miss Datchet.” - -He handed her a great bundle of newspaper cuttings, and, begging her to -give him her views upon the yellow leaflet before lunch-time, he turned -with alacrity to his different sheets of paper and his different -bottles of ink. - -Mary shut the door, laid the documents upon her table, and sank her -head on her hands. Her brain was curiously empty of any thought. She -listened, as if, perhaps, by listening she would become merged again in -the atmosphere of the office. From the next room came the rapid -spasmodic sounds of Mrs. Seal’s erratic typewriting; she, doubtless, -was already hard at work helping the people of England, as Mr. Clacton -put it, to think rightly; “generating and stimulating,” those were his -words. She was striking a blow against the enemy, no doubt, who didn’t -let the grass grow beneath their feet. Mr. Clacton’s words repeated -themselves accurately in her brain. She pushed the papers wearily over -to the farther side of the table. It was no use, though; something or -other had happened to her brain—a change of focus so that near things -were indistinct again. The same thing had happened to her once before, -she remembered, after she had met Ralph in the gardens of Lincoln’s Inn -Fields; she had spent the whole of a committee meeting in thinking -about sparrows and colors, until, almost at the end of the meeting, her -old convictions had all come back to her. But they had only come back, -she thought with scorn at her feebleness, because she wanted to use -them to fight against Ralph. They weren’t, rightly speaking, -convictions at all. She could not see the world divided into separate -compartments of good people and bad people, any more than she could -believe so implicitly in the rightness of her own thought as to wish to -bring the population of the British Isles into agreement with it. She -looked at the lemon-colored leaflet, and thought almost enviously of -the faith which could find comfort in the issue of such documents; for -herself she would be content to remain silent for ever if a share of -personal happiness were granted her. She read Mr. Clacton’s statement -with a curious division of judgment, noting its weak and pompous -verbosity on the one hand, and, at the same time, feeling that faith, -faith in an illusion, perhaps, but, at any rate, faith in something, -was of all gifts the most to be envied. An illusion it was, no doubt. -She looked curiously round her at the furniture of the office, at the -machinery in which she had taken so much pride, and marveled to think -that once the copying-presses, the card-index, the files of documents, -had all been shrouded, wrapped in some mist which gave them a unity and -a general dignity and purpose independently of their separate -significance. The ugly cumbersomeness of the furniture alone impressed -her now. Her attitude had become very lax and despondent when the -typewriter stopped in the next room. Mary immediately drew up to the -table, laid hands on an unopened envelope, and adopted an expression -which might hide her state of mind from Mrs. Seal. Some instinct of -decency required that she should not allow Mrs. Seal to see her face. -Shading her eyes with her fingers, she watched Mrs. Seal pull out one -drawer after another in her search for some envelope or leaflet. She -was tempted to drop her fingers and exclaim: - -“Do sit down, Sally, and tell me how you manage it—how you manage, that -is, to bustle about with perfect confidence in the necessity of your -own activities, which to me seem as futile as the buzzing of a belated -blue-bottle.” She said nothing of the kind, however, and the presence -of industry which she preserved so long as Mrs. Seal was in the room -served to set her brain in motion, so that she dispatched her morning’s -work much as usual. At one o’clock she was surprised to find how -efficiently she had dealt with the morning. As she put her hat on she -determined to lunch at a shop in the Strand, so as to set that other -piece of mechanism, her body, into action. With a brain working and a -body working one could keep step with the crowd and never be found out -for the hollow machine, lacking the essential thing, that one was -conscious of being. - -She considered her case as she walked down the Charing Cross Road. She -put to herself a series of questions. Would she mind, for example, if -the wheels of that motor-omnibus passed over her and crushed her to -death? No, not in the least; or an adventure with that -disagreeable-looking man hanging about the entrance of the Tube -station? No; she could not conceive fear or excitement. Did suffering -in any form appall her? No, suffering was neither good nor bad. And -this essential thing? In the eyes of every single person she detected a -flame; as if a spark in the brain ignited spontaneously at contact with -the things they met and drove them on. The young women looking into the -milliners’ windows had that look in their eyes; and elderly men turning -over books in the second-hand book-shops, and eagerly waiting to hear -what the price was—the very lowest price—they had it, too. But she -cared nothing at all for clothes or for money either. Books she shrank -from, for they were connected too closely with Ralph. She kept on her -way resolutely through the crowd of people, among whom she was so much -of an alien, feeling them cleave and give way before her. - -Strange thoughts are bred in passing through crowded streets should the -passenger, by chance, have no exact destination in front of him, much -as the mind shapes all kinds of forms, solutions, images when listening -inattentively to music. From an acute consciousness of herself as an -individual, Mary passed to a conception of the scheme of things in -which, as a human being, she must have her share. She half held a -vision; the vision shaped and dwindled. She wished she had a pencil and -a piece of paper to help her to give a form to this conception which -composed itself as she walked down the Charing Cross Road. But if she -talked to any one, the conception might escape her. Her vision seemed -to lay out the lines of her life until death in a way which satisfied -her sense of harmony. It only needed a persistent effort of thought, -stimulated in this strange way by the crowd and the noise, to climb the -crest of existence and see it all laid out once and for ever. Already -her suffering as an individual was left behind her. Of this process, -which was to her so full of effort, which comprised infinitely swift -and full passages of thought, leading from one crest to another, as she -shaped her conception of life in this world, only two articulate words -escaped her, muttered beneath her breath—“Not happiness—not happiness.” - -She sat down on a seat opposite the statue of one of London’s heroes -upon the Embankment, and spoke the words aloud. To her they represented -the rare flower or splinter of rock brought down by a climber in proof -that he has stood for a moment, at least, upon the highest peak of the -mountain. She had been up there and seen the world spread to the -horizon. It was now necessary to alter her course to some extent, -according to her new resolve. Her post should be in one of those -exposed and desolate stations which are shunned naturally by happy -people. She arranged the details of the new plan in her mind, not -without a grim satisfaction. - -“Now,” she said to herself, rising from her seat, “I’ll think of -Ralph.” - -Where was he to be placed in the new scale of life? Her exalted mood -seemed to make it safe to handle the question. But she was dismayed to -find how quickly her passions leapt forward the moment she sanctioned -this line of thought. Now she was identified with him and rethought his -thoughts with complete self-surrender; now, with a sudden cleavage of -spirit, she turned upon him and denounced him for his cruelty. - -“But I refuse—I refuse to hate any one,” she said aloud; chose the -moment to cross the road with circumspection, and ten minutes later -lunched in the Strand, cutting her meat firmly into small pieces, but -giving her fellow-diners no further cause to judge her eccentric. Her -soliloquy crystallized itself into little fragmentary phrases emerging -suddenly from the turbulence of her thought, particularly when she had -to exert herself in any way, either to move, to count money, or to -choose a turning. “To know the truth—to accept without -bitterness”—those, perhaps, were the most articulate of her utterances, -for no one could have made head or tail of the queer gibberish murmured -in front of the statue of Francis, Duke of Bedford, save that the name -of Ralph occurred frequently in very strange connections, as if, having -spoken it, she wished, superstitiously, to cancel it by adding some -other word that robbed the sentence with his name in it of any meaning. - -Those champions of the cause of women, Mr. Clacton and Mrs. Seal, did -not perceive anything strange in Mary’s behavior, save that she was -almost half an hour later than usual in coming back to the office. -Happily, their own affairs kept them busy, and she was free from their -inspection. If they had surprised her they would have found her lost, -apparently, in admiration of the large hotel across the square, for, -after writing a few words, her pen rested upon the paper, and her mind -pursued its own journey among the sun-blazoned windows and the drifts -of purplish smoke which formed her view. And, indeed, this background -was by no means out of keeping with her thoughts. She saw to the remote -spaces behind the strife of the foreground, enabled now to gaze there, -since she had renounced her own demands, privileged to see the larger -view, to share the vast desires and sufferings of the mass of mankind. -She had been too lately and too roughly mastered by facts to take an -easy pleasure in the relief of renunciation; such satisfaction as she -felt came only from the discovery that, having renounced everything -that made life happy, easy, splendid, individual, there remained a hard -reality, unimpaired by one’s personal adventures, remote as the stars, -unquenchable as they are. - -While Mary Datchet was undergoing this curious transformation from the -particular to the universal, Mrs. Seal remembered her duties with -regard to the kettle and the gas-fire. She was a little surprised to -find that Mary had drawn her chair to the window, and, having lit the -gas, she raised herself from a stooping posture and looked at her. The -most obvious reason for such an attitude in a secretary was some kind -of indisposition. But Mary, rousing herself with an effort, denied that -she was indisposed. - -“I’m frightfully lazy this afternoon,” she added, with a glance at her -table. “You must really get another secretary, Sally.” - -The words were meant to be taken lightly, but something in the tone of -them roused a jealous fear which was always dormant in Mrs. Seal’s -breast. She was terribly afraid that one of these days Mary, the young -woman who typified so many rather sentimental and enthusiastic ideas, -who had some sort of visionary existence in white with a sheaf of -lilies in her hand, would announce, in a jaunty way, that she was about -to be married. - -“You don’t mean that you’re going to leave us?” she said. - -“I’ve not made up my mind about anything,” said Mary—a remark which -could be taken as a generalization. - -Mrs. Seal got the teacups out of the cupboard and set them on the -table. - -“You’re not going to be married, are you?” she asked, pronouncing the -words with nervous speed. - -“Why are you asking such absurd questions this afternoon, Sally?” Mary -asked, not very steadily. “Must we all get married?” - -Mrs. Seal emitted a most peculiar chuckle. She seemed for one moment to -acknowledge the terrible side of life which is concerned with the -emotions, the private lives, of the sexes, and then to sheer off from -it with all possible speed into the shades of her own shivering -virginity. She was made so uncomfortable by the turn the conversation -had taken, that she plunged her head into the cupboard, and endeavored -to abstract some very obscure piece of china. - -“We have our work,” she said, withdrawing her head, displaying cheeks -more than usually crimson, and placing a jam-pot emphatically upon the -table. But, for the moment, she was unable to launch herself upon one -of those enthusiastic, but inconsequent, tirades upon liberty, -democracy, the rights of the people, and the iniquities of the -Government, in which she delighted. Some memory from her own past or -from the past of her sex rose to her mind and kept her abashed. She -glanced furtively at Mary, who still sat by the window with her arm -upon the sill. She noticed how young she was and full of the promise of -womanhood. The sight made her so uneasy that she fidgeted the cups upon -their saucers. - -“Yes—enough work to last a lifetime,” said Mary, as if concluding some -passage of thought. - -Mrs. Seal brightened at once. She lamented her lack of scientific -training, and her deficiency in the processes of logic, but she set her -mind to work at once to make the prospects of the cause appear as -alluring and important as she could. She delivered herself of an -harangue in which she asked a great many rhetorical questions and -answered them with a little bang of one fist upon another. - -“To last a lifetime? My dear child, it will last all our lifetimes. As -one falls another steps into the breach. My father, in his generation, -a pioneer—I, coming after him, do my little best. What, alas! can one -do more? And now it’s you young women—we look to you—the future looks -to you. Ah, my dear, if I’d a thousand lives, I’d give them all to our -cause. The cause of women, d’you say? I say the cause of humanity. And -there are some”—she glanced fiercely at the window—“who don’t see it! -There are some who are satisfied to go on, year after year, refusing to -admit the truth. And we who have the vision—the kettle boiling over? -No, no, let me see to it—we who know the truth,” she continued, -gesticulating with the kettle and the teapot. Owing to these -encumbrances, perhaps, she lost the thread of her discourse, and -concluded, rather wistfully, “It’s all so _simple_.” She referred to a -matter that was a perpetual source of bewilderment to her—the -extraordinary incapacity of the human race, in a world where the good -is so unmistakably divided from the bad, of distinguishing one from the -other, and embodying what ought to be done in a few large, simple Acts -of Parliament, which would, in a very short time, completely change the -lot of humanity. - -“One would have thought,” she said, “that men of University training, -like Mr. Asquith—one would have thought that an appeal to reason would -not be unheard by them. But reason,” she reflected, “what is reason -without Reality?” - -Doing homage to the phrase, she repeated it once more, and caught the -ear of Mr. Clacton, as he issued from his room; and he repeated it a -third time, giving it, as he was in the habit of doing with Mrs. Seal’s -phrases, a dryly humorous intonation. He was well pleased with the -world, however, and he remarked, in a flattering manner, that he would -like to see that phrase in large letters at the head of a leaflet. - -“But, Mrs. Seal, we have to aim at a judicious combination of the two,” -he added in his magisterial way to check the unbalanced enthusiasm of -the women. “Reality has to be voiced by reason before it can make -itself felt. The weak point of all these movements, Miss Datchet,” he -continued, taking his place at the table and turning to Mary as usual -when about to deliver his more profound cogitations, “is that they are -not based upon sufficiently intellectual grounds. A mistake, in my -opinion. The British public likes a pellet of reason in its jam of -eloquence—a pill of reason in its pudding of sentiment,” he said, -sharpening the phrase to a satisfactory degree of literary precision. - -His eyes rested, with something of the vanity of an author, upon the -yellow leaflet which Mary held in her hand. She rose, took her seat at -the head of the table, poured out tea for her colleagues, and gave her -opinion upon the leaflet. So she had poured out tea, so she had -criticized Mr. Clacton’s leaflets a hundred times already; but now it -seemed to her that she was doing it in a different spirit; she had -enlisted in the army, and was a volunteer no longer. She had renounced -something and was now—how could she express it?—not quite “in the -running” for life. She had always known that Mr. Clacton and Mrs. Seal -were not in the running, and across the gulf that separated them she -had seen them in the guise of shadow people, flitting in and out of the -ranks of the living—eccentrics, undeveloped human beings, from whose -substance some essential part had been cut away. All this had never -struck her so clearly as it did this afternoon, when she felt that her -lot was cast with them for ever. One view of the world plunged in -darkness, so a more volatile temperament might have argued after a -season of despair, let the world turn again and show another, more -splendid, perhaps. No, Mary thought, with unflinching loyalty to what -appeared to her to be the true view, having lost what is best, I do not -mean to pretend that any other view does instead. Whatever happens, I -mean to have no presences in my life. Her very words had a sort of -distinctness which is sometimes produced by sharp, bodily pain. To Mrs. -Seal’s secret jubilation the rule which forbade discussion of shop at -tea-time was overlooked. Mary and Mr. Clacton argued with a cogency and -a ferocity which made the little woman feel that something very -important—she hardly knew what—was taking place. She became much -excited; one crucifix became entangled with another, and she dug a -considerable hole in the table with the point of her pencil in order to -emphasize the most striking heads of the discourse; and how any -combination of Cabinet Ministers could resist such discourse she really -did not know. - -She could hardly bring herself to remember her own private instrument -of justice—the typewriter. The telephone-bell rang, and as she hurried -off to answer a voice which always seemed a proof of importance by -itself, she felt that it was at this exact spot on the surface of the -globe that all the subterranean wires of thought and progress came -together. When she returned, with a message from the printer, she found -that Mary was putting on her hat firmly; there was something imperious -and dominating in her attitude altogether. - -“Look, Sally,” she said, “these letters want copying. These I’ve not -looked at. The question of the new census will have to be gone into -carefully. But I’m going home now. Good night, Mr. Clacton; good night, -Sally.” - -“We are very fortunate in our secretary, Mr. Clacton,” said Mrs. Seal, -pausing with her hand on the papers, as the door shut behind Mary. Mr. -Clacton himself had been vaguely impressed by something in Mary’s -behavior towards him. He envisaged a time even when it would become -necessary to tell her that there could not be two masters in one -office—but she was certainly able, very able, and in touch with a group -of very clever young men. No doubt they had suggested to her some of -her new ideas. - -He signified his assent to Mrs. Seal’s remark, but observed, with a -glance at the clock, which showed only half an hour past five: - -“If she takes the work seriously, Mrs. Seal—but that’s just what some -of your clever young ladies don’t do.” So saying he returned to his -room, and Mrs. Seal, after a moment’s hesitation, hurried back to her -labors. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -Mary walked to the nearest station and reached home in an incredibly -short space of time, just so much, indeed, as was needed for the -intelligent understanding of the news of the world as the “Westminster -Gazette” reported it. Within a few minutes of opening her door, she was -in trim for a hard evening’s work. She unlocked a drawer and took out a -manuscript, which consisted of a very few pages, entitled, in a -forcible hand, “Some Aspects of the Democratic State.” The aspects -dwindled out in a cries-cross of blotted lines in the very middle of a -sentence, and suggested that the author had been interrupted, or -convinced of the futility of proceeding, with her pen in the air.... -Oh, yes, Ralph had come in at that point. She scored that sheet very -effectively, and, choosing a fresh one, began at a great rate with a -generalization upon the structure of human society, which was a good -deal bolder than her custom. Ralph had told her once that she couldn’t -write English, which accounted for those frequent blots and insertions; -but she put all that behind her, and drove ahead with such words as -came her way, until she had accomplished half a page of generalization -and might legitimately draw breath. Directly her hand stopped her brain -stopped too, and she began to listen. A paper-boy shouted down the -street; an omnibus ceased and lurched on again with the heave of duty -once more shouldered; the dullness of the sounds suggested that a fog -had risen since her return, if, indeed, a fog has power to deaden -sound, of which fact, she could not be sure at the present moment. It -was the sort of fact Ralph Denham knew. At any rate, it was no concern -of hers, and she was about to dip a pen when her ear was caught by the -sound of a step upon the stone staircase. She followed it past Mr. -Chippen’s chambers; past Mr. Gibson’s; past Mr. Turner’s; after which -it became her sound. A postman, a washerwoman, a circular, a bill—she -presented herself with each of these perfectly natural possibilities; -but, to her surprise, her mind rejected each one of them impatiently, -even apprehensively. The step became slow, as it was apt to do at the -end of the steep climb, and Mary, listening for the regular sound, was -filled with an intolerable nervousness. Leaning against the table, she -felt the knock of her heart push her body perceptibly backwards and -forwards—a state of nerves astonishing and reprehensible in a stable -woman. Grotesque fancies took shape. Alone, at the top of the house, an -unknown person approaching nearer and nearer—how could she escape? -There was no way of escape. She did not even know whether that oblong -mark on the ceiling was a trap-door to the roof or not. And if she got -on to the roof—well, there was a drop of sixty feet or so on to the -pavement. But she sat perfectly still, and when the knock sounded, she -got up directly and opened the door without hesitation. She saw a tall -figure outside, with something ominous to her eyes in the look of it. - -“What do you want?” she said, not recognizing the face in the fitful -light of the staircase. - -“Mary? I’m Katharine Hilbery!” - -Mary’s self-possession returned almost excessively, and her welcome was -decidedly cold, as if she must recoup herself for this ridiculous waste -of emotion. She moved her green-shaded lamp to another table, and -covered “Some Aspects of the Democratic State” with a sheet of -blotting-paper. - -“Why can’t they leave me alone?” she thought bitterly, connecting -Katharine and Ralph in a conspiracy to take from her even this hour of -solitary study, even this poor little defence against the world. And, -as she smoothed down the sheet of blotting-paper over the manuscript, -she braced herself to resist Katharine, whose presence struck her, not -merely by its force, as usual, but as something in the nature of a -menace. - -“You’re working?” said Katharine, with hesitation, perceiving that she -was not welcome. - -“Nothing that matters,” Mary replied, drawing forward the best of the -chairs and poking the fire. - -“I didn’t know you had to work after you had left the office,” said -Katharine, in a tone which gave the impression that she was thinking of -something else, as was, indeed, the case. - -She had been paying calls with her mother, and in between the calls -Mrs. Hilbery had rushed into shops and bought pillow-cases and -blotting-books on no perceptible method for the furnishing of -Katharine’s house. Katharine had a sense of impedimenta accumulating on -all sides of her. She had left her at length, and had come on to keep -an engagement to dine with Rodney at his rooms. But she did not mean to -get to him before seven o’clock, and so had plenty of time to walk all -the way from Bond Street to the Temple if she wished it. The flow of -faces streaming on either side of her had hypnotized her into a mood of -profound despondency, to which her expectation of an evening alone with -Rodney contributed. They were very good friends again, better friends, -they both said, than ever before. So far as she was concerned this was -true. There were many more things in him than she had guessed until -emotion brought them forth—strength, affection, sympathy. And she -thought of them and looked at the faces passing, and thought how much -alike they were, and how distant, nobody feeling anything as she felt -nothing, and distance, she thought, lay inevitably between the closest, -and their intimacy was the worst presence of all. For, “Oh dear,” she -thought, looking into a tobacconist’s window, “I don’t care for any of -them, and I don’t care for William, and people say this is the thing -that matters most, and I can’t see what they mean by it.” - -She looked desperately at the smooth-bowled pipes, and wondered—should -she walk on by the Strand or by the Embankment? It was not a simple -question, for it concerned not different streets so much as different -streams of thought. If she went by the Strand she would force herself -to think out the problem of the future, or some mathematical problem; -if she went by the river she would certainly begin to think about -things that didn’t exist—the forest, the ocean beach, the leafy -solitudes, the magnanimous hero. No, no, no! A thousand times no!—it -wouldn’t do; there was something repulsive in such thoughts at present; -she must take something else; she was out of that mood at present. And -then she thought of Mary; the thought gave her confidence, even -pleasure of a sad sort, as if the triumph of Ralph and Mary proved that -the fault of her failure lay with herself and not with life. An -indistinct idea that the sight of Mary might be of help, combined with -her natural trust in her, suggested a visit; for, surely, her liking -was of a kind that implied liking upon Mary’s side also. After a -moment’s hesitation she decided, although she seldom acted upon -impulse, to act upon this one, and turned down a side street and found -Mary’s door. But her reception was not encouraging; clearly Mary didn’t -want to see her, had no help to impart, and the half-formed desire to -confide in her was quenched immediately. She was slightly amused at her -own delusion, looked rather absent-minded, and swung her gloves to and -fro, as if doling out the few minutes accurately before she could say -good-by. - -Those few minutes might very well be spent in asking for information as -to the exact position of the Suffrage Bill, or in expounding her own -very sensible view of the situation. But there was a tone in her voice, -or a shade in her opinions, or a swing of her gloves which served to -irritate Mary Datchet, whose manner became increasingly direct, abrupt, -and even antagonistic. She became conscious of a wish to make Katharine -realize the importance of this work, which she discussed so coolly, as -though she, too, had sacrificed what Mary herself had sacrificed. The -swinging of the gloves ceased, and Katharine, after ten minutes, began -to make movements preliminary to departure. At the sight of this, Mary -was aware—she was abnormally aware of things to-night—of another very -strong desire; Katharine was not to be allowed to go, to disappear into -the free, happy world of irresponsible individuals. She must be made to -realize—to feel. - -“I don’t quite see,” she said, as if Katharine had challenged her -explicitly, “how, things being as they are, any one can help trying, at -least, to do something.” - -“No. But how _are_ things?” - -Mary pressed her lips, and smiled ironically; she had Katharine at her -mercy; she could, if she liked, discharge upon her head wagon-loads of -revolting proof of the state of things ignored by the casual, the -amateur, the looker-on, the cynical observer of life at a distance. And -yet she hesitated. As usual, when she found herself in talk with -Katharine, she began to feel rapid alternations of opinion about her, -arrows of sensation striking strangely through the envelope of -personality, which shelters us so conveniently from our fellows. What -an egoist, how aloof she was! And yet, not in her words, perhaps, but -in her voice, in her face, in her attitude, there were signs of a soft -brooding spirit, of a sensibility unblunted and profound, playing over -her thoughts and deeds, and investing her manner with an habitual -gentleness. The arguments and phrases of Mr. Clacton fell flat against -such armor. - -“You’ll be married, and you’ll have other things to think of,” she said -inconsequently, and with an accent of condescension. She was not going -to make Katharine understand in a second, as she would, all she herself -had learnt at the cost of such pain. No. Katharine was to be happy; -Katharine was to be ignorant; Mary was to keep this knowledge of the -impersonal life for herself. The thought of her morning’s renunciation -stung her conscience, and she tried to expand once more into that -impersonal condition which was so lofty and so painless. She must check -this desire to be an individual again, whose wishes were in conflict -with those of other people. She repented of her bitterness. - -Katharine now renewed her signs of leave-taking; she had drawn on one -of her gloves, and looked about her as if in search of some trivial -saying to end with. Wasn’t there some picture, or clock, or chest of -drawers which might be singled out for notice? something peaceable and -friendly to end the uncomfortable interview? The green-shaded lamp -burnt in the corner, and illumined books and pens and blotting-paper. -The whole aspect of the place started another train of thought and -struck her as enviably free; in such a room one could work—one could -have a life of one’s own. - -“I think you’re very lucky,” she observed. “I envy you, living alone -and having your own things”—and engaged in this exalted way, which had -no recognition or engagement-ring, she added in her own mind. - -Mary’s lips parted slightly. She could not conceive in what respects -Katharine, who spoke sincerely, could envy her. - -“I don’t think you’ve got any reason to envy me,” she said. - -“Perhaps one always envies other people,” Katharine observed vaguely. - -“Well, but you’ve got everything that any one can want.” - -Katharine remained silent. She gazed into the fire quietly, and without -a trace of self-consciousness. The hostility which she had divined in -Mary’s tone had completely disappeared, and she forgot that she had -been upon the point of going. - -“Well, I suppose I have,” she said at length. “And yet I sometimes -think—” She paused; she did not know how to express what she meant. - -“It came over me in the Tube the other day,” she resumed, with a smile; -“what is it that makes these people go one way rather than the other? -It’s not love; it’s not reason; I think it must be some idea. Perhaps, -Mary, our affections are the shadow of an idea. Perhaps there isn’t any -such thing as affection in itself....” She spoke half-mockingly, asking -her question, which she scarcely troubled to frame, not of Mary, or of -any one in particular. - -But the words seemed to Mary Datchet shallow, supercilious, -cold-blooded, and cynical all in one. All her natural instincts were -roused in revolt against them. - -“I’m the opposite way of thinking, you see,” she said. - -“Yes; I know you are,” Katharine replied, looking at her as if now she -were about, perhaps, to explain something very important. - -Mary could not help feeling the simplicity and good faith that lay -behind Katharine’s words. - -“I think affection is the only reality,” she said. - -“Yes,” said Katharine, almost sadly. She understood that Mary was -thinking of Ralph, and she felt it impossible to press her to reveal -more of this exalted condition; she could only respect the fact that, -in some few cases, life arranged itself thus satisfactorily and pass -on. She rose to her feet accordingly. But Mary exclaimed, with -unmistakable earnestness, that she must not go; that they met so -seldom; that she wanted to talk to her so much.... Katharine was -surprised at the earnestness with which she spoke. It seemed to her -that there could be no indiscretion in mentioning Ralph by name. - -Seating herself “for ten minutes,” she said: “By the way, Mr. Denham -told me he was going to give up the Bar and live in the country. Has he -gone? He was beginning to tell me about it, when we were interrupted.” - -“He thinks of it,” said Mary briefly. The color at once came to her -face. - -“It would be a very good plan,” said Katharine in her decided way. - -“You think so?” - -“Yes, because he would do something worth while; he would write a book. -My father always says that he’s the most remarkable of the young men -who write for him.” - -Mary bent low over the fire and stirred the coal between the bars with -a poker. Katharine’s mention of Ralph had roused within her an almost -irresistible desire to explain to her the true state of the case -between herself and Ralph. She knew, from the tone of her voice, that -in speaking of Ralph she had no desire to probe Mary’s secrets, or to -insinuate any of her own. Moreover, she liked Katharine; she trusted -her; she felt a respect for her. The first step of confidence was -comparatively simple; but a further confidence had revealed itself, as -Katharine spoke, which was not so simple, and yet it impressed itself -upon her as a necessity; she must tell Katharine what it was clear that -she had no conception of—she must tell Katharine that Ralph was in love -with her. - -“I don’t know what he means to do,” she said hurriedly, seeking time -against the pressure of her own conviction. “I’ve not seen him since -Christmas.” - -Katharine reflected that this was odd; perhaps, after all, she had -misunderstood the position. She was in the habit of assuming, however, -that she was rather unobservant of the finer shades of feeling, and she -noted her present failure as another proof that she was a practical, -abstract-minded person, better fitted to deal with figures than with -the feelings of men and women. Anyhow, William Rodney would say so. - -“And now—” she said. - -“Oh, please stay!” Mary exclaimed, putting out her hand to stop her. -Directly Katharine moved she felt, inarticulately and violently, that -she could not bear to let her go. If Katharine went, her only chance of -speaking was lost; her only chance of saying something tremendously -important was lost. Half a dozen words were sufficient to wake -Katharine’s attention, and put flight and further silence beyond her -power. But although the words came to her lips, her throat closed upon -them and drove them back. After all, she considered, why should she -speak? Because it is right, her instinct told her; right to expose -oneself without reservations to other human beings. She flinched from -the thought. It asked too much of one already stripped bare. Something -she must keep of her own. But if she did keep something of her own? -Immediately she figured an immured life, continuing for an immense -period, the same feelings living for ever, neither dwindling nor -changing within the ring of a thick stone wall. The imagination of this -loneliness frightened her, and yet to speak—to lose her loneliness, for -it had already become dear to her, was beyond her power. - -Her hand went down to the hem of Katharine’s skirt, and, fingering a -line of fur, she bent her head as if to examine it. - -“I like this fur,” she said, “I like your clothes. And you mustn’t -think that I’m going to marry Ralph,” she continued, in the same tone, -“because he doesn’t care for me at all. He cares for some one else.” -Her head remained bent, and her hand still rested upon the skirt. - -“It’s a shabby old dress,” said Katharine, and the only sign that -Mary’s words had reached her was that she spoke with a little jerk. - -“You don’t mind my telling you that?” said Mary, raising herself. - -“No, no,” said Katharine; “but you’re mistaken, aren’t you?” She was, -in truth, horribly uncomfortable, dismayed, indeed, disillusioned. She -disliked the turn things had taken quite intensely. The indecency of it -afflicted her. The suffering implied by the tone appalled her. She -looked at Mary furtively, with eyes that were full of apprehension. But -if she had hoped to find that these words had been spoken without -understanding of their meaning, she was at once disappointed. Mary lay -back in her chair, frowning slightly, and looking, Katharine thought, -as if she had lived fifteen years or so in the space of a few minutes. - -“There are some things, don’t you think, that one can’t be mistaken -about?” Mary said, quietly and almost coldly. “That is what puzzles me -about this question of being in love. I’ve always prided myself upon -being reasonable,” she added. “I didn’t think I could have felt this—I -mean if the other person didn’t. I was foolish. I let myself pretend.” -Here she paused. “For, you see, Katharine,” she proceeded, rousing -herself and speaking with greater energy, “I AM in love. There’s no -doubt about that.... I’m tremendously in love... with Ralph.” The -little forward shake of her head, which shook a lock of hair, together -with her brighter color, gave her an appearance at once proud and -defiant. - -Katharine thought to herself, “That’s how it feels then.” She -hesitated, with a feeling that it was not for her to speak; and then -said, in a low tone, “You’ve got that.” - -“Yes,” said Mary; “I’ve got that. One wouldn’t _not_ be in love.... But -I didn’t mean to talk about that; I only wanted you to know. There’s -another thing I want to tell you...” She paused. “I haven’t any -authority from Ralph to say it; but I’m sure of this—he’s in love with -you.” - -Katharine looked at her again, as if her first glance must have been -deluded, for, surely, there must be some outward sign that Mary was -talking in an excited, or bewildered, or fantastic manner. No; she -still frowned, as if she sought her way through the clauses of a -difficult argument, but she still looked more like one who reasons than -one who feels. - -“That proves that you’re mistaken—utterly mistaken,” said Katharine, -speaking reasonably, too. She had no need to verify the mistake by a -glance at her own recollections, when the fact was so clearly stamped -upon her mind that if Ralph had any feeling towards her it was one of -critical hostility. She did not give the matter another thought, and -Mary, now that she had stated the fact, did not seek to prove it, but -tried to explain to herself, rather than to Katharine, her motives in -making the statement. - -She had nerved herself to do what some large and imperious instinct -demanded her doing; she had been swept on the breast of a wave beyond -her reckoning. - -“I’ve told you,” she said, “because I want you to help me. I don’t want -to be jealous of you. And I am—I’m fearfully jealous. The only way, I -thought, was to tell you.” - -She hesitated, and groped in her endeavor to make her feelings clear to -herself. - -“If I tell you, then we can talk; and when I’m jealous, I can tell you. -And if I’m tempted to do something frightfully mean, I can tell you; -you could make me tell you. I find talking so difficult; but loneliness -frightens me. I should shut it up in my mind. Yes, that’s what I’m -afraid of. Going about with something in my mind all my life that never -changes. I find it so difficult to change. When I think a thing’s wrong -I never stop thinking it wrong, and Ralph was quite right, I see, when -he said that there’s no such thing as right and wrong; no such thing, I -mean, as judging people—” - -“Ralph Denham said that?” said Katharine, with considerable -indignation. In order to have produced such suffering in Mary, it -seemed to her that he must have behaved with extreme callousness. It -seemed to her that he had discarded the friendship, when it suited his -convenience to do so, with some falsely philosophical theory which made -his conduct all the worse. She was going on to express herself thus, -had not Mary at once interrupted her. - -“No, no,” she said; “you don’t understand. If there’s any fault it’s -mine entirely; after all, if one chooses to run risks—” - -Her voice faltered into silence. It was borne in upon her how -completely in running her risk she had lost her prize, lost it so -entirely that she had no longer the right, in talking of Ralph, to -presume that her knowledge of him supplanted all other knowledge. She -no longer completely possessed her love, since his share in it was -doubtful; and now, to make things yet more bitter, her clear vision of -the way to face life was rendered tremulous and uncertain, because -another was witness of it. Feeling her desire for the old unshared -intimacy too great to be borne without tears, she rose, walked to the -farther end of the room, held the curtains apart, and stood there -mastered for a moment. The grief itself was not ignoble; the sting of -it lay in the fact that she had been led to this act of treachery -against herself. Trapped, cheated, robbed, first by Ralph and then by -Katharine, she seemed all dissolved in humiliation, and bereft of -anything she could call her own. Tears of weakness welled up and rolled -down her cheeks. But tears, at least, she could control, and would this -instant, and then, turning, she would face Katharine, and retrieve what -could be retrieved of the collapse of her courage. - -She turned. Katharine had not moved; she was leaning a little forward -in her chair and looking into the fire. Something in the attitude -reminded Mary of Ralph. So he would sit, leaning forward, looking -rather fixedly in front of him, while his mind went far away, -exploring, speculating, until he broke off with his, “Well, Mary?”—and -the silence, that had been so full of romance to her, gave way to the -most delightful talk that she had ever known. - -Something unfamiliar in the pose of the silent figure, something still, -solemn, significant about it, made her hold her breath. She paused. Her -thoughts were without bitterness. She was surprised by her own quiet -and confidence. She came back silently, and sat once more by -Katharine’s side. Mary had no wish to speak. In the silence she seemed -to have lost her isolation; she was at once the sufferer and the -pitiful spectator of suffering; she was happier than she had ever been; -she was more bereft; she was rejected, and she was immensely beloved. -Attempt to express these sensations was vain, and, moreover, she could -not help believing that, without any words on her side, they were -shared. Thus for some time longer they sat silent, side by side, while -Mary fingered the fur on the skirt of the old dress. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - -The fact that she would be late in keeping her engagement with William -was not the only reason which sent Katharine almost at racing speed -along the Strand in the direction of his rooms. Punctuality might have -been achieved by taking a cab, had she not wished the open air to fan -into flame the glow kindled by Mary’s words. For among all the -impressions of the evening’s talk one was of the nature of a revelation -and subdued the rest to insignificance. Thus one looked; thus one -spoke; such was love. - -“She sat up straight and looked at me, and then she said, ‘I’m in -love,’” Katharine mused, trying to set the whole scene in motion. It -was a scene to dwell on with so much wonder that not a grain of pity -occurred to her; it was a flame blazing suddenly in the dark; by its -light Katharine perceived far too vividly for her comfort the -mediocrity, indeed the entirely fictitious character of her own -feelings so far as they pretended to correspond with Mary’s feelings. -She made up her mind to act instantly upon the knowledge thus gained, -and cast her mind in amazement back to the scene upon the heath, when -she had yielded, heaven knows why, for reasons which seemed now -imperceptible. So in broad daylight one might revisit the place where -one has groped and turned and succumbed to utter bewilderment in a fog. - -“It’s all so simple,” she said to herself. “There can’t be any doubt. -I’ve only got to speak now. I’ve only got to speak,” she went on -saying, in time to her own footsteps, and completely forgot Mary -Datchet. - -William Rodney, having come back earlier from the office than he -expected, sat down to pick out the melodies in “The Magic Flute” upon -the piano. Katharine was late, but that was nothing new, and, as she -had no particular liking for music, and he felt in the mood for it, -perhaps it was as well. This defect in Katharine was the more strange, -William reflected, because, as a rule, the women of her family were -unusually musical. Her cousin, Cassandra Otway, for example, had a very -fine taste in music, and he had charming recollections of her in a -light fantastic attitude, playing the flute in the morning-room at -Stogdon House. He recalled with pleasure the amusing way in which her -nose, long like all the Otway noses, seemed to extend itself into the -flute, as if she were some inimitably graceful species of musical mole. -The little picture suggested very happily her melodious and whimsical -temperament. The enthusiasms of a young girl of distinguished -upbringing appealed to William, and suggested a thousand ways in which, -with his training and accomplishments, he could be of service to her. -She ought to be given the chance of hearing good music, as it is played -by those who have inherited the great tradition. Moreover, from one or -two remarks let fall in the course of conversation, he thought it -possible that she had what Katharine professed to lack, a passionate, -if untaught, appreciation of literature. He had lent her his play. -Meanwhile, as Katharine was certain to be late, and “The Magic Flute” -is nothing without a voice, he felt inclined to spend the time of -waiting in writing a letter to Cassandra, exhorting her to read Pope in -preference to Dostoevsky, until her feeling for form was more highly -developed. He set himself down to compose this piece of advice in a -shape which was light and playful, and yet did no injury to a cause -which he had near at heart, when he heard Katharine upon the stairs. A -moment later it was plain that he had been mistaken, it was not -Katharine; but he could not settle himself to his letter. His temper -had changed from one of urbane contentment—indeed of delicious -expansion—to one of uneasiness and expectation. The dinner was brought -in, and had to be set by the fire to keep hot. It was now a quarter of -an hour beyond the specified time. He bethought him of a piece of news -which had depressed him in the earlier part of the day. Owing to the -illness of one of his fellow-clerks, it was likely that he would get no -holiday until later in the year, which would mean the postponement of -their marriage. But this possibility, after all, was not so -disagreeable as the probability which forced itself upon him with every -tick of the clock that Katharine had completely forgotten her -engagement. Such things had happened less frequently since Christmas, -but what if they were going to begin to happen again? What if their -marriage should turn out, as she had said, a farce? He acquitted her of -any wish to hurt him wantonly, but there was something in her character -which made it impossible for her to help hurting people. Was she cold? -Was she self-absorbed? He tried to fit her with each of these -descriptions, but he had to own that she puzzled him. - -“There are so many things that she doesn’t understand,” he reflected, -glancing at the letter to Cassandra which he had begun and laid aside. -What prevented him from finishing the letter which he had so much -enjoyed beginning? The reason was that Katharine might, at any moment, -enter the room. The thought, implying his bondage to her, irritated him -acutely. It occurred to him that he would leave the letter lying open -for her to see, and he would take the opportunity of telling her that -he had sent his play to Cassandra for her to criticize. Possibly, but -not by any means certainly, this would annoy her—and as he reached the -doubtful comfort of this conclusion, there was a knock on the door and -Katharine came in. They kissed each other coldly and she made no -apology for being late. Nevertheless, her mere presence moved him -strangely; but he was determined that this should not weaken his -resolution to make some kind of stand against her; to get at the truth -about her. He let her make her own disposition of clothes and busied -himself with the plates. - -“I’ve got a piece of news for you, Katharine,” he said directly they -sat down to table; “I shan’t get my holiday in April. We shall have to -put off our marriage.” - -He rapped the words out with a certain degree of briskness. Katharine -started a little, as if the announcement disturbed her thoughts. - -“That won’t make any difference, will it? I mean the lease isn’t -signed,” she replied. “But why? What has happened?” - -He told her, in an off-hand way, how one of his fellow-clerks had -broken down, and might have to be away for months, six months even, in -which case they would have to think over their position. He said it in -a way which struck her, at last, as oddly casual. She looked at him. -There was no outward sign that he was annoyed with her. Was she well -dressed? She thought sufficiently so. Perhaps she was late? She looked -for a clock. - -“It’s a good thing we didn’t take the house then,” she repeated -thoughtfully. - -“It’ll mean, too, I’m afraid, that I shan’t be as free for a -considerable time as I have been,” he continued. She had time to -reflect that she gained something by all this, though it was too soon -to determine what. But the light which had been burning with such -intensity as she came along was suddenly overclouded, as much by his -manner as by his news. She had been prepared to meet opposition, which -is simple to encounter compared with—she did not know what it was that -she had to encounter. The meal passed in quiet, well-controlled talk -about indifferent things. Music was not a subject about which she knew -anything, but she liked him to tell her things; and could, she mused, -as he talked, fancy the evenings of married life spent thus, over the -fire; spent thus, or with a book, perhaps, for then she would have time -to read her books, and to grasp firmly with every muscle of her unused -mind what she longed to know. The atmosphere was very free. Suddenly -William broke off. She looked up apprehensively, brushing aside these -thoughts with annoyance. - -“Where should I address a letter to Cassandra?” he asked her. It was -obvious again that William had some meaning or other to-night, or was -in some mood. “We’ve struck up a friendship,” he added. - -“She’s at home, I think,” Katharine replied. - -“They keep her too much at home,” said William. “Why don’t you ask her -to stay with you, and let her hear a little good music? I’ll just -finish what I was saying, if you don’t mind, because I’m particularly -anxious that she should hear to-morrow.” - -Katharine sank back in her chair, and Rodney took the paper on his -knees, and went on with his sentence. “Style, you know, is what we tend -to neglect—“; but he was far more conscious of Katharine’s eye upon him -than of what he was saying about style. He knew that she was looking at -him, but whether with irritation or indifference he could not guess. - -In truth, she had fallen sufficiently into his trap to feel -uncomfortably roused and disturbed and unable to proceed on the lines -laid down for herself. This indifferent, if not hostile, attitude on -William’s part made it impossible to break off without animosity, -largely and completely. Infinitely preferable was Mary’s state, she -thought, where there was a simple thing to do and one did it. In fact, -she could not help supposing that some littleness of nature had a part -in all the refinements, reserves, and subtleties of feeling for which -her friends and family were so distinguished. For example, although she -liked Cassandra well enough, her fantastic method of life struck her as -purely frivolous; now it was socialism, now it was silkworms, now it -was music—which last she supposed was the cause of William’s sudden -interest in her. Never before had William wasted the minutes of her -presence in writing his letters. With a curious sense of light opening -where all, hitherto, had been opaque, it dawned upon her that, after -all, possibly, yes, probably, nay, certainly, the devotion which she -had almost wearily taken for granted existed in a much slighter degree -than she had suspected, or existed no longer. She looked at him -attentively as if this discovery of hers must show traces in his face. -Never had she seen so much to respect in his appearance, so much that -attracted her by its sensitiveness and intelligence, although she saw -these qualities as if they were those one responds to, dumbly, in the -face of a stranger. The head bent over the paper, thoughtful as usual, -had now a composure which seemed somehow to place it at a distance, -like a face seen talking to some one else behind glass. - -He wrote on, without raising his eyes. She would have spoken, but could -not bring herself to ask him for signs of affection which she had no -right to claim. The conviction that he was thus strange to her filled -her with despondency, and illustrated quite beyond doubt the infinite -loneliness of human beings. She had never felt the truth of this so -strongly before. She looked away into the fire; it seemed to her that -even physically they were now scarcely within speaking distance; and -spiritually there was certainly no human being with whom she could -claim comradeship; no dream that satisfied her as she was used to be -satisfied; nothing remained in whose reality she could believe, save -those abstract ideas—figures, laws, stars, facts, which she could -hardly hold to for lack of knowledge and a kind of shame. - -When Rodney owned to himself the folly of this prolonged silence, and -the meanness of such devices, and looked up ready to seek some excuse -for a good laugh, or opening for a confession, he was disconcerted by -what he saw. Katharine seemed equally oblivious of what was bad or of -what was good in him. Her expression suggested concentration upon -something entirely remote from her surroundings. The carelessness of -her attitude seemed to him rather masculine than feminine. His impulse -to break up the constraint was chilled, and once more the exasperating -sense of his own impotency returned to him. He could not help -contrasting Katharine with his vision of the engaging, whimsical -Cassandra; Katharine undemonstrative, inconsiderate, silent, and yet so -notable that he could never do without her good opinion. - -She veered round upon him a moment later, as if, when her train of -thought was ended, she became aware of his presence. - -“Have you finished your letter?” she asked. He thought he heard faint -amusement in her tone, but not a trace of jealousy. - -“No, I’m not going to write any more to-night,” he said. “I’m not in -the mood for it for some reason. I can’t say what I want to say.” - -“Cassandra won’t know if it’s well written or badly written,” Katharine -remarked. - -“I’m not so sure about that. I should say she has a good deal of -literary feeling.” - -“Perhaps,” said Katharine indifferently. “You’ve been neglecting my -education lately, by the way. I wish you’d read something. Let me -choose a book.” So speaking, she went across to his bookshelves and -began looking in a desultory way among his books. Anything, she -thought, was better than bickering or the strange silence which drove -home to her the distance between them. As she pulled one book forward -and then another she thought ironically of her own certainty not an -hour ago; how it had vanished in a moment, how she was merely marking -time as best she could, not knowing in the least where they stood, what -they felt, or whether William loved her or not. More and more the -condition of Mary’s mind seemed to her wonderful and enviable—if, -indeed, it could be quite as she figured it—if, indeed, simplicity -existed for any one of the daughters of women. - -“Swift,” she said, at last, taking out a volume at haphazard to settle -this question at least. “Let us have some Swift.” - -Rodney took the book, held it in front of him, inserted one finger -between the pages, but said nothing. His face wore a queer expression -of deliberation, as if he were weighing one thing with another, and -would not say anything until his mind were made up. - -Katharine, taking her chair beside him, noted his silence and looked at -him with sudden apprehension. What she hoped or feared, she could not -have said; a most irrational and indefensible desire for some assurance -of his affection was, perhaps, uppermost in her mind. Peevishness, -complaints, exacting cross-examination she was used to, but this -attitude of composed quiet, which seemed to come from the consciousness -of power within, puzzled her. She did not know what was going to happen -next. - -At last William spoke. - -“I think it’s a little odd, don’t you?” he said, in a voice of detached -reflection. “Most people, I mean, would be seriously upset if their -marriage was put off for six months or so. But we aren’t; now how do -you account for that?” - -She looked at him and observed his judicial attitude as of one holding -far aloof from emotion. - -“I attribute it,” he went on, without waiting for her to answer, “to -the fact that neither of us is in the least romantic about the other. -That may be partly, no doubt, because we’ve known each other so long; -but I’m inclined to think there’s more in it than that. There’s -something temperamental. I think you’re a trifle cold, and I suspect -I’m a trifle self-absorbed. If that were so it goes a long way to -explaining our odd lack of illusion about each other. I’m not saying -that the most satisfactory marriages aren’t founded upon this sort of -understanding. But certainly it struck me as odd this morning, when -Wilson told me, how little upset I felt. By the way, you’re sure we -haven’t committed ourselves to that house?” - -“I’ve kept the letters, and I’ll go through them to-morrow; but I’m -certain we’re on the safe side.” - -“Thanks. As to the psychological problem,” he continued, as if the -question interested him in a detached way, “there’s no doubt, I think, -that either of us is capable of feeling what, for reasons of -simplicity, I call romance for a third person—at least, I’ve little -doubt in my own case.” - -It was, perhaps, the first time in all her knowledge of him that -Katharine had known William enter thus deliberately and without sign of -emotion upon a statement of his own feelings. He was wont to discourage -such intimate discussions by a little laugh or turn of the -conversation, as much as to say that men, or men of the world, find -such topics a little silly, or in doubtful taste. His obvious wish to -explain something puzzled her, interested her, and neutralized the -wound to her vanity. For some reason, too, she felt more at ease with -him than usual; or her ease was more the ease of equality—she could not -stop to think of that at the moment though. His remarks interested her -too much for the light that they threw upon certain problems of her -own. - -“What is this romance?” she mused. - -“Ah, that’s the question. I’ve never come across a definition that -satisfied me, though there are some very good ones”—he glanced in the -direction of his books. - -“It’s not altogether knowing the other person, perhaps—it’s ignorance,” -she hazarded. - -“Some authorities say it’s a question of distance—romance in -literature, that is—” - -“Possibly, in the case of art. But in the case of people it may be—” -she hesitated. - -“Have you no personal experience of it?” he asked, letting his eyes -rest upon her swiftly for a moment. - -“I believe it’s influenced me enormously,” she said, in the tone of one -absorbed by the possibilities of some view just presented to them; “but -in my life there’s so little scope for it,” she added. She reviewed her -daily task, the perpetual demands upon her for good sense, -self-control, and accuracy in a house containing a romantic mother. Ah, -but her romance wasn’t _that_ romance. It was a desire, an echo, a -sound; she could drape it in color, see it in form, hear it in music, -but not in words; no, never in words. She sighed, teased by desires so -incoherent, so incommunicable. - -“But isn’t it curious,” William resumed, “that you should neither feel -it for me, nor I for you?” - -Katharine agreed that it was curious—very; but even more curious to her -was the fact that she was discussing the question with William. It -revealed possibilities which opened a prospect of a new relationship -altogether. Somehow it seemed to her that he was helping her to -understand what she had never understood; and in her gratitude she was -conscious of a most sisterly desire to help him, too—sisterly, save for -one pang, not quite to be subdued, that for him she was without -romance. - -“I think you might be very happy with some one you loved in that way,” -she said. - -“You assume that romance survives a closer knowledge of the person one -loves?” - -He asked the question formally, to protect himself from the sort of -personality which he dreaded. The whole situation needed the most -careful management lest it should degenerate into some degrading and -disturbing exhibition such as the scene, which he could never think of -without shame, upon the heath among the dead leaves. And yet each -sentence brought him relief. He was coming to understand something or -other about his own desires hitherto undefined by him, the source of -his difficulty with Katharine. The wish to hurt her, which had urged -him to begin, had completely left him, and he felt that it was only -Katharine now who could help him to be sure. He must take his time. -There were so many things that he could not say without the greatest -difficulty—that name, for example, Cassandra. Nor could he move his -eyes from a certain spot, a fiery glen surrounded by high mountains, in -the heart of the coals. He waited in suspense for Katharine to -continue. She had said that he might be very happy with some one he -loved in that way. - -“I don’t see why it shouldn’t last with you,” she resumed. “I can -imagine a certain sort of person—” she paused; she was aware that he -was listening with the greatest intentness, and that his formality was -merely the cover for an extreme anxiety of some sort. There was some -person then—some woman—who could it be? Cassandra? Ah, possibly— - -“A person,” she added, speaking in the most matter-of-fact tone she -could command, “like Cassandra Otway, for instance. Cassandra is the -most interesting of the Otways—with the exception of Henry. Even so, I -like Cassandra better. She has more than mere cleverness. She is a -character—a person by herself.” - -“Those dreadful insects!” burst from William, with a nervous laugh, and -a little spasm went through him as Katharine noticed. It _was_ -Cassandra then. Automatically and dully she replied, “You could insist -that she confined herself to—to—something else.... But she cares for -music; I believe she writes poetry; and there can be no doubt that she -has a peculiar charm—” - -She ceased, as if defining to herself this peculiar charm. After a -moment’s silence William jerked out: - -“I thought her affectionate?” - -“Extremely affectionate. She worships Henry. When you think what a -house that is—Uncle Francis always in one mood or another—” - -“Dear, dear, dear,” William muttered. - -“And you have so much in common.” - -“My dear Katharine!” William exclaimed, flinging himself back in his -chair, and uprooting his eyes from the spot in the fire. “I really -don’t know what we’re talking about.... I assure you....” - -He was covered with an extreme confusion. - -He withdrew the finger that was still thrust between the pages of -Gulliver, opened the book, and ran his eye down the list of chapters, -as though he were about to select the one most suitable for reading -aloud. As Katharine watched him, she was seized with preliminary -symptoms of his own panic. At the same time she was convinced that, -should he find the right page, take out his spectacles, clear his -throat, and open his lips, a chance that would never come again in all -their lives would be lost to them both. - -“We’re talking about things that interest us both very much,” she said. -“Shan’t we go on talking, and leave Swift for another time? I don’t -feel in the mood for Swift, and it’s a pity to read any one when that’s -the case—particularly Swift.” - -The presence of wise literary speculation, as she calculated, restored -William’s confidence in his security, and he replaced the book in the -bookcase, keeping his back turned to her as he did so, and taking -advantage of this circumstance to summon his thoughts together. - -But a second of introspection had the alarming result of showing him -that his mind, when looked at from within, was no longer familiar -ground. He felt, that is to say, what he had never consciously felt -before; he was revealed to himself as other than he was wont to think -him; he was afloat upon a sea of unknown and tumultuous possibilities. -He paced once up and down the room, and then flung himself impetuously -into the chair by Katharine’s side. He had never felt anything like -this before; he put himself entirely into her hands; he cast off all -responsibility. He very nearly exclaimed aloud: - -“You’ve stirred up all these odious and violent emotions, and now you -must do the best you can with them.” - -Her near presence, however, had a calming and reassuring effect upon -his agitation, and he was conscious only of an implicit trust that, -somehow, he was safe with her, that she would see him through, find out -what it was that he wanted, and procure it for him. - -“I wish to do whatever you tell me to do,” he said. “I put myself -entirely in your hands, Katharine.” - -“You must try to tell me what you feel,” she said. - -“My dear, I feel a thousand things every second. I don’t know, I’m -sure, what I feel. That afternoon on the heath—it was then—then—” He -broke off; he did not tell her what had happened then. “Your ghastly -good sense, as usual, has convinced me—for the moment—but what the -truth is, Heaven only knows!” he exclaimed. - -“Isn’t it the truth that you are, or might be, in love with Cassandra?” -she said gently. - -William bowed his head. After a moment’s silence he murmured: - -“I believe you’re right, Katharine.” - -She sighed, involuntarily. She had been hoping all this time, with an -intensity that increased second by second against the current of her -words, that it would not in the end come to this. After a moment of -surprising anguish, she summoned her courage to tell him how she wished -only that she might help him, and had framed the first words of her -speech when a knock, terrific and startling to people in their -overwrought condition, sounded upon the door. - -“Katharine, I worship you,” he urged, half in a whisper. - -“Yes,” she replied, withdrawing with a little shiver, “but you must -open the door.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -When Ralph Denham entered the room and saw Katharine seated with her -back to him, he was conscious of a change in the grade of the -atmosphere such as a traveler meets with sometimes upon the roads, -particularly after sunset, when, without warning, he runs from clammy -chill to a hoard of unspent warmth in which the sweetness of hay and -beanfield is cherished, as if the sun still shone although the moon is -up. He hesitated; he shuddered; he walked elaborately to the window and -laid aside his coat. He balanced his stick most carefully against the -folds of the curtain. Thus occupied with his own sensations and -preparations, he had little time to observe what either of the other -two was feeling. Such symptoms of agitation as he might perceive (and -they had left their tokens in brightness of eye and pallor of cheeks) -seemed to him well befitting the actors in so great a drama as that of -Katharine Hilbery’s daily life. Beauty and passion were the breath of -her being, he thought. - -She scarcely noticed his presence, or only as it forced her to adopt a -manner of composure, which she was certainly far from feeling. William, -however, was even more agitated than she was, and her first instalment -of promised help took the form of some commonplace upon the age of the -building or the architect’s name, which gave him an excuse to fumble in -a drawer for certain designs, which he laid upon the table between the -three of them. - -Which of the three followed the designs most carefully it would be -difficult to tell, but it is certain that not one of the three found -for the moment anything to say. Years of training in a drawing-room -came at length to Katharine’s help, and she said something suitable, at -the same moment withdrawing her hand from the table because she -perceived that it trembled. William agreed effusively; Denham -corroborated him, speaking in rather high-pitched tones; they thrust -aside the plans, and drew nearer to the fireplace. - -“I’d rather live here than anywhere in the whole of London,” said -Denham. - -(“And I’ve got nowhere to live”) Katharine thought, as she agreed -aloud. - -“You could get rooms here, no doubt, if you wanted to,” Rodney replied. - -“But I’m just leaving London for good—I’ve taken that cottage I was -telling you about.” The announcement seemed to convey very little to -either of his hearers. - -“Indeed?—that’s sad.... You must give me your address. But you won’t -cut yourself off altogether, surely—” - -“You’ll be moving, too, I suppose,” Denham remarked. - -William showed such visible signs of floundering that Katharine -collected herself and asked: - -“Where is the cottage you’ve taken?” - -In answering her, Denham turned and looked at her. As their eyes met, -she realized for the first time that she was talking to Ralph Denham, -and she remembered, without recalling any details, that she had been -speaking of him quite lately, and that she had reason to think ill of -him. What Mary had said she could not remember, but she felt that there -was a mass of knowledge in her mind which she had not had time to -examine—knowledge now lying on the far side of a gulf. But her -agitation flashed the queerest lights upon her past. She must get -through the matter in hand, and then think it out in quiet. She bent -her mind to follow what Ralph was saying. He was telling her that he -had taken a cottage in Norfolk, and she was saying that she knew, or -did not know, that particular neighborhood. But after a moment’s -attention her mind flew to Rodney, and she had an unusual, indeed -unprecedented, sense that they were in touch and shared each other’s -thoughts. If only Ralph were not there, she would at once give way to -her desire to take William’s hand, then to bend his head upon her -shoulder, for this was what she wanted to do more than anything at the -moment, unless, indeed, she wished more than anything to be alone—yes, -that was what she wanted. She was sick to death of these discussions; -she shivered at the effort to reveal her feelings. She had forgotten to -answer. William was speaking now. - -“But what will you find to do in the country?” she asked at random, -striking into a conversation which she had only half heard, in such a -way as to make both Rodney and Denham look at her with a little -surprise. But directly she took up the conversation, it was William’s -turn to fall silent. He at once forgot to listen to what they were -saying, although he interposed nervously at intervals, “Yes, yes, yes.” -As the minutes passed, Ralph’s presence became more and more -intolerable to him, since there was so much that he must say to -Katharine; the moment he could not talk to her, terrible doubts, -unanswerable questions accumulated, which he must lay before Katharine, -for she alone could help him now. Unless he could see her alone, it -would be impossible for him ever to sleep, or to know what he had said -in a moment of madness, which was not altogether mad, or was it mad? He -nodded his head, and said, nervously, “Yes, yes,” and looked at -Katharine, and thought how beautiful she looked; there was no one in -the world that he admired more. There was an emotion in her face which -lent it an expression he had never seen there. Then, as he was turning -over means by which he could speak to her alone, she rose, and he was -taken by surprise, for he had counted on the fact that she would -outstay Denham. His only chance, then, of saying something to her in -private, was to take her downstairs and walk with her to the street. -While he hesitated, however, overcome with the difficulty of putting -one simple thought into words when all his thoughts were scattered -about, and all were too strong for utterance, he was struck silent by -something that was still more unexpected. Denham got up from his chair, -looked at Katharine, and said: - -“I’m going, too. Shall we go together?” - -And before William could see any way of detaining him—or would it be -better to detain Katharine?—he had taken his hat, stick, and was -holding the door open for Katharine to pass out. The most that William -could do was to stand at the head of the stairs and say good-night. He -could not offer to go with them. He could not insist that she should -stay. He watched her descend, rather slowly, owing to the dusk of the -staircase, and he had a last sight of Denham’s head and of Katharine’s -head near together, against the panels, when suddenly a pang of acute -jealousy overcame him, and had he not remained conscious of the -slippers upon his feet, he would have run after them or cried out. As -it was he could not move from the spot. At the turn of the staircase -Katharine turned to look back, trusting to this last glance to seal -their compact of good friendship. Instead of returning her silent -greeting, William grinned back at her a cold stare of sarcasm or of -rage. - -She stopped dead for a moment, and then descended slowly into the -court. She looked to the right and to the left, and once up into the -sky. She was only conscious of Denham as a block upon her thoughts. She -measured the distance that must be traversed before she would be alone. -But when they came to the Strand no cabs were to be seen, and Denham -broke the silence by saying: - -“There seem to be no cabs. Shall we walk on a little?” - -“Very well,” she agreed, paying no attention to him. - -Aware of her preoccupation, or absorbed in his own thoughts, Ralph said -nothing further; and in silence they walked some distance along the -Strand. Ralph was doing his best to put his thoughts into such order -that one came before the rest, and the determination that when he spoke -he should speak worthily, made him put off the moment of speaking till -he had found the exact words and even the place that best suited him. -The Strand was too busy. There was too much risk, also, of finding an -empty cab. Without a word of explanation he turned to the left, down -one of the side streets leading to the river. On no account must they -part until something of the very greatest importance had happened. He -knew perfectly well what he wished to say, and had arranged not only -the substance, but the order in which he was to say it. Now, however, -that he was alone with her, not only did he find the difficulty of -speaking almost insurmountable, but he was aware that he was angry with -her for thus disturbing him, and casting, as it was so easy for a -person of her advantages to do, these phantoms and pitfalls across his -path. He was determined that he would question her as severely as he -would question himself; and make them both, once and for all, either -justify her dominance or renounce it. But the longer they walked thus -alone, the more he was disturbed by the sense of her actual presence. -Her skirt blew; the feathers in her hat waved; sometimes he saw her a -step or two ahead of him, or had to wait for her to catch him up. - -The silence was prolonged, and at length drew her attention to him. -First she was annoyed that there was no cab to free her from his -company; then she recalled vaguely something that Mary had said to make -her think ill of him; she could not remember what, but the -recollection, combined with his masterful ways—why did he walk so fast -down this side street?—made her more and more conscious of a person of -marked, though disagreeable, force by her side. She stopped and, -looking round her for a cab, sighted one in the distance. He was thus -precipitated into speech. - -“Should you mind if we walked a little farther?” he asked. “There’s -something I want to say to you.” - -“Very well,” she replied, guessing that his request had something to do -with Mary Datchet. - -“It’s quieter by the river,” he said, and instantly he crossed over. “I -want to ask you merely this,” he began. But he paused so long that she -could see his head against the sky; the slope of his thin cheek and his -large, strong nose were clearly marked against it. While he paused, -words that were quite different from those he intended to use presented -themselves. - -“I’ve made you my standard ever since I saw you. I’ve dreamt about you; -I’ve thought of nothing but you; you represent to me the only reality -in the world.” - -His words, and the queer strained voice in which he spoke them, made it -appear as if he addressed some person who was not the woman beside him, -but some one far away. - -“And now things have come to such a pass that, unless I can speak to -you openly, I believe I shall go mad. I think of you as the most -beautiful, the truest thing in the world,” he continued, filled with a -sense of exaltation, and feeling that he had no need now to choose his -words with pedantic accuracy, for what he wanted to say was suddenly -become plain to him. - -“I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me you’re -everything that exists; the reality of everything. Life, I tell you, -would be impossible without you. And now I want—” - -She had heard him so far with a feeling that she had dropped some -material word which made sense of the rest. She could hear no more of -this unintelligible rambling without checking him. She felt that she -was overhearing what was meant for another. - -“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re saying things that you don’t -mean.” - -“I mean every word I say,” he replied, emphatically. He turned his head -towards her. She recovered the words she was searching for while he -spoke. “Ralph Denham is in love with you.” They came back to her in -Mary Datchet’s voice. Her anger blazed up in her. - -“I saw Mary Datchet this afternoon,” she exclaimed. - -He made a movement as if he were surprised or taken aback, but answered -in a moment: - -“She told you that I had asked her to marry me, I suppose?” - -“No!” Katharine exclaimed, in surprise. - -“I did though. It was the day I saw you at Lincoln,” he continued. “I -had meant to ask her to marry me, and then I looked out of the window -and saw you. After that I didn’t want to ask any one to marry me. But I -did it; and she knew I was lying, and refused me. I thought then, and -still think, that she cares for me. I behaved very badly. I don’t -defend myself.” - -“No,” said Katharine, “I should hope not. There’s no defence that I can -think of. If any conduct is wrong, that is.” She spoke with an energy -that was directed even more against herself than against him. “It seems -to me,” she continued, with the same energy, “that people are bound to -be honest. There’s no excuse for such behavior.” She could now see -plainly before her eyes the expression on Mary Datchet’s face. - -After a short pause, he said: - -“I am not telling you that I am in love with you. I am not in love with -you.” - -“I didn’t think that,” she replied, conscious of some bewilderment. - -“I have not spoken a word to you that I do not mean,” he added. - -“Tell me then what it is that you mean,” she said at length. - -As if obeying a common instinct, they both stopped and, bending -slightly over the balustrade of the river, looked into the flowing -water. - -“You say that we’ve got to be honest,” Ralph began. “Very well. I will -try to tell you the facts; but I warn you, you’ll think me mad. It’s a -fact, though, that since I first saw you four or five months ago I have -made you, in an utterly absurd way, I expect, my ideal. I’m almost -ashamed to tell you what lengths I’ve gone to. It’s become the thing -that matters most in my life.” He checked himself. “Without knowing -you, except that you’re beautiful, and all that, I’ve come to believe -that we’re in some sort of agreement; that we’re after something -together; that we see something.... I’ve got into the habit of -imagining you; I’m always thinking what you’d say or do; I walk along -the street talking to you; I dream of you. It’s merely a bad habit, a -schoolboy habit, day-dreaming; it’s a common experience; half one’s -friends do the same; well, those are the facts.” - -Simultaneously, they both walked on very slowly. - -“If you were to know me you would feel none of this,” she said. “We -don’t know each other—we’ve always been—interrupted.... Were you going -to tell me this that day my aunts came?” she asked, recollecting the -whole scene. - -He bowed his head. - -“The day you told me of your engagement,” he said. - -She thought, with a start, that she was no longer engaged. - -“I deny that I should cease to feel this if I knew you,” he went on. “I -should feel it more reasonably—that’s all. I shouldn’t talk the kind of -nonsense I’ve talked to-night.... But it wasn’t nonsense. It was the -truth,” he said doggedly. “It’s the important thing. You can force me -to talk as if this feeling for you were an hallucination, but all our -feelings are that. The best of them are half illusions. Still,” he -added, as if arguing to himself, “if it weren’t as real a feeling as -I’m capable of, I shouldn’t be changing my life on your account.” - -“What do you mean?” she inquired. - -“I told you. I’m taking a cottage. I’m giving up my profession.” - -“On my account?” she asked, in amazement. - -“Yes, on your account,” he replied. He explained his meaning no -further. - -“But I don’t know you or your circumstances,” she said at last, as he -remained silent. - -“You have no opinion about me one way or the other?” - -“Yes, I suppose I have an opinion—” she hesitated. - -He controlled his wish to ask her to explain herself, and much to his -pleasure she went on, appearing to search her mind. - -“I thought that you criticized me—perhaps disliked me. I thought of you -as a person who judges—” - -“No; I’m a person who feels,” he said, in a low voice. - -“Tell me, then, what has made you do this?” she asked, after a break. - -He told her in an orderly way, betokening careful preparation, all that -he had meant to say at first; how he stood with regard to his brothers -and sisters; what his mother had said, and his sister Joan had -refrained from saying; exactly how many pounds stood in his name at the -bank; what prospect his brother had of earning a livelihood in America; -how much of their income went on rent, and other details known to him -by heart. She listened to all this, so that she could have passed an -examination in it by the time Waterloo Bridge was in sight; and yet she -was no more listening to it than she was counting the paving-stones at -her feet. She was feeling happier than she had felt in her life. If -Denham could have seen how visibly books of algebraic symbols, pages -all speckled with dots and dashes and twisted bars, came before her -eyes as they trod the Embankment, his secret joy in her attention might -have been dispersed. She went on, saying, “Yes, I see.... But how would -that help you?... Your brother has passed his examination?” so -sensibly, that he had constantly to keep his brain in check; and all -the time she was in fancy looking up through a telescope at white -shadow-cleft disks which were other worlds, until she felt herself -possessed of two bodies, one walking by the river with Denham, the -other concentrated to a silver globe aloft in the fine blue space above -the scum of vapors that was covering the visible world. She looked at -the sky once, and saw that no star was keen enough to pierce the flight -of watery clouds now coursing rapidly before the west wind. She looked -down hurriedly again. There was no reason, she assured herself, for -this feeling of happiness; she was not free; she was not alone; she was -still bound to earth by a million fibres; every step took her nearer -home. Nevertheless, she exulted as she had never exulted before. The -air was fresher, the lights more distinct, the cold stone of the -balustrade colder and harder, when by chance or purpose she struck her -hand against it. No feeling of annoyance with Denham remained; he -certainly did not hinder any flight she might choose to make, whether -in the direction of the sky or of her home; but that her condition was -due to him, or to anything that he had said, she had no consciousness -at all. - -They were now within sight of the stream of cabs and omnibuses crossing -to and from the Surrey side of the river; the sound of the traffic, the -hooting of motor-horns, and the light chime of tram-bells sounded more -and more distinctly, and, with the increase of noise, they both became -silent. With a common instinct they slackened their pace, as if to -lengthen the time of semi-privacy allowed them. To Ralph, the pleasure -of these last yards of the walk with Katharine was so great that he -could not look beyond the present moment to the time when she should -have left him. He had no wish to use the last moments of their -companionship in adding fresh words to what he had already said. Since -they had stopped talking, she had become to him not so much a real -person, as the very woman he dreamt of; but his solitary dreams had -never produced any such keenness of sensation as that which he felt in -her presence. He himself was also strangely transfigured. He had -complete mastery of all his faculties. For the first time he was in -possession of his full powers. The vistas which opened before him -seemed to have no perceptible end. But the mood had none of the -restlessness or feverish desire to add one delight to another which had -hitherto marked, and somewhat spoilt, the most rapturous of his -imaginings. It was a mood that took such clear-eyed account of the -conditions of human life that he was not disturbed in the least by the -gliding presence of a taxicab, and without agitation he perceived that -Katharine was conscious of it also, and turned her head in that -direction. Their halting steps acknowledged the desirability of -engaging the cab; and they stopped simultaneously, and signed to it. - -“Then you will let me know your decision as soon as you can?” he asked, -with his hand on the door. - -She hesitated for a moment. She could not immediately recall what the -question was that she had to decide. - -“I will write,” she said vaguely. “No,” she added, in a second, -bethinking her of the difficulties of writing anything decided upon a -question to which she had paid no attention, “I don’t see how to manage -it.” - -She stood looking at Denham, considering and hesitating, with her foot -upon the step. He guessed her difficulties; he knew in a second that -she had heard nothing; he knew everything that she felt. - -“There’s only one place to discuss things satisfactorily that I know -of,” he said quickly; “that’s Kew.” - -“Kew?” - -“Kew,” he repeated, with immense decision. He shut the door and gave -her address to the driver. She instantly was conveyed away from him, -and her cab joined the knotted stream of vehicles, each marked by a -light, and indistinguishable one from the other. He stood watching for -a moment, and then, as if swept by some fierce impulse, from the spot -where they had stood, he turned, crossed the road at a rapid pace, and -disappeared. - -He walked on upon the impetus of this last mood of almost supernatural -exaltation until he reached a narrow street, at this hour empty of -traffic and passengers. Here, whether it was the shops with their -shuttered windows, the smooth and silvered curve of the wood pavement, -or a natural ebb of feeling, his exaltation slowly oozed and deserted -him. He was now conscious of the loss that follows any revelation; he -had lost something in speaking to Katharine, for, after all, was the -Katharine whom he loved the same as the real Katharine? She had -transcended her entirely at moments; her skirt had blown, her feather -waved, her voice spoken; yes, but how terrible sometimes the pause -between the voice of one’s dreams and the voice that comes from the -object of one’s dreams! He felt a mixture of disgust and pity at the -figure cut by human beings when they try to carry out, in practice, -what they have the power to conceive. How small both he and Katharine -had appeared when they issued from the cloud of thought that enveloped -them! He recalled the small, inexpressive, commonplace words in which -they had tried to communicate with each other; he repeated them over to -himself. By repeating Katharine’s words, he came in a few moments to -such a sense of her presence that he worshipped her more than ever. But -she was engaged to be married, he remembered with a start. The strength -of his feeling was revealed to him instantly, and he gave himself up to -an irresistible rage and sense of frustration. The image of Rodney came -before him with every circumstance of folly and indignity. That little -pink-cheeked dancing-master to marry Katharine? that gibbering ass with -the face of a monkey on an organ? that posing, vain, fantastical fop? -with his tragedies and his comedies, his innumerable spites and prides -and pettinesses? Lord! marry Rodney! She must be as great a fool as he -was. His bitterness took possession of him, and as he sat in the corner -of the underground carriage, he looked as stark an image of -unapproachable severity as could be imagined. Directly he reached home -he sat down at his table, and began to write Katharine a long, wild, -mad letter, begging her for both their sakes to break with Rodney, -imploring her not to do what would destroy for ever the one beauty, the -one truth, the one hope; not to be a traitor, not to be a deserter, for -if she were—and he wound up with a quiet and brief assertion that, -whatever she did or left undone, he would believe to be the best, and -accept from her with gratitude. He covered sheet after sheet, and heard -the early carts starting for London before he went to bed. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - -The first signs of spring, even such as make themselves felt towards -the middle of February, not only produce little white and violet -flowers in the more sheltered corners of woods and gardens, but bring -to birth thoughts and desires comparable to those faintly colored and -sweetly scented petals in the minds of men and women. Lives frozen by -age, so far as the present is concerned, to a hard surface, which -neither reflects nor yields, at this season become soft and fluid, -reflecting the shapes and colors of the present, as well as the shapes -and colors of the past. In the case of Mrs. Hilbery, these early spring -days were chiefly upsetting inasmuch as they caused a general -quickening of her emotional powers, which, as far as the past was -concerned, had never suffered much diminution. But in the spring her -desire for expression invariably increased. She was haunted by the -ghosts of phrases. She gave herself up to a sensual delight in the -combinations of words. She sought them in the pages of her favorite -authors. She made them for herself on scraps of paper, and rolled them -on her tongue when there seemed no occasion for such eloquence. She was -upheld in these excursions by the certainty that no language could -outdo the splendor of her father’s memory, and although her efforts did -not notably further the end of his biography, she was under the -impression of living more in his shade at such times than at others. No -one can escape the power of language, let alone those of English birth -brought up from childhood, as Mrs. Hilbery had been, to disport -themselves now in the Saxon plainness, now in the Latin splendor of the -tongue, and stored with memories, as she was, of old poets exuberating -in an infinity of vocables. Even Katharine was slightly affected -against her better judgment by her mother’s enthusiasm. Not that her -judgment could altogether acquiesce in the necessity for a study of -Shakespeare’s sonnets as a preliminary to the fifth chapter of her -grandfather’s biography. Beginning with a perfectly frivolous jest, -Mrs. Hilbery had evolved a theory that Anne Hathaway had a way, among -other things, of writing Shakespeare’s sonnets; the idea, struck out to -enliven a party of professors, who forwarded a number of privately -printed manuals within the next few days for her instruction, had -submerged her in a flood of Elizabethan literature; she had come half -to believe in her joke, which was, she said, at least as good as other -people’s facts, and all her fancy for the time being centered upon -Stratford-on-Avon. She had a plan, she told Katharine, when, rather -later than usual, Katharine came into the room the morning after her -walk by the river, for visiting Shakespeare’s tomb. Any fact about the -poet had become, for the moment, of far greater interest to her than -the immediate present, and the certainty that there was existing in -England a spot of ground where Shakespeare had undoubtedly stood, where -his very bones lay directly beneath one’s feet, was so absorbing to her -on this particular occasion that she greeted her daughter with the -exclamation: - -“D’you think he ever passed this house?” - -The question, for the moment, seemed to Katharine to have reference to -Ralph Denham. - -“On his way to Blackfriars, I mean,” Mrs. Hilbery continued, “for you -know the latest discovery is that he owned a house there.” - -Katharine still looked about her in perplexity, and Mrs. Hilbery added: - -“Which is a proof that he wasn’t as poor as they’ve sometimes said. I -should like to think that he had enough, though I don’t in the least -want him to be rich.” - -Then, perceiving her daughter’s expression of perplexity, Mrs. Hilbery -burst out laughing. - -“My dear, I’m not talking about _your_ William, though that’s another -reason for liking him. I’m talking, I’m thinking, I’m dreaming of _my_ -William—William Shakespeare, of course. Isn’t it odd,” she mused, -standing at the window and tapping gently upon the pane, “that for all -one can see, that dear old thing in the blue bonnet, crossing the road -with her basket on her arm, has never heard that there was such a -person? Yet it all goes on: lawyers hurrying to their work, cabmen -squabbling for their fares, little boys rolling their hoops, little -girls throwing bread to the gulls, as if there weren’t a Shakespeare in -the world. I should like to stand at that crossing all day long and -say: ‘People, read Shakespeare!’” - -Katharine sat down at her table and opened a long dusty envelope. As -Shelley was mentioned in the course of the letter as if he were alive, -it had, of course, considerable value. Her immediate task was to decide -whether the whole letter should be printed, or only the paragraph which -mentioned Shelley’s name, and she reached out for a pen and held it in -readiness to do justice upon the sheet. Her pen, however, remained in -the air. Almost surreptitiously she slipped a clean sheet in front of -her, and her hand, descending, began drawing square boxes halved and -quartered by straight lines, and then circles which underwent the same -process of dissection. - -“Katharine! I’ve hit upon a brilliant idea!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed—“to -lay out, say, a hundred pounds or so on copies of Shakespeare, and give -them to working men. Some of your clever friends who get up meetings -might help us, Katharine. And that might lead to a playhouse, where we -could all take parts. You’d be Rosalind—but you’ve a dash of the old -nurse in you. Your father’s Hamlet, come to years of discretion; and -I’m—well, I’m a bit of them all; I’m quite a large bit of the fool, but -the fools in Shakespeare say all the clever things. Now who shall -William be? A hero? Hotspur? Henry the Fifth? No, William’s got a touch -of Hamlet in him, too. I can fancy that William talks to himself when -he’s alone. Ah, Katharine, you must say very beautiful things when -you’re together!” she added wistfully, with a glance at her daughter, -who had told her nothing about the dinner the night before. - -“Oh, we talk a lot of nonsense,” said Katharine, hiding her slip of -paper as her mother stood by her, and spreading the old letter about -Shelley in front of her. - -“It won’t seem to you nonsense in ten years’ time,” said Mrs. Hilbery. -“Believe me, Katharine, you’ll look back on these days afterwards; -you’ll remember all the silly things you’ve said; and you’ll find that -your life has been built on them. The best of life is built on what we -say when we’re in love. It isn’t nonsense, Katharine,” she urged, “it’s -the truth, it’s the only truth.” - -Katharine was on the point of interrupting her mother, and then she was -on the point of confiding in her. They came strangely close together -sometimes. But, while she hesitated and sought for words not too -direct, her mother had recourse to Shakespeare, and turned page after -page, set upon finding some quotation which said all this about love -far, far better than she could. Accordingly, Katharine did nothing but -scrub one of her circles an intense black with her pencil, in the midst -of which process the telephone-bell rang, and she left the room to -answer it. - -When she returned, Mrs. Hilbery had found not the passage she wanted, -but another of exquisite beauty as she justly observed, looking up for -a second to ask Katharine who that was? - -“Mary Datchet,” Katharine replied briefly. - -“Ah—I half wish I’d called you Mary, but it wouldn’t have gone with -Hilbery, and it wouldn’t have gone with Rodney. Now this isn’t the -passage I wanted. (I never can find what I want.) But it’s spring; it’s -the daffodils; it’s the green fields; it’s the birds.” - -She was cut short in her quotation by another imperative -telephone-bell. Once more Katharine left the room. - -“My dear child, how odious the triumphs of science are!” Mrs. Hilbery -exclaimed on her return. “They’ll be linking us with the moon next—but -who was that?” - -“William,” Katharine replied yet more briefly. - -“I’ll forgive William anything, for I’m certain that there aren’t any -Williams in the moon. I hope he’s coming to luncheon?” - -“He’s coming to tea.” - -“Well, that’s better than nothing, and I promise to leave you alone.” - -“There’s no need for you to do that,” said Katharine. - -She swept her hand over the faded sheet, and drew herself up squarely -to the table as if she refused to waste time any longer. The gesture -was not lost upon her mother. It hinted at the existence of something -stern and unapproachable in her daughter’s character, which struck -chill upon her, as the sight of poverty, or drunkenness, or the logic -with which Mr. Hilbery sometimes thought good to demolish her certainty -of an approaching millennium struck chill upon her. She went back to -her own table, and putting on her spectacles with a curious expression -of quiet humility, addressed herself for the first time that morning to -the task before her. The shock with an unsympathetic world had a -sobering effect on her. For once, her industry surpassed her -daughter’s. Katharine could not reduce the world to that particular -perspective in which Harriet Martineau, for instance, was a figure of -solid importance, and possessed of a genuine relationship to this -figure or to that date. Singularly enough, the sharp call of the -telephone-bell still echoed in her ear, and her body and mind were in a -state of tension, as if, at any moment, she might hear another summons -of greater interest to her than the whole of the nineteenth century. -She did not clearly realize what this call was to be; but when the ears -have got into the habit of listening, they go on listening -involuntarily, and thus Katharine spent the greater part of the morning -in listening to a variety of sounds in the back streets of Chelsea. For -the first time in her life, probably, she wished that Mrs. Hilbery -would not keep so closely to her work. A quotation from Shakespeare -would not have come amiss. Now and again she heard a sigh from her -mother’s table, but that was the only proof she gave of her existence, -and Katharine did not think of connecting it with the square aspect of -her own position at the table, or, perhaps, she would have thrown her -pen down and told her mother the reason of her restlessness. The only -writing she managed to accomplish in the course of the morning was one -letter, addressed to her cousin, Cassandra Otway—a rambling letter, -long, affectionate, playful and commanding all at once. She bade -Cassandra put her creatures in the charge of a groom, and come to them -for a week or so. They would go and hear some music together. -Cassandra’s dislike of rational society, she said, was an affectation -fast hardening into a prejudice, which would, in the long run, isolate -her from all interesting people and pursuits. She was finishing the -sheet when the sound she was anticipating all the time actually struck -upon her ears. She jumped up hastily, and slammed the door with a -sharpness which made Mrs. Hilbery start. Where was Katharine off to? In -her preoccupied state she had not heard the bell. - -The alcove on the stairs, in which the telephone was placed, was -screened for privacy by a curtain of purple velvet. It was a pocket for -superfluous possessions, such as exist in most houses which harbor the -wreckage of three generations. Prints of great-uncles, famed for their -prowess in the East, hung above Chinese teapots, whose sides were -riveted by little gold stitches, and the precious teapots, again, stood -upon bookcases containing the complete works of William Cowper and Sir -Walter Scott. The thread of sound, issuing from the telephone, was -always colored by the surroundings which received it, so it seemed to -Katharine. Whose voice was now going to combine with them, or to strike -a discord? - -“Whose voice?” she asked herself, hearing a man inquire, with great -determination, for her number. The unfamiliar voice now asked for Miss -Hilbery. Out of all the welter of voices which crowd round the far end -of the telephone, out of the enormous range of possibilities, whose -voice, what possibility, was this? A pause gave her time to ask herself -this question. It was solved next moment. - -“I’ve looked out the train.... Early on Saturday afternoon would suit -me best.... I’m Ralph Denham.... But I’ll write it down....” - -With more than the usual sense of being impinged upon the point of a -bayonet, Katharine replied: - -“I think I could come. I’ll look at my engagements.... Hold on.” - -She dropped the machine, and looked fixedly at the print of the -great-uncle who had not ceased to gaze, with an air of amiable -authority, into a world which, as yet, beheld no symptoms of the Indian -Mutiny. And yet, gently swinging against the wall, within the black -tube, was a voice which recked nothing of Uncle James, of China -teapots, or of red velvet curtains. She watched the oscillation of the -tube, and at the same moment became conscious of the individuality of -the house in which she stood; she heard the soft domestic sounds of -regular existence upon staircases and floors above her head, and -movements through the wall in the house next door. She had no very -clear vision of Denham himself, when she lifted the telephone to her -lips and replied that she thought Saturday would suit her. She hoped -that he would not say good-bye at once, although she felt no particular -anxiety to attend to what he was saying, and began, even while he -spoke, to think of her own upper room, with its books, its papers -pressed between the leaves of dictionaries, and the table that could be -cleared for work. She replaced the instrument, thoughtfully; her -restlessness was assuaged; she finished her letter to Cassandra without -difficulty, addressed the envelope, and fixed the stamp with her usual -quick decision. - -A bunch of anemones caught Mrs. Hilbery’s eye when they had finished -luncheon. The blue and purple and white of the bowl, standing in a pool -of variegated light on a polished Chippendale table in the drawing-room -window, made her stop dead with an exclamation of pleasure. - -“Who is lying ill in bed, Katharine?” she demanded. “Which of our -friends wants cheering up? Who feels that they’ve been forgotten and -passed over, and that nobody wants them? Whose water rates are overdue, -and the cook leaving in a temper without waiting for her wages? There -was somebody I know—” she concluded, but for the moment the name of -this desirable acquaintance escaped her. The best representative of the -forlorn company whose day would be brightened by a bunch of anemones -was, in Katharine’s opinion, the widow of a general living in the -Cromwell Road. In default of the actually destitute and starving, whom -she would much have preferred, Mrs. Hilbery was forced to acknowledge -her claims, for though in comfortable circumstances, she was extremely -dull, unattractive, connected in some oblique fashion with literature, -and had been touched to the verge of tears, on one occasion, by an -afternoon call. - -It happened that Mrs. Hilbery had an engagement elsewhere, so that the -task of taking the flowers to the Cromwell Road fell upon Katharine. -She took her letter to Cassandra with her, meaning to post it in the -first pillar-box she came to. When, however, she was fairly out of -doors, and constantly invited by pillar-boxes and post-offices to slip -her envelope down their scarlet throats, she forbore. She made absurd -excuses, as that she did not wish to cross the road, or that she was -certain to pass another post-office in a more central position a little -farther on. The longer she held the letter in her hand, however, the -more persistently certain questions pressed upon her, as if from a -collection of voices in the air. These invisible people wished to be -informed whether she was engaged to William Rodney, or was the -engagement broken off? Was it right, they asked, to invite Cassandra -for a visit, and was William Rodney in love with her, or likely to fall -in love? Then the questioners paused for a moment, and resumed as if -another side of the problem had just come to their notice. What did -Ralph Denham mean by what he said to you last night? Do you consider -that he is in love with you? Is it right to consent to a solitary walk -with him, and what advice are you going to give him about his future? -Has William Rodney cause to be jealous of your conduct, and what do you -propose to do about Mary Datchet? What are you going to do? What does -honor require you to do? they repeated. - -“Good Heavens!” Katharine exclaimed, after listening to all these -remarks, “I suppose I ought to make up my mind.” - -But the debate was a formal skirmishing, a pastime to gain -breathing-space. Like all people brought up in a tradition, Katharine -was able, within ten minutes or so, to reduce any moral difficulty to -its traditional shape and solve it by the traditional answers. The book -of wisdom lay open, if not upon her mother’s knee, upon the knees of -many uncles and aunts. She had only to consult them, and they would at -once turn to the right page and read out an answer exactly suited to -one in her position. The rules which should govern the behavior of an -unmarried woman are written in red ink, graved upon marble, if, by some -freak of nature, it should fall out that the unmarried woman has not -the same writing scored upon her heart. She was ready to believe that -some people are fortunate enough to reject, accept, resign, or lay down -their lives at the bidding of traditional authority; she could envy -them; but in her case the questions became phantoms directly she tried -seriously to find an answer, which proved that the traditional answer -would be of no use to her individually. Yet it had served so many -people, she thought, glancing at the rows of houses on either side of -her, where families, whose incomes must be between a thousand and -fifteen-hundred a year lived, and kept, perhaps, three servants, and -draped their windows with curtains which were always thick and -generally dirty, and must, she thought, since you could only see a -looking-glass gleaming above a sideboard on which a dish of apples was -set, keep the room inside very dark. But she turned her head away, -observing that this was not a method of thinking the matter out. - -The only truth which she could discover was the truth of what she -herself felt—a frail beam when compared with the broad illumination -shed by the eyes of all the people who are in agreement to see -together; but having rejected the visionary voices, she had no choice -but to make this her guide through the dark masses which confronted -her. She tried to follow her beam, with an expression upon her face -which would have made any passer-by think her reprehensibly and almost -ridiculously detached from the surrounding scene. One would have felt -alarmed lest this young and striking woman were about to do something -eccentric. But her beauty saved her from the worst fate that can befall -a pedestrian; people looked at her, but they did not laugh. To seek a -true feeling among the chaos of the unfeelings or half-feelings of -life, to recognize it when found, and to accept the consequences of the -discovery, draws lines upon the smoothest brow, while it quickens the -light of the eyes; it is a pursuit which is alternately bewildering, -debasing, and exalting, and, as Katharine speedily found, her -discoveries gave her equal cause for surprise, shame, and intense -anxiety. Much depended, as usual, upon the interpretation of the word -love; which word came up again and again, whether she considered -Rodney, Denham, Mary Datchet, or herself; and in each case it seemed to -stand for something different, and yet for something unmistakable and -something not to be passed by. For the more she looked into the -confusion of lives which, instead of running parallel, had suddenly -intersected each other, the more distinctly she seemed to convince -herself that there was no other light on them than was shed by this -strange illumination, and no other path save the one upon which it -threw its beams. Her blindness in the case of Rodney, her attempt to -match his true feeling with her false feeling, was a failure never to -be sufficiently condemned; indeed, she could only pay it the tribute of -leaving it a black and naked landmark unburied by attempt at oblivion -or excuse. - -With this to humiliate there was much to exalt. She thought of three -different scenes; she thought of Mary sitting upright and saying, “I’m -in love—I’m in love”; she thought of Rodney losing his -self-consciousness among the dead leaves, and speaking with the -abandonment of a child; she thought of Denham leaning upon the stone -parapet and talking to the distant sky, so that she thought him mad. -Her mind, passing from Mary to Denham, from William to Cassandra, and -from Denham to herself—if, as she rather doubted, Denham’s state of -mind was connected with herself—seemed to be tracing out the lines of -some symmetrical pattern, some arrangement of life, which invested, if -not herself, at least the others, not only with interest, but with a -kind of tragic beauty. She had a fantastic picture of them upholding -splendid palaces upon their bent backs. They were the lantern-bearers, -whose lights, scattered among the crowd, wove a pattern, dissolving, -joining, meeting again in combination. Half forming such conceptions as -these in her rapid walk along the dreary streets of South Kensington, -she determined that, whatever else might be obscure, she must further -the objects of Mary, Denham, William, and Cassandra. The way was not -apparent. No course of action seemed to her indubitably right. All she -achieved by her thinking was the conviction that, in such a cause, no -risk was too great; and that, far from making any rules for herself or -others, she would let difficulties accumulate unsolved, situations -widen their jaws unsatiated, while she maintained a position of -absolute and fearless independence. So she could best serve the people -who loved. - -Read in the light of this exaltation, there was a new meaning in the -words which her mother had penciled upon the card attached to the bunch -of anemones. The door of the house in the Cromwell Road opened; gloomy -vistas of passage and staircase were revealed; such light as there was -seemed to be concentrated upon a silver salver of visiting-cards, whose -black borders suggested that the widow’s friends had all suffered the -same bereavement. The parlor-maid could hardly be expected to fathom -the meaning of the grave tone in which the young lady proffered the -flowers, with Mrs. Hilbery’s love; and the door shut upon the offering. - -The sight of a face, the slam of a door, are both rather destructive of -exaltation in the abstract; and, as she walked back to Chelsea, -Katharine had her doubts whether anything would come of her resolves. -If you cannot make sure of people, however, you can hold fairly fast to -figures, and in some way or other her thought about such problems as -she was wont to consider worked in happily with her mood as to her -friends’ lives. She reached home rather late for tea. - -On the ancient Dutch chest in the hall she perceived one or two hats, -coats, and walking-sticks, and the sound of voices reached her as she -stood outside the drawing-room door. Her mother gave a little cry as -she came in; a cry which conveyed to Katharine the fact that she was -late, that the teacups and milk-jugs were in a conspiracy of -disobedience, and that she must immediately take her place at the head -of the table and pour out tea for the guests. Augustus Pelham, the -diarist, liked a calm atmosphere in which to tell his stories; he liked -attention; he liked to elicit little facts, little stories, about the -past and the great dead, from such distinguished characters as Mrs. -Hilbery for the nourishment of his diary, for whose sake he frequented -tea-tables and ate yearly an enormous quantity of buttered toast. He, -therefore, welcomed Katharine with relief, and she had merely to shake -hands with Rodney and to greet the American lady who had come to be -shown the relics, before the talk started again on the broad lines of -reminiscence and discussion which were familiar to her. - -Yet, even with this thick veil between them, she could not help looking -at Rodney, as if she could detect what had happened to him since they -met. It was in vain. His clothes, even the white slip, the pearl in his -tie, seemed to intercept her quick glance, and to proclaim the futility -of such inquiries of a discreet, urbane gentleman, who balanced his cup -of tea and poised a slice of bread and butter on the edge of the -saucer. He would not meet her eye, but that could be accounted for by -his activity in serving and helping, and the polite alacrity with which -he was answering the questions of the American visitor. - -It was certainly a sight to daunt any one coming in with a head full of -theories about love. The voices of the invisible questioners were -reinforced by the scene round the table, and sounded with a tremendous -self-confidence, as if they had behind them the common sense of twenty -generations, together with the immediate approval of Mr. Augustus -Pelham, Mrs. Vermont Bankes, William Rodney, and, possibly, Mrs. -Hilbery herself. Katharine set her teeth, not entirely in the -metaphorical sense, for her hand, obeying the impulse towards definite -action, laid firmly upon the table beside her an envelope which she had -been grasping all this time in complete forgetfulness. The address was -uppermost, and a moment later she saw William’s eye rest upon it as he -rose to fulfil some duty with a plate. His expression instantly -changed. He did what he was on the point of doing, and then looked at -Katharine with a look which revealed enough of his confusion to show -her that he was not entirely represented by his appearance. In a minute -or two he proved himself at a loss with Mrs. Vermont Bankes, and Mrs. -Hilbery, aware of the silence with her usual quickness, suggested that, -perhaps, it was now time that Mrs. Bankes should be shown “our things.” - -Katharine accordingly rose, and led the way to the little inner room -with the pictures and the books. Mrs. Bankes and Rodney followed her. - -She turned on the lights, and began directly in her low, pleasant -voice: “This table is my grandfather’s writing-table. Most of the later -poems were written at it. And this is his pen—the last pen he ever -used.” She took it in her hand and paused for the right number of -seconds. “Here,” she continued, “is the original manuscript of the ‘Ode -to Winter.’ The early manuscripts are far less corrected than the later -ones, as you will see directly.... Oh, do take it yourself,” she added, -as Mrs. Bankes asked, in an awestruck tone of voice, for that -privilege, and began a preliminary unbuttoning of her white kid gloves. - -“You are wonderfully like your grandfather, Miss Hilbery,” the American -lady observed, gazing from Katharine to the portrait, “especially about -the eyes. Come, now, I expect she writes poetry herself, doesn’t she?” -she asked in a jocular tone, turning to William. “Quite one’s ideal of -a poet, is it not, Mr. Rodney? I cannot tell you what a privilege I -feel it to be standing just here with the poet’s granddaughter. You -must know we think a great deal of your grandfather in America, Miss -Hilbery. We have societies for reading him aloud. What! His very own -slippers!” Laying aside the manuscript, she hastily grasped the old -shoes, and remained for a moment dumb in contemplation of them. - -While Katharine went on steadily with her duties as show-woman, Rodney -examined intently a row of little drawings which he knew by heart -already. His disordered state of mind made it necessary for him to take -advantage of these little respites, as if he had been out in a high -wind and must straighten his dress in the first shelter he reached. His -calm was only superficial, as he knew too well; it did not exist much -below the surface of tie, waistcoat, and white slip. - -On getting out of bed that morning he had fully made up his mind to -ignore what had been said the night before; he had been convinced, by -the sight of Denham, that his love for Katharine was passionate, and -when he addressed her early that morning on the telephone, he had meant -his cheerful but authoritative tones to convey to her the fact that, -after a night of madness, they were as indissolubly engaged as ever. -But when he reached his office his torments began. He found a letter -from Cassandra waiting for him. She had read his play, and had taken -the very first opportunity to write and tell him what she thought of -it. She knew, she wrote, that her praise meant absolutely nothing; but -still, she had sat up all night; she thought this, that, and the other; -she was full of enthusiasm most elaborately scratched out in places, -but enough was written plain to gratify William’s vanity exceedingly. -She was quite intelligent enough to say the right things, or, even more -charmingly, to hint at them. In other ways, too, it was a very charming -letter. She told him about her music, and about a Suffrage meeting to -which Henry had taken her, and she asserted, half seriously, that she -had learnt the Greek alphabet, and found it “fascinating.” The word was -underlined. Had she laughed when she drew that line? Was she ever -serious? Didn’t the letter show the most engaging compound of -enthusiasm and spirit and whimsicality, all tapering into a flame of -girlish freakishness, which flitted, for the rest of the morning, as a -will-o’-the-wisp, across Rodney’s landscape. He could not resist -beginning an answer to her there and then. He found it particularly -delightful to shape a style which should express the bowing and -curtsying, advancing and retreating, which are characteristic of one of -the many million partnerships of men and women. Katharine never trod -that particular measure, he could not help reflecting; -Katharine—Cassandra; Cassandra—Katharine—they alternated in his -consciousness all day long. It was all very well to dress oneself -carefully, compose one’s face, and start off punctually at half-past -four to a tea-party in Cheyne Walk, but Heaven only knew what would -come of it all, and when Katharine, after sitting silent with her usual -immobility, wantonly drew from her pocket and slapped down on the table -beneath his eyes a letter addressed to Cassandra herself, his composure -deserted him. What did she mean by her behavior? - -He looked up sharply from his row of little pictures. Katharine was -disposing of the American lady in far too arbitrary a fashion. Surely -the victim herself must see how foolish her enthusiasms appeared in the -eyes of the poet’s granddaughter. Katharine never made any attempt to -spare people’s feelings, he reflected; and, being himself very -sensitive to all shades of comfort and discomfort, he cut short the -auctioneer’s catalog, which Katharine was reeling off more and more -absent-mindedly, and took Mrs. Vermont Bankes, with a queer sense of -fellowship in suffering, under his own protection. - -But within a few minutes the American lady had completed her -inspection, and inclining her head in a little nod of reverential -farewell to the poet and his shoes, she was escorted downstairs by -Rodney. Katharine stayed by herself in the little room. The ceremony of -ancestor-worship had been more than usually oppressive to her. -Moreover, the room was becoming crowded beyond the bounds of order. -Only that morning a heavily insured proof-sheet had reached them from a -collector in Australia, which recorded a change of the poet’s mind -about a very famous phrase, and, therefore, had claims to the honor of -glazing and framing. But was there room for it? Must it be hung on the -staircase, or should some other relic give place to do it honor? -Feeling unable to decide the question, Katharine glanced at the -portrait of her grandfather, as if to ask his opinion. The artist who -had painted it was now out of fashion, and by dint of showing it to -visitors, Katharine had almost ceased to see anything but a glow of -faintly pleasing pink and brown tints, enclosed within a circular -scroll of gilt laurel-leaves. The young man who was her grandfather -looked vaguely over her head. The sensual lips were slightly parted, -and gave the face an expression of beholding something lovely or -miraculous vanishing or just rising upon the rim of the distance. The -expression repeated itself curiously upon Katharine’s face as she gazed -up into his. They were the same age, or very nearly so. She wondered -what he was looking for; were there waves beating upon a shore for him, -too, she wondered, and heroes riding through the leaf-hung forests? For -perhaps the first time in her life she thought of him as a man, young, -unhappy, tempestuous, full of desires and faults; for the first time -she realized him for herself, and not from her mother’s memory. He -might have been her brother, she thought. It seemed to her that they -were akin, with the mysterious kinship of blood which makes it seem -possible to interpret the sights which the eyes of the dead behold so -intently, or even to believe that they look with us upon our present -joys and sorrows. He would have understood, she thought, suddenly; and -instead of laying her withered flowers upon his shrine, she brought him -her own perplexities—perhaps a gift of greater value, should the dead -be conscious of gifts, than flowers and incense and adoration. Doubts, -questionings, and despondencies she felt, as she looked up, would be -more welcome to him than homage, and he would hold them but a very -small burden if she gave him, also, some share in what she suffered and -achieved. The depth of her own pride and love were not more apparent to -her than the sense that the dead asked neither flowers nor regrets, but -a share in the life which they had given her, the life which they had -lived. - -Rodney found her a moment later sitting beneath her grandfather’s -portrait. She laid her hand on the seat next her in a friendly way, and -said: - -“Come and sit down, William. How glad I was you were here! I felt -myself getting ruder and ruder.” - -“You are not good at hiding your feelings,” he returned dryly. - -“Oh, don’t scold me—I’ve had a horrid afternoon.” She told him how she -had taken the flowers to Mrs. McCormick, and how South Kensington -impressed her as the preserve of officers’ widows. She described how -the door had opened, and what gloomy avenues of busts and palm-trees -and umbrellas had been revealed to her. She spoke lightly, and -succeeded in putting him at his ease. Indeed, he rapidly became too -much at his ease to persist in a condition of cheerful neutrality. He -felt his composure slipping from him. Katharine made it seem so natural -to ask her to help him, or advise him, to say straight out what he had -in his mind. The letter from Cassandra was heavy in his pocket. There -was also the letter to Cassandra lying on the table in the next room. -The atmosphere seemed charged with Cassandra. But, unless Katharine -began the subject of her own accord, he could not even hint—he must -ignore the whole affair; it was the part of a gentleman to preserve a -bearing that was, as far as he could make it, the bearing of an -undoubting lover. At intervals he sighed deeply. He talked rather more -quickly than usual about the possibility that some of the operas of -Mozart would be played in the summer. He had received a notice, he -said, and at once produced a pocket-book stuffed with papers, and began -shuffling them in search. He held a thick envelope between his finger -and thumb, as if the notice from the opera company had become in some -way inseparably attached to it. - -“A letter from Cassandra?” said Katharine, in the easiest voice in the -world, looking over his shoulder. “I’ve just written to ask her to come -here, only I forgot to post it.” - -He handed her the envelope in silence. She took it, extracted the -sheets, and read the letter through. - -The reading seemed to Rodney to take an intolerably long time. - -“Yes,” she observed at length, “a very charming letter.” - -Rodney’s face was half turned away, as if in bashfulness. Her view of -his profile almost moved her to laughter. She glanced through the pages -once more. - -“I see no harm,” William blurted out, “in helping her—with Greek, for -example—if she really cares for that sort of thing.” - -“There’s no reason why she shouldn’t care,” said Katharine, consulting -the pages once more. “In fact—ah, here it is—‘The Greek alphabet is -absolutely _fascinating_.’ Obviously she does care.” - -“Well, Greek may be rather a large order. I was thinking chiefly of -English. Her criticisms of my play, though they’re too generous, -evidently immature—she can’t be more than twenty-two, I suppose?—they -certainly show the sort of thing one wants: real feeling for poetry, -understanding, not formed, of course, but it’s at the root of -everything after all. There’d be no harm in lending her books?” - -“No. Certainly not.” - -“But if it—hum—led to a correspondence? I mean, Katharine, I take it, -without going into matters which seem to me a little morbid, I mean,” -he floundered, “you, from your point of view, feel that there’s nothing -disagreeable to you in the notion? If so, you’ve only to speak, and I -never think of it again.” - -She was surprised by the violence of her desire that he never should -think of it again. For an instant it seemed to her impossible to -surrender an intimacy, which might not be the intimacy of love, but was -certainly the intimacy of true friendship, to any woman in the world. -Cassandra would never understand him—she was not good enough for him. -The letter seemed to her a letter of flattery—a letter addressed to his -weakness, which it made her angry to think was known to another. For he -was not weak; he had the rare strength of doing what he promised—she -had only to speak, and he would never think of Cassandra again. - -She paused. Rodney guessed the reason. He was amazed. - -“She loves me,” he thought. The woman he admired more than any one in -the world, loved him, as he had given up hope that she would ever love -him. And now that for the first time he was sure of her love, he -resented it. He felt it as a fetter, an encumbrance, something which -made them both, but him in particular, ridiculous. He was in her power -completely, but his eyes were open and he was no longer her slave or -her dupe. He would be her master in future. The instant prolonged -itself as Katharine realized the strength of her desire to speak the -words that should keep William for ever, and the baseness of the -temptation which assailed her to make the movement, or speak the word, -which he had often begged her for, which she was now near enough to -feeling. She held the letter in her hand. She sat silent. - -At this moment there was a stir in the other room; the voice of Mrs. -Hilbery was heard talking of proof-sheets rescued by miraculous -providence from butcher’s ledgers in Australia; the curtain separating -one room from the other was drawn apart, and Mrs. Hilbery and Augustus -Pelham stood in the doorway. Mrs. Hilbery stopped short. She looked at -her daughter, and at the man her daughter was to marry, with her -peculiar smile that always seemed to tremble on the brink of satire. - -“The best of all my treasures, Mr. Pelham!” she exclaimed. “Don’t move, -Katharine. Sit still, William. Mr. Pelham will come another day.” - -Mr. Pelham looked, smiled, bowed, and, as his hostess had moved on, -followed her without a word. The curtain was drawn again either by him -or by Mrs. Hilbery. - -But her mother had settled the question somehow. Katharine doubted no -longer. - -“As I told you last night,” she said, “I think it’s your duty, if -there’s a chance that you care for Cassandra, to discover what your -feeling is for her now. It’s your duty to her, as well as to me. But we -must tell my mother. We can’t go on pretending.” - -“That is entirely in your hands, of course,” said Rodney, with an -immediate return to the manner of a formal man of honor. - -“Very well,” said Katharine. - -Directly he left her she would go to her mother, and explain that the -engagement was at an end—or it might be better that they should go -together? - -“But, Katharine,” Rodney began, nervously attempting to stuff -Cassandra’s sheets back into their envelope; “if Cassandra—should -Cassandra—you’ve asked Cassandra to stay with you.” - -“Yes; but I’ve not posted the letter.” - -He crossed his knees in a discomfited silence. By all his codes it was -impossible to ask a woman with whom he had just broken off his -engagement to help him to become acquainted with another woman with a -view to his falling in love with her. If it was announced that their -engagement was over, a long and complete separation would inevitably -follow; in those circumstances, letters and gifts were returned; after -years of distance the severed couple met, perhaps at an evening party, -and touched hands uncomfortably with an indifferent word or two. He -would be cast off completely; he would have to trust to his own -resources. He could never mention Cassandra to Katharine again; for -months, and doubtless years, he would never see Katharine again; -anything might happen to her in his absence. - -Katharine was almost as well aware of his perplexities as he was. She -knew in what direction complete generosity pointed the way; but -pride—for to remain engaged to Rodney and to cover his experiments hurt -what was nobler in her than mere vanity—fought for its life. - -“I’m to give up my freedom for an indefinite time,” she thought, “in -order that William may see Cassandra here at his ease. He’s not the -courage to manage it without my help—he’s too much of a coward to tell -me openly what he wants. He hates the notion of a public breach. He -wants to keep us both.” - -When she reached this point, Rodney pocketed the letter and elaborately -looked at his watch. Although the action meant that he resigned -Cassandra, for he knew his own incompetence and distrusted himself -entirely, and lost Katharine, for whom his feeling was profound though -unsatisfactory, still it appeared to him that there was nothing else -left for him to do. He was forced to go, leaving Katharine free, as he -had said, to tell her mother that the engagement was at an end. But to -do what plain duty required of an honorable man, cost an effort which -only a day or two ago would have been inconceivable to him. That a -relationship such as he had glanced at with desire could be possible -between him and Katharine, he would have been the first, two days ago, -to deny with indignation. But now his life had changed; his attitude -had changed; his feelings were different; new aims and possibilities -had been shown him, and they had an almost irresistible fascination and -force. The training of a life of thirty-five years had not left him -defenceless; he was still master of his dignity; he rose, with a mind -made up to an irrevocable farewell. - -“I leave you, then,” he said, standing up and holding out his hand with -an effort that left him pale, but lent him dignity, “to tell your -mother that our engagement is ended by your desire.” - -She took his hand and held it. - -“You don’t trust me?” she said. - -“I do, absolutely,” he replied. - -“No. You don’t trust me to help you.... I could help you?” - -“I’m hopeless without your help!” he exclaimed passionately, but -withdrew his hand and turned his back. When he faced her, she thought -that she saw him for the first time without disguise. - -“It’s useless to pretend that I don’t understand what you’re offering, -Katharine. I admit what you say. Speaking to you perfectly frankly, I -believe at this moment that I do love your cousin; there is a chance -that, with your help, I might—but no,” he broke off, “it’s impossible, -it’s wrong—I’m infinitely to blame for having allowed this situation to -arise.” - -“Sit beside me. Let’s consider sensibly—” - -“Your sense has been our undoing—” he groaned. - -“I accept the responsibility.” - -“Ah, but can I allow that?” he exclaimed. “It would mean—for we must -face it, Katharine—that we let our engagement stand for the time -nominally; in fact, of course, your freedom would be absolute.” - -“And yours too.” - -“Yes, we should both be free. Let us say that I saw Cassandra once, -twice, perhaps, under these conditions; and then if, as I think -certain, the whole thing proves a dream, we tell your mother instantly. -Why not tell her now, indeed, under pledge of secrecy?” - -“Why not? It would be over London in ten minutes, besides, she would -never even remotely understand.” - -“Your father, then? This secrecy is detestable—it’s dishonorable.” - -“My father would understand even less than my mother.” - -“Ah, who could be expected to understand?” Rodney groaned; “but it’s -from your point of view that we must look at it. It’s not only asking -too much, it’s putting you into a position—a position in which I could -not endure to see my own sister.” - -“We’re not brothers and sisters,” she said impatiently, “and if we -can’t decide, who can? I’m not talking nonsense,” she proceeded. “I’ve -done my best to think this out from every point of view, and I’ve come -to the conclusion that there are risks which have to be taken,—though I -don’t deny that they hurt horribly.” - -“Katharine, you mind? You’ll mind too much.” - -“No I shan’t,” she said stoutly. “I shall mind a good deal, but I’m -prepared for that; I shall get through it, because you will help me. -You’ll both help me. In fact, we’ll help each other. That’s a Christian -doctrine, isn’t it?” - -“It sounds more like Paganism to me,” Rodney groaned, as he reviewed -the situation into which her Christian doctrine was plunging them. - -And yet he could not deny that a divine relief possessed him, and that -the future, instead of wearing a lead-colored mask, now blossomed with -a thousand varied gaieties and excitements. He was actually to see -Cassandra within a week or perhaps less, and he was more anxious to -know the date of her arrival than he could own even to himself. It -seemed base to be so anxious to pluck this fruit of Katharine’s -unexampled generosity and of his own contemptible baseness. And yet, -though he used these words automatically, they had now no meaning. He -was not debased in his own eyes by what he had done, and as for -praising Katharine, were they not partners, conspirators, people bent -upon the same quest together, so that to praise the pursuit of a common -end as an act of generosity was meaningless. He took her hand and -pressed it, not in thanks so much as in an ecstasy of comradeship. - -“We will help each other,” he said, repeating her words, seeking her -eyes in an enthusiasm of friendship. - -Her eyes were grave but dark with sadness as they rested on him. “He’s -already gone,” she thought, “far away—he thinks of me no more.” And the -fancy came to her that, as they sat side by side, hand in hand, she -could hear the earth pouring from above to make a barrier between them, -so that, as they sat, they were separated second by second by an -impenetrable wall. The process, which affected her as that of being -sealed away and for ever from all companionship with the person she -cared for most, came to an end at last, and by common consent they -unclasped their fingers, Rodney touching hers with his lips, as the -curtain parted, and Mrs. Hilbery peered through the opening with her -benevolent and sarcastic expression to ask whether Katharine could -remember was it Tuesday or Wednesday, and did she dine in Westminster? - -“Dearest William,” she said, pausing, as if she could not resist the -pleasure of encroaching for a second upon this wonderful world of love -and confidence and romance. “Dearest children,” she added, disappearing -with an impulsive gesture, as if she forced herself to draw the curtain -upon a scene which she refused all temptation to interrupt. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - -At a quarter-past three in the afternoon of the following Saturday -Ralph Denham sat on the bank of the lake in Kew Gardens, dividing the -dial-plate of his watch into sections with his forefinger. The just and -inexorable nature of time itself was reflected in his face. He might -have been composing a hymn to the unhasting and unresting march of that -divinity. He seemed to greet the lapse of minute after minute with -stern acquiescence in the inevitable order. His expression was so -severe, so serene, so immobile, that it seemed obvious that for him at -least there was a grandeur in the departing hour which no petty -irritation on his part was to mar, although the wasting time wasted -also high private hopes of his own. - -His face was no bad index to what went on within him. He was in a -condition of mind rather too exalted for the trivialities of daily -life. He could not accept the fact that a lady was fifteen minutes late -in keeping her appointment without seeing in that accident the -frustration of his entire life. Looking at his watch, he seemed to look -deep into the springs of human existence, and by the light of what he -saw there altered his course towards the north and the midnight.... -Yes, one’s voyage must be made absolutely without companions through -ice and black water—towards what goal? Here he laid his finger upon the -half-hour, and decided that when the minute-hand reached that point he -would go, at the same time answering the question put by another of the -many voices of consciousness with the reply that there was undoubtedly -a goal, but that it would need the most relentless energy to keep -anywhere in its direction. Still, still, one goes on, the ticking -seconds seemed to assure him, with dignity, with open eyes, with -determination not to accept the second-rate, not to be tempted by the -unworthy, not to yield, not to compromise. Twenty-five minutes past -three were now marked upon the face of the watch. The world, he assured -himself, since Katharine Hilbery was now half an hour behind her time, -offers no happiness, no rest from struggle, no certainty. In a scheme -of things utterly bad from the start the only unpardonable folly is -that of hope. Raising his eyes for a moment from the face of his watch, -he rested them upon the opposite bank, reflectively and not without a -certain wistfulness, as if the sternness of their gaze were still -capable of mitigation. Soon a look of the deepest satisfaction filled -them, though, for a moment, he did not move. He watched a lady who came -rapidly, and yet with a trace of hesitation, down the broad grass-walk -towards him. She did not see him. Distance lent her figure an -indescribable height, and romance seemed to surround her from the -floating of a purple veil which the light air filled and curved from -her shoulders. - -“Here she comes, like a ship in full sail,” he said to himself, half -remembering some line from a play or poem where the heroine bore down -thus with feathers flying and airs saluting her. The greenery and the -high presences of the trees surrounded her as if they stood forth at -her coming. He rose, and she saw him; her little exclamation proved -that she was glad to find him, and then that she blamed herself for -being late. - -“Why did you never tell me? I didn’t know there was this,” she -remarked, alluding to the lake, the broad green space, the vista of -trees, with the ruffled gold of the Thames in the distance and the -Ducal castle standing in its meadows. She paid the rigid tail of the -Ducal lion the tribute of incredulous laughter. - -“You’ve never been to Kew?” Denham remarked. - -But it appeared that she had come once as a small child, when the -geography of the place was entirely different, and the fauna included -certainly flamingoes and, possibly, camels. They strolled on, -refashioning these legendary gardens. She was, as he felt, glad merely -to stroll and loiter and let her fancy touch upon anything her eyes -encountered—a bush, a park-keeper, a decorated goose—as if the -relaxation soothed her. The warmth of the afternoon, the first of -spring, tempted them to sit upon a seat in a glade of beech-trees, with -forest drives striking green paths this way and that around them. She -sighed deeply. - -“It’s so peaceful,” she said, as if in explanation of her sigh. Not a -single person was in sight, and the stir of the wind in the branches, -that sound so seldom heard by Londoners, seemed to her as if wafted -from fathomless oceans of sweet air in the distance. - -While she breathed and looked, Denham was engaged in uncovering with -the point of his stick a group of green spikes half smothered by the -dead leaves. He did this with the peculiar touch of the botanist. In -naming the little green plant to her he used the Latin name, thus -disguising some flower familiar even to Chelsea, and making her -exclaim, half in amusement, at his knowledge. Her own ignorance was -vast, she confessed. What did one call that tree opposite, for -instance, supposing one condescended to call it by its English name? -Beech or elm or sycamore? It chanced, by the testimony of a dead leaf, -to be oak; and a little attention to a diagram which Denham proceeded -to draw upon an envelope soon put Katharine in possession of some of -the fundamental distinctions between our British trees. She then asked -him to inform her about flowers. To her they were variously shaped and -colored petals, poised, at different seasons of the year, upon very -similar green stalks; but to him they were, in the first instance, -bulbs or seeds, and later, living things endowed with sex, and pores, -and susceptibilities which adapted themselves by all manner of -ingenious devices to live and beget life, and could be fashioned squat -or tapering, flame-colored or pale, pure or spotted, by processes which -might reveal the secrets of human existence. Denham spoke with -increasing ardor of a hobby which had long been his in secret. No -discourse could have worn a more welcome sound in Katharine’s ears. For -weeks she had heard nothing that made such pleasant music in her mind. -It wakened echoes in all those remote fastnesses of her being where -loneliness had brooded so long undisturbed. - -She wished he would go on for ever talking of plants, and showing her -how science felt not quite blindly for the law that ruled their endless -variations. A law that might be inscrutable but was certainly -omnipotent appealed to her at the moment, because she could find -nothing like it in possession of human lives. Circumstances had long -forced her, as they force most women in the flower of youth, to -consider, painfully and minutely, all that part of life which is -conspicuously without order; she had had to consider moods and wishes, -degrees of liking or disliking, and their effect upon the destiny of -people dear to her; she had been forced to deny herself any -contemplation of that other part of life where thought constructs a -destiny which is independent of human beings. As Denham spoke, she -followed his words and considered their bearing with an easy vigor -which spoke of a capacity long hoarded and unspent. The very trees and -the green merging into the blue distance became symbols of the vast -external world which recks so little of the happiness, of the marriages -or deaths of individuals. In order to give her examples of what he was -saying, Denham led the way, first to the Rock Garden, and then to the -Orchid House. - -For him there was safety in the direction which the talk had taken. His -emphasis might come from feelings more personal than those science -roused in him, but it was disguised, and naturally he found it easy to -expound and explain. Nevertheless, when he saw Katharine among the -orchids, her beauty strangely emphasized by the fantastic plants, which -seemed to peer and gape at her from striped hoods and fleshy throats, -his ardor for botany waned, and a more complex feeling replaced it. She -fell silent. The orchids seemed to suggest absorbing reflections. In -defiance of the rules she stretched her ungloved hand and touched one. -The sight of the rubies upon her finger affected him so disagreeably -that he started and turned away. But next moment he controlled himself; -he looked at her taking in one strange shape after another with the -contemplative, considering gaze of a person who sees not exactly what -is before him, but gropes in regions that lie beyond it. The far-away -look entirely lacked self-consciousness. Denham doubted whether she -remembered his presence. He could recall himself, of course, by a word -or a movement—but why? She was happier thus. She needed nothing that he -could give her. And for him, too, perhaps, it was best to keep aloof, -only to know that she existed, to preserve what he already had—perfect, -remote, and unbroken. Further, her still look, standing among the -orchids in that hot atmosphere, strangely illustrated some scene that -he had imagined in his room at home. The sight, mingling with his -recollection, kept him silent when the door was shut and they were -walking on again. - -But though she did not speak, Katharine had an uneasy sense that -silence on her part was selfishness. It was selfish of her to continue, -as she wished to do, a discussion of subjects not remotely connected -with any human beings. She roused herself to consider their exact -position upon the turbulent map of the emotions. Oh yes—it was a -question whether Ralph Denham should live in the country and write a -book; it was getting late; they must waste no more time; Cassandra -arrived to-night for dinner; she flinched and roused herself, and -discovered that she ought to be holding something in her hands. But -they were empty. She held them out with an exclamation. - -“I’ve left my bag somewhere—where?” The gardens had no points of the -compass, so far as she was concerned. She had been walking for the most -part on grass—that was all she knew. Even the road to the Orchid House -had now split itself into three. But there was no bag in the Orchid -House. It must, therefore, have been left upon the seat. They retraced -their steps in the preoccupied manner of people who have to think about -something that is lost. What did this bag look like? What did it -contain? - -“A purse—a ticket—some letters, papers,” Katharine counted, becoming -more agitated as she recalled the list. Denham went on quickly in -advance of her, and she heard him shout that he had found it before she -reached the seat. In order to make sure that all was safe she spread -the contents on her knee. It was a queer collection, Denham thought, -gazing with the deepest interest. Loose gold coins were tangled in a -narrow strip of lace; there were letters which somehow suggested the -extreme of intimacy; there were two or three keys, and lists of -commissions against which crosses were set at intervals. But she did -not seem satisfied until she had made sure of a certain paper so folded -that Denham could not judge what it contained. In her relief and -gratitude she began at once to say that she had been thinking over what -Denham had told her of his plans. - -He cut her short. “Don’t let’s discuss that dreary business.” - -“But I thought—” - -“It’s a dreary business. I ought never to have bothered you—” - -“Have you decided, then?” - -He made an impatient sound. “It’s not a thing that matters.” - -She could only say rather flatly, “Oh!” - -“I mean it matters to me, but it matters to no one else. Anyhow,” he -continued, more amiably, “I see no reason why you should be bothered -with other people’s nuisances.” - -She supposed that she had let him see too clearly her weariness of this -side of life. - -“I’m afraid I’ve been absent-minded,” she began, remembering how often -William had brought this charge against her. - -“You have a good deal to make you absent-minded,” he replied. - -“Yes,” she replied, flushing. “No,” she contradicted herself. “Nothing -particular, I mean. But I was thinking about plants. I was enjoying -myself. In fact, I’ve seldom enjoyed an afternoon more. But I want to -hear what you’ve settled, if you don’t mind telling me.” - -“Oh, it’s all settled,” he replied. “I’m going to this infernal cottage -to write a worthless book.” - -“How I envy you,” she replied, with the utmost sincerity. - -“Well, cottages are to be had for fifteen shillings a week.” - -“Cottages are to be had—yes,” she replied. “The question is—” She -checked herself. “Two rooms are all I should want,” she continued, with -a curious sigh; “one for eating, one for sleeping. Oh, but I should -like another, a large one at the top, and a little garden where one -could grow flowers. A path—so—down to a river, or up to a wood, and the -sea not very far off, so that one could hear the waves at night. Ships -just vanishing on the horizon—” She broke off. “Shall you be near the -sea?” - -“My notion of perfect happiness,” he began, not replying to her -question, “is to live as you’ve said.” - -“Well, now you can. You will work, I suppose,” she continued; “you’ll -work all the morning and again after tea and perhaps at night. You -won’t have people always coming about you to interrupt.” - -“How far can one live alone?” he asked. “Have you tried ever?” - -“Once for three weeks,” she replied. “My father and mother were in -Italy, and something happened so that I couldn’t join them. For three -weeks I lived entirely by myself, and the only person I spoke to was a -stranger in a shop where I lunched—a man with a beard. Then I went back -to my room by myself and—well, I did what I liked. It doesn’t make me -out an amiable character, I’m afraid,” she added, “but I can’t endure -living with other people. An occasional man with a beard is -interesting; he’s detached; he lets me go my way, and we know we shall -never meet again. Therefore, we are perfectly sincere—a thing not -possible with one’s friends.” - -“Nonsense,” Denham replied abruptly. - -“Why ‘nonsense’?” she inquired. - -“Because you don’t mean what you say,” he expostulated. - -“You’re very positive,” she said, laughing and looking at him. How -arbitrary, hot-tempered, and imperious he was! He had asked her to come -to Kew to advise him; he then told her that he had settled the question -already; he then proceeded to find fault with her. He was the very -opposite of William Rodney, she thought; he was shabby, his clothes -were badly made, he was ill versed in the amenities of life; he was -tongue-tied and awkward to the verge of obliterating his real -character. He was awkwardly silent; he was awkwardly emphatic. And yet -she liked him. - -“I don’t mean what I say,” she repeated good-humoredly. “Well—?” - -“I doubt whether you make absolute sincerity your standard in life,” he -answered significantly. - -She flushed. He had penetrated at once to the weak spot—her engagement, -and had reason for what he said. He was not altogether justified now, -at any rate, she was glad to remember; but she could not enlighten him -and must bear his insinuations, though from the lips of a man who had -behaved as he had behaved their force should not have been sharp. -Nevertheless, what he said had its force, she mused; partly because he -seemed unconscious of his own lapse in the case of Mary Datchet, and -thus baffled her insight; partly because he always spoke with force, -for what reason she did not yet feel certain. - -“Absolute sincerity is rather difficult, don’t you think?” she -inquired, with a touch of irony. - -“There are people one credits even with that,” he replied a little -vaguely. He was ashamed of his savage wish to hurt her, and yet it was -not for the sake of hurting her, who was beyond his shafts, but in -order to mortify his own incredibly reckless impulse of abandonment to -the spirit which seemed, at moments, about to rush him to the uttermost -ends of the earth. She affected him beyond the scope of his wildest -dreams. He seemed to see that beneath the quiet surface of her manner, -which was almost pathetically at hand and within reach for all the -trivial demands of daily life, there was a spirit which she reserved or -repressed for some reason either of loneliness or—could it be -possible—of love. Was it given to Rodney to see her unmasked, -unrestrained, unconscious of her duties? a creature of uncalculating -passion and instinctive freedom? No; he refused to believe it. It was -in her loneliness that Katharine was unreserved. “I went back to my -room by myself and I did—what I liked.” She had said that to him, and -in saying it had given him a glimpse of possibilities, even of -confidences, as if he might be the one to share her loneliness, the -mere hint of which made his heart beat faster and his brain spin. He -checked himself as brutally as he could. He saw her redden, and in the -irony of her reply he heard her resentment. - -He began slipping his smooth, silver watch in his pocket, in the hope -that somehow he might help himself back to that calm and fatalistic -mood which had been his when he looked at its face upon the bank of the -lake, for that mood must, at whatever cost, be the mood of his -intercourse with Katharine. He had spoken of gratitude and acquiescence -in the letter which he had never sent, and now all the force of his -character must make good those vows in her presence. - -She, thus challenged, tried meanwhile to define her points. She wished -to make Denham understand. - -“Don’t you see that if you have no relations with people it’s easier to -be honest with them?” she inquired. “That is what I meant. One needn’t -cajole them; one’s under no obligation to them. Surely you must have -found with your own family that it’s impossible to discuss what matters -to you most because you’re all herded together, because you’re in a -conspiracy, because the position is false—” Her reasoning suspended -itself a little inconclusively, for the subject was complex, and she -found herself in ignorance whether Denham had a family or not. Denham -was agreed with her as to the destructiveness of the family system, but -he did not wish to discuss the problem at that moment. - -He turned to a problem which was of greater interest to him. - -“I’m convinced,” he said, “that there are cases in which perfect -sincerity is possible—cases where there’s no relationship, though the -people live together, if you like, where each is free, where there’s no -obligation upon either side.” - -“For a time perhaps,” she agreed, a little despondently. “But -obligations always grow up. There are feelings to be considered. People -aren’t simple, and though they may mean to be reasonable, they end”—in -the condition in which she found herself, she meant, but added -lamely—“in a muddle.” - -“Because,” Denham instantly intervened, “they don’t make themselves -understood at the beginning. I could undertake, at this instant,” he -continued, with a reasonable intonation which did much credit to his -self-control, “to lay down terms for a friendship which should be -perfectly sincere and perfectly straightforward.” - -She was curious to hear them, but, besides feeling that the topic -concealed dangers better known to her than to him, she was reminded by -his tone of his curious abstract declaration upon the Embankment. -Anything that hinted at love for the moment alarmed her; it was as much -an infliction to her as the rubbing of a skinless wound. - -But he went on, without waiting for her invitation. - -“In the first place, such a friendship must be unemotional,” he laid it -down emphatically. “At least, on both sides it must be understood that -if either chooses to fall in love, he or she does so entirely at his -own risk. Neither is under any obligation to the other. They must be at -liberty to break or to alter at any moment. They must be able to say -whatever they wish to say. All this must be understood.” - -“And they gain something worth having?” she asked. - -“It’s a risk—of course it’s a risk,” he replied. The word - -was one that she had been using frequently in her arguments with -herself of late. - -“But it’s the only way—if you think friendship worth having,” he -concluded. - -“Perhaps under those conditions it might be,” she said reflectively. - -“Well,” he said, “those are the terms of the friendship I wish to offer -you.” She had known that this was coming, but, none the less, felt a -little shock, half of pleasure, half of reluctance, when she heard the -formal statement. - -“I should like it,” she began, “but—” - -“Would Rodney mind?” - -“Oh no,” she replied quickly. - -“No, no, it isn’t that,” she went on, and again came to an end. She had -been touched by the unreserved and yet ceremonious way in which he had -made what he called his offer of terms, but if he was generous it was -the more necessary for her to be cautious. They would find themselves -in difficulties, she speculated; but, at this point, which was not very -far, after all, upon the road of caution, her foresight deserted her. -She sought for some definite catastrophe into which they must -inevitably plunge. But she could think of none. It seemed to her that -these catastrophes were fictitious; life went on and on—life was -different altogether from what people said. And not only was she at an -end of her stock of caution, but it seemed suddenly altogether -superfluous. Surely if any one could take care of himself, Ralph Denham -could; he had told her that he did not love her. And, further, she -meditated, walking on beneath the beech-trees and swinging her -umbrella, as in her thought she was accustomed to complete freedom, why -should she perpetually apply so different a standard to her behavior in -practice? Why, she reflected, should there be this perpetual disparity -between the thought and the action, between the life of solitude and -the life of society, this astonishing precipice on one side of which -the soul was active and in broad daylight, on the other side of which -it was contemplative and dark as night? Was it not possible to step -from one to the other, erect, and without essential change? Was this -not the chance he offered her—the rare and wonderful chance of -friendship? At any rate, she told Denham, with a sigh in which he heard -both impatience and relief, that she agreed; she thought him right; she -would accept his terms of friendship. - -“Now,” she said, “let’s go and have tea.” - -In fact, these principles having been laid down, a great lightness of -spirit showed itself in both of them. They were both convinced that -something of profound importance had been settled, and could now give -their attention to their tea and the Gardens. They wandered in and out -of glass-houses, saw lilies swimming in tanks, breathed in the scent of -thousands of carnations, and compared their respective tastes in the -matter of trees and lakes. While talking exclusively of what they saw, -so that any one might have overheard them, they felt that the compact -between them was made firmer and deeper by the number of people who -passed them and suspected nothing of the kind. The question of Ralph’s -cottage and future was not mentioned again. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - -Although the old coaches, with their gay panels and the guard’s horn, -and the humors of the box and the vicissitudes of the road, have long -moldered into dust so far as they were matter, and are preserved in the -printed pages of our novelists so far as they partook of the spirit, a -journey to London by express train can still be a very pleasant and -romantic adventure. Cassandra Otway, at the age of twenty-two, could -imagine few things more pleasant. Satiated with months of green fields -as she was, the first row of artisans’ villas on the outskirts of -London seemed to have something serious about it, which positively -increased the importance of every person in the railway carriage, and -even, to her impressionable mind, quickened the speed of the train and -gave a note of stern authority to the shriek of the engine-whistle. -They were bound for London; they must have precedence of all traffic -not similarly destined. A different demeanor was necessary directly one -stepped out upon Liverpool Street platform, and became one of those -preoccupied and hasty citizens for whose needs innumerable taxi-cabs, -motor-omnibuses, and underground railways were in waiting. She did her -best to look dignified and preoccupied too, but as the cab carried her -away, with a determination which alarmed her a little, she became more -and more forgetful of her station as a citizen of London, and turned -her head from one window to another, picking up eagerly a building on -this side or a street scene on that to feed her intense curiosity. And -yet, while the drive lasted no one was real, nothing was ordinary; the -crowds, the Government buildings, the tide of men and women washing the -base of the great glass windows, were all generalized, and affected her -as if she saw them on the stage. - -All these feelings were sustained and partly inspired by the fact that -her journey took her straight to the center of her most romantic world. -A thousand times in the midst of her pastoral landscape her thoughts -took this precise road, were admitted to the house in Chelsea, and went -directly upstairs to Katharine’s room, where, invisible themselves, -they had the better chance of feasting upon the privacy of the room’s -adorable and mysterious mistress. Cassandra adored her cousin; the -adoration might have been foolish, but was saved from that excess and -lent an engaging charm by the volatile nature of Cassandra’s -temperament. She had adored a great many things and people in the -course of twenty-two years; she had been alternately the pride and the -desperation of her teachers. She had worshipped architecture and music, -natural history and humanity, literature and art, but always at the -height of her enthusiasm, which was accompanied by a brilliant degree -of accomplishment, she changed her mind and bought, surreptitiously, -another grammar. The terrible results which governesses had predicted -from such mental dissipation were certainly apparent now that Cassandra -was twenty-two, and had never passed an examination, and daily showed -herself less and less capable of passing one. The more serious -prediction that she could never possibly earn her living was also -verified. But from all these short strands of different accomplishments -Cassandra wove for herself an attitude, a cast of mind, which, if -useless, was found by some people to have the not despicable virtues of -vivacity and freshness. Katharine, for example, thought her a most -charming companion. The cousins seemed to assemble between them a great -range of qualities which are never found united in one person and -seldom in half a dozen people. Where Katharine was simple, Cassandra -was complex; where Katharine was solid and direct, Cassandra was vague -and evasive. In short, they represented very well the manly and the -womanly sides of the feminine nature, and, for foundation, there was -the profound unity of common blood between them. If Cassandra adored -Katharine she was incapable of adoring any one without refreshing her -spirit with frequent draughts of raillery and criticism, and Katharine -enjoyed her laughter at least as much as her respect. - -Respect was certainly uppermost in Cassandra’s mind at the present -moment. Katharine’s engagement had appealed to her imagination as the -first engagement in a circle of contemporaries is apt to appeal to the -imaginations of the others; it was solemn, beautiful, and mysterious; -it gave both parties the important air of those who have been initiated -into some rite which is still concealed from the rest of the group. For -Katharine’s sake Cassandra thought William a most distinguished and -interesting character, and welcomed first his conversation and then his -manuscript as the marks of a friendship which it flattered and -delighted her to inspire. - -Katharine was still out when she arrived at Cheyne Walk. After greeting -her uncle and aunt and receiving, as usual, a present of two sovereigns -for “cab fares and dissipation” from Uncle Trevor, whose favorite niece -she was, she changed her dress and wandered into Katharine’s room to -await her. What a great looking-glass Katharine had, she thought, and -how mature all the arrangements upon the dressing-table were compared -to what she was used to at home. Glancing round, she thought that the -bills stuck upon a skewer and stood for ornament upon the mantelpiece -were astonishingly like Katharine, There wasn’t a photograph of William -anywhere to be seen. The room, with its combination of luxury and -bareness, its silk dressing-gowns and crimson slippers, its shabby -carpet and bare walls, had a powerful air of Katharine herself; she -stood in the middle of the room and enjoyed the sensation; and then, -with a desire to finger what her cousin was in the habit of fingering, -Cassandra began to take down the books which stood in a row upon the -shelf above the bed. In most houses this shelf is the ledge upon which -the last relics of religious belief lodge themselves as if, late at -night, in the heart of privacy, people, skeptical by day, find solace -in sipping one draught of the old charm for such sorrows or -perplexities as may steal from their hiding-places in the dark. But -there was no hymn-book here. By their battered covers and enigmatical -contents, Cassandra judged them to be old school-books belonging to -Uncle Trevor, and piously, though eccentrically, preserved by his -daughter. There was no end, she thought, to the unexpectedness of -Katharine. She had once had a passion for geometry herself, and, curled -upon Katharine’s quilt, she became absorbed in trying to remember how -far she had forgotten what she once knew. Katharine, coming in a little -later, found her deep in this characteristic pursuit. - -“My dear,” Cassandra exclaimed, shaking the book at her cousin, “my -whole life’s changed from this moment! I must write the man’s name down -at once, or I shall forget—” - -Whose name, what book, which life was changed Katharine proceeded to -ascertain. She began to lay aside her clothes hurriedly, for she was -very late. - -“May I sit and watch you?” Cassandra asked, shutting up her book. “I -got ready on purpose.” - -“Oh, you’re ready, are you?” said Katharine, half turning in the midst -of her operations, and looking at Cassandra, who sat, clasping her -knees, on the edge of the bed. - -“There are people dining here,” she said, taking in the effect of -Cassandra from a new point of view. After an interval, the distinction, -the irregular charm, of the small face with its long tapering nose and -its bright oval eyes were very notable. The hair rose up off the -forehead rather stiffly, and, given a more careful treatment by -hairdressers and dressmakers, the light angular figure might possess a -likeness to a French lady of distinction in the eighteenth century. - -“Who’s coming to dinner?” Cassandra asked, anticipating further -possibilities of rapture. - -“There’s William, and, I believe, Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Aubrey.” - -“I’m so glad William is coming. Did he tell you that he sent me his -manuscript? I think it’s wonderful—I think he’s almost good enough for -you, Katharine.” - -“You shall sit next to him and tell him what you think of him.” - -“I shan’t dare do that,” Cassandra asserted. - -“Why? You’re not afraid of him, are you?” - -“A little—because he’s connected with you.” - -Katharine smiled. - -“But then, with your well-known fidelity, considering that you’re -staying here at least a fortnight, you won’t have any illusions left -about me by the time you go. I give you a week, Cassandra. I shall see -my power fading day by day. Now it’s at the climax; but to-morrow it’ll -have begun to fade. What am I to wear, I wonder? Find me a blue dress, -Cassandra, over there in the long wardrobe.” - -She spoke disconnectedly, handling brush and comb, and pulling out the -little drawers in her dressing-table and leaving them open. Cassandra, -sitting on the bed behind her, saw the reflection of her cousin’s face -in the looking-glass. The face in the looking-glass was serious and -intent, apparently occupied with other things besides the straightness -of the parting which, however, was being driven as straight as a Roman -road through the dark hair. Cassandra was impressed again by -Katharine’s maturity; and, as she enveloped herself in the blue dress -which filled almost the whole of the long looking-glass with blue light -and made it the frame of a picture, holding not only the slightly -moving effigy of the beautiful woman, but shapes and colors of objects -reflected from the background, Cassandra thought that no sight had ever -been quite so romantic. It was all in keeping with the room and the -house, and the city round them; for her ears had not yet ceased to -notice the hum of distant wheels. - -They went downstairs rather late, in spite of Katharine’s extreme speed -in getting ready. To Cassandra’s ears the buzz of voices inside the -drawing-room was like the tuning up of the instruments of the -orchestra. It seemed to her that there were numbers of people in the -room, and that they were strangers, and that they were beautiful and -dressed with the greatest distinction, although they proved to be -mostly her relations, and the distinction of their clothing was -confined, in the eyes of an impartial observer, to the white waistcoat -which Rodney wore. But they all rose simultaneously, which was by -itself impressive, and they all exclaimed, and shook hands, and she was -introduced to Mr. Peyton, and the door sprang open, and dinner was -announced, and they filed off, William Rodney offering her his slightly -bent black arm, as she had secretly hoped he would. In short, had the -scene been looked at only through her eyes, it must have been described -as one of magical brilliancy. The pattern of the soup-plates, the stiff -folds of the napkins, which rose by the side of each plate in the shape -of arum lilies, the long sticks of bread tied with pink ribbon, the -silver dishes and the sea-colored champagne glasses, with the flakes of -gold congealed in their stems—all these details, together with a -curiously pervasive smell of kid gloves, contributed to her -exhilaration, which must be repressed, however, because she was grown -up, and the world held no more for her to marvel at. - -The world held no more for her to marvel at, it is true; but it held -other people; and each other person possessed in Cassandra’s mind some -fragment of what privately she called “reality.” It was a gift that -they would impart if you asked them for it, and thus no dinner-party -could possibly be dull, and little Mr. Peyton on her right and William -Rodney on her left were in equal measure endowed with the quality which -seemed to her so unmistakable and so precious that the way people -neglected to demand it was a constant source of surprise to her. She -scarcely knew, indeed, whether she was talking to Mr. Peyton or to -William Rodney. But to one who, by degrees, assumed the shape of an -elderly man with a mustache, she described how she had arrived in -London that very afternoon, and how she had taken a cab and driven -through the streets. Mr. Peyton, an editor of fifty years, bowed his -bald head repeatedly, with apparent understanding. At least, he -understood that she was very young and pretty, and saw that she was -excited, though he could not gather at once from her words or remember -from his own experience what there was to be excited about. “Were there -any buds on the trees?” he asked. “Which line did she travel by?” - -He was cut short in these amiable inquiries by her desire to know -whether he was one of those who read, or one of those who look out of -the window? Mr. Peyton was by no means sure which he did. He rather -thought he did both. He was told that he had made a most dangerous -confession. She could deduce his entire history from that one fact. He -challenged her to proceed; and she proclaimed him a Liberal Member of -Parliament. - -William, nominally engaged in a desultory conversation with Aunt -Eleanor, heard every word, and taking advantage of the fact that -elderly ladies have little continuity of conversation, at least with -those whom they esteem for their youth and their sex, he asserted his -presence by a very nervous laugh. - -Cassandra turned to him directly. She was enchanted to find that, -instantly and with such ease, another of these fascinating beings was -offering untold wealth for her extraction. - -“There’s no doubt what _you_ do in a railway carriage, William,” she -said, making use in her pleasure of his first name. “You never _once_ -look out of the window; you read _all_ the time.” - -“And what facts do you deduce from that?” Mr. Peyton asked. - -“Oh, that he’s a poet, of course,” said Cassandra. “But I must confess -that I knew that before, so it isn’t fair. I’ve got your manuscript -with me,” she went on, disregarding Mr. Peyton in a shameless way. -“I’ve got all sorts of things I want to ask you about it.” - -William inclined his head and tried to conceal the pleasure that her -remark gave him. But the pleasure was not unalloyed. However -susceptible to flattery William might be, he would never tolerate it -from people who showed a gross or emotional taste in literature, and if -Cassandra erred even slightly from what he considered essential in this -respect he would express his discomfort by flinging out his hands and -wrinkling his forehead; he would find no pleasure in her flattery after -that. - -“First of all,” she proceeded, “I want to know why you chose to write a -play?” - -“Ah! You mean it’s not dramatic?” - -“I mean that I don’t see what it would gain by being acted. But then -does Shakespeare gain? Henry and I are always arguing about -Shakespeare. I’m certain he’s wrong, but I can’t prove it because I’ve -only seen Shakespeare acted once in Lincoln. But I’m quite positive,” -she insisted, “that Shakespeare wrote for the stage.” - -“You’re perfectly right,” Rodney exclaimed. “I was hoping you were on -that side. Henry’s wrong—entirely wrong. Of course, I’ve failed, as all -the moderns fail. Dear, dear, I wish I’d consulted you before.” - -From this point they proceeded to go over, as far as memory served -them, the different aspects of Rodney’s drama. She said nothing that -jarred upon him, and untrained daring had the power to stimulate -experience to such an extent that Rodney was frequently seen to hold -his fork suspended before him, while he debated the first principles of -the art. Mrs. Hilbery thought to herself that she had never seen him to -such advantage; yes, he was somehow different; he reminded her of some -one who was dead, some one who was distinguished—she had forgotten his -name. - -Cassandra’s voice rose high in its excitement. - -“You’ve not read ‘The Idiot’!” she exclaimed. - -“I’ve read ‘War and Peace’,” William replied, a little testily. - -“_War and Peace_!” she echoed, in a tone of derision. - -“I confess I don’t understand the Russians.” - -“Shake hands! Shake hands!” boomed Uncle Aubrey from across the table. -“Neither do I. And I hazard the opinion that they don’t themselves.” - -The old gentleman had ruled a large part of the Indian Empire, but he -was in the habit of saying that he had rather have written the works of -Dickens. The table now took possession of a subject much to its liking. -Aunt Eleanor showed premonitory signs of pronouncing an opinion. -Although she had blunted her taste upon some form of philanthropy for -twenty-five years, she had a fine natural instinct for an upstart or a -pretender, and knew to a hairbreadth what literature should be and what -it should not be. She was born to the knowledge, and scarcely thought -it a matter to be proud of. - -“Insanity is not a fit subject for fiction,” she announced positively. - -“There’s the well-known case of Hamlet,” Mr. Hilbery interposed, in his -leisurely, half-humorous tones. - -“Ah, but poetry’s different, Trevor,” said Aunt Eleanor, as if she had -special authority from Shakespeare to say so. “Different altogether. -And I’ve never thought, for my part, that Hamlet was as mad as they -make out. What is your opinion, Mr. Peyton?” For, as there was a -minister of literature present in the person of the editor of an -esteemed review, she deferred to him. - -Mr. Peyton leant a little back in his chair, and, putting his head -rather on one side, observed that that was a question that he had never -been able to answer entirely to his satisfaction. There was much to be -said on both sides, but as he considered upon which side he should say -it, Mrs. Hilbery broke in upon his judicious meditations. - -“Lovely, lovely Ophelia!” she exclaimed. “What a wonderful power it -is—poetry! I wake up in the morning all bedraggled; there’s a yellow -fog outside; little Emily turns on the electric light when she brings -me my tea, and says, ‘Oh, ma’am, the water’s frozen in the cistern, and -cook’s cut her finger to the bone.’ And then I open a little green -book, and the birds are singing, the stars shining, the flowers -twinkling—” She looked about her as if these presences had suddenly -manifested themselves round her dining-room table. - -“Has the cook cut her finger badly?” Aunt Eleanor demanded, addressing -herself naturally to Katharine. - -“Oh, the cook’s finger is only my way of putting it,” said Mrs. -Hilbery. “But if she had cut her arm off, Katharine would have sewn it -on again,” she remarked, with an affectionate glance at her daughter, -who looked, she thought, a little sad. “But what horrid, horrid -thoughts,” she wound up, laying down her napkin and pushing her chair -back. “Come, let us find something more cheerful to talk about -upstairs.” - -Upstairs in the drawing-room Cassandra found fresh sources of pleasure, -first in the distinguished and expectant look of the room, and then in -the chance of exercising her divining-rod upon a new assortment of -human beings. But the low tones of the women, their meditative -silences, the beauty which, to her at least, shone even from black -satin and the knobs of amber which encircled elderly necks, changed her -wish to chatter to a more subdued desire merely to watch and to -whisper. She entered with delight into an atmosphere in which private -matters were being interchanged freely, almost in monosyllables, by the -older women who now accepted her as one of themselves. Her expression -became very gentle and sympathetic, as if she, too, were full of -solicitude for the world which was somehow being cared for, managed and -deprecated by Aunt Maggie and Aunt Eleanor. After a time she perceived -that Katharine was outside the community in some way, and, suddenly, -she threw aside her wisdom and gentleness and concern and began to -laugh. - -“What are you laughing at?” Katharine asked. - -A joke so foolish and unfilial wasn’t worth explaining. - -“It was nothing—ridiculous—in the worst of taste, but still, if you -half shut your eyes and looked—” Katharine half shut her eyes and -looked, but she looked in the wrong direction, and Cassandra laughed -more than ever, and was still laughing and doing her best to explain in -a whisper that Aunt Eleanor, through half-shut eyes, was like the -parrot in the cage at Stogdon House, when the gentlemen came in and -Rodney walked straight up to them and wanted to know what they were -laughing at. - -“I utterly refuse to tell you!” Cassandra replied, standing up -straight, clasping her hands in front of her, and facing him. Her -mockery was delicious to him. He had not even for a second the fear -that she had been laughing at him. She was laughing because life was so -adorable, so enchanting. - -“Ah, but you’re cruel to make me feel the barbarity of my sex,” he -replied, drawing his feet together and pressing his finger-tips upon an -imaginary opera-hat or malacca cane. “We’ve been discussing all sorts -of dull things, and now I shall never know what I want to know more -than anything in the world.” - -“You don’t deceive us for a minute!” she cried. “Not for a second. We -both know that you’ve been enjoying yourself immensely. Hasn’t he, -Katharine?” - -“No,” she replied, “I think he’s speaking the truth. He doesn’t care -much for politics.” - -Her words, though spoken simply, produced a curious change in the -light, sparkling atmosphere. William at once lost his look of animation -and said seriously: - -“I detest politics.” - -“I don’t think any man has the right to say that,” said Cassandra, -almost severely. - -“I agree. I mean that I detest politicians,” he corrected himself -quickly. - -“You see, I believe Cassandra is what they call a Feminist,” Katharine -went on. “Or rather, she was a Feminist six months ago, but it’s no -good supposing that she is now what she was then. That is one of her -greatest charms in my eyes. One never can tell.” She smiled at her as -an elder sister might smile. - -“Katharine, you make one feel so horribly small!” Cassandra exclaimed. - -“No, no, that’s not what she means,” Rodney interposed. “I quite agree -that women have an immense advantage over us there. One misses a lot by -attempting to know things thoroughly.” - -“He knows Greek thoroughly,” said Katharine. “But then he also knows a -good deal about painting, and a certain amount about music. He’s very -cultivated—perhaps the most cultivated person I know.” - -“And poetry,” Cassandra added. - -“Yes, I was forgetting his play,” Katharine remarked, and turning her -head as though she saw something that needed her attention in a far -corner of the room, she left them. - -For a moment they stood silent, after what seemed a deliberate -introduction to each other, and Cassandra watched her crossing the -room. - -“Henry,” she said next moment, “would say that a stage ought to be no -bigger than this drawing-room. He wants there to be singing and dancing -as well as acting—only all the opposite of Wagner—you understand?” - -They sat down, and Katharine, turning when she reached the window, saw -William with his hand raised in gesticulation and his mouth open, as if -ready to speak the moment Cassandra ceased. - -Katharine’s duty, whether it was to pull a curtain or move a chair, was -either forgotten or discharged, but she continued to stand by the -window without doing anything. The elderly people were all grouped -together round the fire. They seemed an independent, middle-aged -community busy with its own concerns. They were telling stories very -well and listening to them very graciously. But for her there was no -obvious employment. - -“If anybody says anything, I shall say that I’m looking at the river,” -she thought, for in her slavery to her family traditions, she was ready -to pay for her transgression with some plausible falsehood. She pushed -aside the blind and looked at the river. But it was a dark night and -the water was barely visible. Cabs were passing, and couples were -loitering slowly along the road, keeping as close to the railings as -possible, though the trees had as yet no leaves to cast shadow upon -their embraces. Katharine, thus withdrawn, felt her loneliness. The -evening had been one of pain, offering her, minute after minute, -plainer proof that things would fall out as she had foreseen. She had -faced tones, gestures, glances; she knew, with her back to them, that -William, even now, was plunging deeper and deeper into the delight of -unexpected understanding with Cassandra. He had almost told her that he -was finding it infinitely better than he could have believed. She -looked out of the window, sternly determined to forget private -misfortunes, to forget herself, to forget individual lives. With her -eyes upon the dark sky, voices reached her from the room in which she -was standing. She heard them as if they came from people in another -world, a world antecedent to her world, a world that was the prelude, -the antechamber to reality; it was as if, lately dead, she heard the -living talking. The dream nature of our life had never been more -apparent to her, never had life been more certainly an affair of four -walls, whose objects existed only within the range of lights and fires, -beyond which lay nothing, or nothing more than darkness. She seemed -physically to have stepped beyond the region where the light of -illusion still makes it desirable to possess, to love, to struggle. And -yet her melancholy brought her no serenity. She still heard the voices -within the room. She was still tormented by desires. She wished to be -beyond their range. She wished inconsistently enough that she could -find herself driving rapidly through the streets; she was even anxious -to be with some one who, after a moment’s groping, took a definite -shape and solidified into the person of Mary Datchet. She drew the -curtains so that the draperies met in deep folds in the middle of the -window. - -“Ah, there she is,” said Mr. Hilbery, who was standing swaying affably -from side to side, with his back to the fire. “Come here, Katharine. I -couldn’t see where you’d got to—our children,” he observed -parenthetically, “have their uses—I want you to go to my study, -Katharine; go to the third shelf on the right-hand side of the door; -take down ‘Trelawny’s Recollections of Shelley’; bring it to me. Then, -Peyton, you will have to admit to the assembled company that you have -been mistaken.” - -“‘Trelawny’s Recollections of Shelley.’ The third shelf on the right of -the door,” Katharine repeated. After all, one does not check children -in their play, or rouse sleepers from their dreams. She passed William -and Cassandra on her way to the door. - -“Stop, Katharine,” said William, speaking almost as if he were -conscious of her against his will. “Let me go.” He rose, after a -second’s hesitation, and she understood that it cost him an effort. She -knelt one knee upon the sofa where Cassandra sat, looking down at her -cousin’s face, which still moved with the speed of what she had been -saying. - -“Are you—happy?” she asked. - -“Oh, my dear!” Cassandra exclaimed, as if no further words were needed. -“Of course, we disagree about every subject under the sun,” she -exclaimed, “but I think he’s the cleverest man I’ve ever met—and you’re -the most beautiful woman,” she added, looking at Katharine, and as she -looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in -sympathy with Katharine’s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the -last refinement of her distinction. - -“Ah, but it’s only ten o’clock,” said Katharine darkly. - -“As late as that! Well—?” She did not understand. - -“At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. -But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines.” Cassandra -looked at her with a puzzled expression. - -“Here’s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd -things,” she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick. “Can -you make her out?” - -Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did -not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood -upright at once and said in a different tone: - -“I really am off, though. I wish you’d explain if they say anything, -William. I shan’t be late, but I’ve got to see some one.” - -“At this time of night?” Cassandra exclaimed. - -“Whom have you got to see?” William demanded. - -“A friend,” she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew -that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their -neighborhood, in case of need. - -“Katharine has a great many friends,” said William rather lamely, -sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. - -She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the -lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of -being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary -in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone -steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue -shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light -of an occasional jet of flickering gas. - -The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed not -only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of -embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for -explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and -found herself in the presence of a young man who was lying back in a -chair and holding a sheet of paper in his hand, at which he was looking -as if he expected to go on immediately with what he was in the middle -of saying to Mary Datchet. The apparition of an unknown lady in full -evening dress seemed to disturb him. He took his pipe from his mouth, -rose stiffly, and sat down again with a jerk. - -“Have you been dining out?” Mary asked. - -“Are you working?” Katharine inquired simultaneously. - -The young man shook his head, as if he disowned his share in the -question with some irritation. - -“Well, not exactly,” Mary replied. “Mr. Basnett had brought some papers -to show me. We were going through them, but we’d almost done.... Tell -us about your party.” - -Mary had a ruffled appearance, as if she had been running her fingers -through her hair in the course of her conversation; she was dressed -more or less like a Russian peasant girl. She sat down again in a chair -which looked as if it had been her seat for some hours; the saucer -which stood upon the arm contained the ashes of many cigarettes. Mr. -Basnett, a very young man with a fresh complexion and a high forehead -from which the hair was combed straight back, was one of that group of -“very able young men” suspected by Mr. Clacton, justly as it turned -out, of an influence upon Mary Datchet. He had come down from one of -the Universities not long ago, and was now charged with the reformation -of society. In connection with the rest of the group of very able young -men he had drawn up a scheme for the education of labor, for the -amalgamation of the middle class and the working class, and for a joint -assault of the two bodies, combined in the Society for the Education of -Democracy, upon Capital. The scheme had already reached the stage in -which it was permissible to hire an office and engage a secretary, and -he had been deputed to expound the scheme to Mary, and make her an -offer of the Secretaryship, to which, as a matter of principle, a small -salary was attached. Since seven o’clock that evening he had been -reading out loud the document in which the faith of the new reformers -was expounded, but the reading was so frequently interrupted by -discussion, and it was so often necessary to inform Mary “in strictest -confidence” of the private characters and evil designs of certain -individuals and societies that they were still only half-way through -the manuscript. Neither of them realized that the talk had already -lasted three hours. In their absorption they had forgotten even to feed -the fire, and yet both Mr. Basnett in his exposition, and Mary in her -interrogation, carefully preserved a kind of formality calculated to -check the desire of the human mind for irrelevant discussion. Her -questions frequently began, “Am I to understand—” and his replies -invariably represented the views of some one called “we.” - -By this time Mary was almost persuaded that she, too, was included in -the “we,” and agreed with Mr. Basnett in believing that “our” views, -“our” society, “our” policy, stood for something quite definitely -segregated from the main body of society in a circle of superior -illumination. - -The appearance of Katharine in this atmosphere was extremely -incongruous, and had the effect of making Mary remember all sorts of -things that she had been glad to forget. - -“You’ve been dining out?” she asked again, looking, with a little -smile, at the blue silk and the pearl-sewn shoes. - -“No, at home. Are you starting something new?” Katharine hazarded, -rather hesitatingly, looking at the papers. - -“We are,” Mr. Basnett replied. He said no more. - -“I’m thinking of leaving our friends in Russell Square,” Mary -explained. - -“I see. And then you will do something else.” - -“Well, I’m afraid I like working,” said Mary. - -“Afraid,” said Mr. Basnett, conveying the impression that, in his -opinion, no sensible person could be afraid of liking to work. - -“Yes,” said Katharine, as if he had stated this opinion aloud. “I -should like to start something—something off one’s own bat—that’s what -I should like.” - -“Yes, that’s the fun,” said Mr. Basnett, looking at her for the first -time rather keenly, and refilling his pipe. - -“But you can’t limit work—that’s what I mean,” said Mary. “I mean there -are other sorts of work. No one works harder than a woman with little -children.” - -“Quite so,” said Mr. Basnett. “It’s precisely the women with babies we -want to get hold of.” He glanced at his document, rolled it into a -cylinder between his fingers, and gazed into the fire. Katharine felt -that in this company anything that one said would be judged upon its -merits; one had only to say what one thought, rather barely and -tersely, with a curious assumption that the number of things that could -properly be thought about was strictly limited. And Mr. Basnett was -only stiff upon the surface; there was an intelligence in his face -which attracted her intelligence. - -“When will the public know?” she asked. - -“What d’you mean—about us?” Mr. Basnett asked, with a little smile. - -“That depends upon many things,” said Mary. The conspirators looked -pleased, as if Katharine’s question, with the belief in their existence -which it implied, had a warming effect upon them. - -“In starting a society such as we wish to start (we can’t say any more -at present),” Mr. Basnett began, with a little jerk of his head, “there -are two things to remember—the Press and the public. Other societies, -which shall be nameless, have gone under because they’ve appealed only -to cranks. If you don’t want a mutual admiration society, which dies as -soon as you’ve all discovered each other’s faults, you must nobble the -Press. You must appeal to the public.” - -“That’s the difficulty,” said Mary thoughtfully. - -“That’s where she comes in,” said Mr. Basnett, jerking his head in -Mary’s direction. “She’s the only one of us who’s a capitalist. She can -make a whole-time job of it. I’m tied to an office; I can only give my -spare time. Are you, by any chance, on the look-out for a job?” he -asked Katharine, with a queer mixture of distrust and deference. - -“Marriage is her job at present,” Mary replied for her. - -“Oh, I see,” said Mr. Basnett. He made allowances for that; he and his -friends had faced the question of sex, along with all others, and -assigned it an honorable place in their scheme of life. Katharine felt -this beneath the roughness of his manner; and a world entrusted to the -guardianship of Mary Datchet and Mr. Basnett seemed to her a good -world, although not a romantic or beautiful place or, to put it -figuratively, a place where any line of blue mist softly linked tree to -tree upon the horizon. For a moment she thought she saw in his face, -bent now over the fire, the features of that original man whom we still -recall every now and then, although we know only the clerk, barrister, -Governmental official, or workingman variety of him. Not that Mr. -Basnett, giving his days to commerce and his spare time to social -reform, would long carry about him any trace of his possibilities of -completeness; but, for the moment, in his youth and ardor, still -speculative, still uncramped, one might imagine him the citizen of a -nobler state than ours. Katharine turned over her small stock of -information, and wondered what their society might be going to attempt. -Then she remembered that she was hindering their business, and rose, -still thinking of this society, and thus thinking, she said to Mr. -Basnett: - -“Well, you’ll ask me to join when the time comes, I hope.” - -He nodded, and took his pipe from his mouth, but, being unable to think -of anything to say, he put it back again, although he would have been -glad if she had stayed. - -Against her wish, Mary insisted upon taking her downstairs, and then, -as there was no cab to be seen, they stood in the street together, -looking about them. - -“Go back,” Katharine urged her, thinking of Mr. Basnett with his papers -in his hand. - -“You can’t wander about the streets alone in those clothes,” said Mary, -but the desire to find a cab was not her true reason for standing -beside Katharine for a minute or two. Unfortunately for her composure, -Mr. Basnett and his papers seemed to her an incidental diversion of -life’s serious purpose compared with some tremendous fact which -manifested itself as she stood alone with Katharine. It may have been -their common womanhood. - -“Have you seen Ralph?” she asked suddenly, without preface. - -“Yes,” said Katharine directly, but she did not remember when or where -she had seen him. It took her a moment or two to remember why Mary -should ask her if she had seen Ralph. - -“I believe I’m jealous,” said Mary. - -“Nonsense, Mary,” said Katharine, rather distractedly, taking her arm -and beginning to walk up the street in the direction of the main road. -“Let me see; we went to Kew, and we agreed to be friends. Yes, that’s -what happened.” Mary was silent, in the hope that Katharine would tell -her more. But Katharine said nothing. - -“It’s not a question of friendship,” Mary exclaimed, her anger rising, -to her own surprise. “You know it’s not. How can it be? I’ve no right -to interfere—” She stopped. “Only I’d rather Ralph wasn’t hurt,” she -concluded. - -“I think he seems able to take care of himself,” Katharine observed. -Without either of them wishing it, a feeling of hostility had risen -between them. - -“Do you really think it’s worth it?” said Mary, after a pause. - -“How can one tell?” Katharine asked. - -“Have you ever cared for any one?” Mary demanded rashly and foolishly. - -“I can’t wander about London discussing my feelings—Here’s a cab—no, -there’s some one in it.” - -“We don’t want to quarrel,” said Mary. - -“Ought I to have told him that I wouldn’t be his friend?” Katharine -asked. “Shall I tell him that? If so, what reason shall I give him?” - -“Of course you can’t tell him that,” said Mary, controlling herself. - -“I believe I shall, though,” said Katharine suddenly. - -“I lost my temper, Katharine; I shouldn’t have said what I did.” - -“The whole thing’s foolish,” said Katharine, peremptorily. “That’s what -I say. It’s not worth it.” She spoke with unnecessary vehemence, but it -was not directed against Mary Datchet. Their animosity had completely -disappeared, and upon both of them a cloud of difficulty and darkness -rested, obscuring the future, in which they had both to find a way. - -“No, no, it’s not worth it,” Katharine repeated. “Suppose, as you say, -it’s out of the question—this friendship; he falls in love with me. I -don’t want that. Still,” she added, “I believe you exaggerate; love’s -not everything; marriage itself is only one of the things—” They had -reached the main thoroughfare, and stood looking at the omnibuses and -passers-by, who seemed, for the moment, to illustrate what Katharine -had said of the diversity of human interests. For both of them it had -become one of those moments of extreme detachment, when it seems -unnecessary ever again to shoulder the burden of happiness and -self-assertive existence. Their neighbors were welcome to their -possessions. - -“I don’t lay down any rules,”’ said Mary, recovering herself first, as -they turned after a long pause of this description. “All I say is that -you should know what you’re about—for certain; but,” she added, “I -expect you do.” - -At the same time she was profoundly perplexed, not only by what she -knew of the arrangements for Katharine’s marriage, but by the -impression which she had of her, there on her arm, dark and -inscrutable. - -They walked back again and reached the steps which led up to Mary’s -flat. Here they stopped and paused for a moment, saying nothing. - -“You must go in,” said Katharine, rousing herself. “He’s waiting all -this time to go on with his reading.” She glanced up at the lighted -window near the top of the house, and they both looked at it and waited -for a moment. A flight of semicircular steps ran up to the hall, and -Mary slowly mounted the first two or three, and paused, looking down -upon Katharine. - -“I think you underrate the value of that emotion,” she said slowly, and -a little awkwardly. She climbed another step and looked down once more -upon the figure that was only partly lit up, standing in the street -with a colorless face turned upwards. As Mary hesitated, a cab came by -and Katharine turned and stopped it, saying as she opened the door: - -“Remember, I want to belong to your society—remember,” she added, -having to raise her voice a little, and shutting the door upon the rest -of her words. - -Mary mounted the stairs step by step, as if she had to lift her body up -an extremely steep ascent. She had had to wrench herself forcibly away -from Katharine, and every step vanquished her desire. She held on -grimly, encouraging herself as though she were actually making some -great physical effort in climbing a height. She was conscious that Mr. -Basnett, sitting at the top of the stairs with his documents, offered -her solid footing if she were capable of reaching it. The knowledge -gave her a faint sense of exaltation. - -Mr. Basnett raised his eyes as she opened the door. - -“I’ll go on where I left off,” he said. “Stop me if you want anything -explained.” - -He had been re-reading the document, and making pencil notes in the -margin while he waited, and he went on again as if there had been no -interruption. Mary sat down among the flat cushions, lit another -cigarette, and listened with a frown upon her face. - -Katharine leant back in the corner of the cab that carried her to -Chelsea, conscious of fatigue, and conscious, too, of the sober and -satisfactory nature of such industry as she had just witnessed. The -thought of it composed and calmed her. When she reached home she let -herself in as quietly as she could, in the hope that the household was -already gone to bed. But her excursion had occupied less time than she -thought, and she heard sounds of unmistakable liveliness upstairs. A -door opened, and she drew herself into a ground-floor room in case the -sound meant that Mr. Peyton were taking his leave. From where she stood -she could see the stairs, though she was herself invisible. Some one -was coming down the stairs, and now she saw that it was William Rodney. -He looked a little strange, as if he were walking in his sleep; his -lips moved as if he were acting some part to himself. He came down very -slowly, step by step, with one hand upon the banisters to guide -himself. She thought he looked as if he were in some mood of high -exaltation, which it made her uncomfortable to witness any longer -unseen. She stepped into the hall. He gave a great start upon seeing -her and stopped. - -“Katharine!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been out?” he asked. - -“Yes.... Are they still up?” - -He did not answer, and walked into the ground-floor room through the -door which stood open. - -“It’s been more wonderful than I can tell you,” he said, “I’m -incredibly happy—” - -He was scarcely addressing her, and she said nothing. For a moment they -stood at opposite sides of a table saying nothing. Then he asked her -quickly, “But tell me, how did it seem to you? What did you think, -Katharine? Is there a chance that she likes me? Tell me, Katharine!” - -Before she could answer a door opened on the landing above and -disturbed them. It disturbed William excessively. He started back, -walked rapidly into the hall, and said in a loud and ostentatiously -ordinary tone: - -“Good night, Katharine. Go to bed now. I shall see you soon. I hope I -shall be able to come to-morrow.” - -Next moment he was gone. She went upstairs and found Cassandra on the -landing. She held two or three books in her hand, and she was stooping -to look at others in a little bookcase. She said that she could never -tell which book she wanted to read in bed, poetry, biography, or -metaphysics. - -“What do you read in bed, Katharine?” she asked, as they walked -upstairs side by side. - -“Sometimes one thing—sometimes another,” said Katharine vaguely. -Cassandra looked at her. - -“D’you know, you’re extraordinarily queer,” she said. “Every one seems -to me a little queer. Perhaps it’s the effect of London.” - -“Is William queer, too?” Katharine asked. - -“Well, I think he is a little,” Cassandra replied. “Queer, but very -fascinating. I shall read Milton to-night. It’s been one of the -happiest nights of my life, Katharine,” she added, looking with shy -devotion at her cousin’s beautiful face. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - - -London, in the first days of spring, has buds that open and flowers -that suddenly shake their petals—white, purple, or crimson—in -competition with the display in the garden beds, although these city -flowers are merely so many doors flung wide in Bond Street and the -neighborhood, inviting you to look at a picture, or hear a symphony, or -merely crowd and crush yourself among all sorts of vocal, excitable, -brightly colored human beings. But, all the same, it is no mean rival -to the quieter process of vegetable florescence. Whether or not there -is a generous motive at the root, a desire to share and impart, or -whether the animation is purely that of insensate fervor and friction, -the effect, while it lasts, certainly encourages those who are young, -and those who are ignorant, to think the world one great bazaar, with -banners fluttering and divans heaped with spoils from every quarter of -the globe for their delight. - -As Cassandra Otway went about London provided with shillings that -opened turnstiles, or more often with large white cards that -disregarded turnstiles, the city seemed to her the most lavish and -hospitable of hosts. After visiting the National Gallery, or Hertford -House, or hearing Brahms or Beethoven at the Bechstein Hall, she would -come back to find a new person awaiting her, in whose soul were -imbedded some grains of the invaluable substance which she still called -reality, and still believed that she could find. The Hilberys, as the -saying is, “knew every one,” and that arrogant claim was certainly -upheld by the number of houses which, within a certain area, lit their -lamps at night, opened their doors after 3 p. m., and admitted the -Hilberys to their dining-rooms, say, once a month. An indefinable -freedom and authority of manner, shared by most of the people who lived -in these houses, seemed to indicate that whether it was a question of -art, music, or government, they were well within the gates, and could -smile indulgently at the vast mass of humanity which is forced to wait -and struggle, and pay for entrance with common coin at the door. The -gates opened instantly to admit Cassandra. She was naturally critical -of what went on inside, and inclined to quote what Henry would have -said; but she often succeeded in contradicting Henry, in his absence, -and invariably paid her partner at dinner, or the kind old lady who -remembered her grandmother, the compliment of believing that there was -meaning in what they said. For the sake of the light in her eager eyes, -much crudity of expression and some untidiness of person were forgiven -her. It was generally felt that, given a year or two of experience, -introduced to good dressmakers, and preserved from bad influences, she -would be an acquisition. Those elderly ladies, who sit on the edge of -ballrooms sampling the stuff of humanity between finger and thumb and -breathing so evenly that the necklaces, which rise and fall upon their -breasts, seem to represent some elemental force, such as the waves upon -the ocean of humanity, concluded, a little smilingly, that she would -do. They meant that she would in all probability marry some young man -whose mother they respected. - -William Rodney was fertile in suggestions. He knew of little galleries, -and select concerts, and private performances, and somehow made time to -meet Katharine and Cassandra, and to give them tea or dinner or supper -in his rooms afterwards. Each one of her fourteen days thus promised to -bear some bright illumination in its sober text. But Sunday approached. -The day is usually dedicated to Nature. The weather was almost kindly -enough for an expedition. But Cassandra rejected Hampton Court, -Greenwich, Richmond, and Kew in favor of the Zoological Gardens. She -had once trifled with the psychology of animals, and still knew -something about inherited characteristics. On Sunday afternoon, -therefore, Katharine, Cassandra, and William Rodney drove off to the -Zoo. As their cab approached the entrance, Katharine bent forward and -waved her hand to a young man who was walking rapidly in the same -direction. - -“There’s Ralph Denham!” she exclaimed. “I told him to meet us here,” -she added. She had even come provided with a ticket for him. William’s -objection that he would not be admitted was, therefore, silenced -directly. But the way in which the two men greeted each other was -significant of what was going to happen. As soon as they had admired -the little birds in the large cage William and Cassandra lagged behind, -and Ralph and Katharine pressed on rather in advance. It was an -arrangement in which William took his part, and one that suited his -convenience, but he was annoyed all the same. He thought that Katharine -should have told him that she had invited Denham to meet them. - -“One of Katharine’s friends,” he said rather sharply. It was clear that -he was irritated, and Cassandra felt for his annoyance. They were -standing by the pen of some Oriental hog, and she was prodding the -brute gently with the point of her umbrella, when a thousand little -observations seemed, in some way, to collect in one center. The center -was one of intense and curious emotion. Were they happy? She dismissed -the question as she asked it, scorning herself for applying such simple -measures to the rare and splendid emotions of so unique a couple. -Nevertheless, her manner became immediately different, as if, for the -first time, she felt consciously womanly, and as if William might -conceivably wish later on to confide in her. She forgot all about the -psychology of animals, and the recurrence of blue eyes and brown, and -became instantly engrossed in her feelings as a woman who could -administer consolation, and she hoped that Katharine would keep ahead -with Mr. Denham, as a child who plays at being grown-up hopes that her -mother won’t come in just yet, and spoil the game. Or was it not rather -that she had ceased to play at being grown-up, and was conscious, -suddenly, that she was alarmingly mature and in earnest? - -There was still unbroken silence between Katharine and Ralph Denham, -but the occupants of the different cages served instead of speech. - -“What have you been doing since we met?” Ralph asked at length. - -“Doing?” she pondered. “Walking in and out of other people’s houses. I -wonder if these animals are happy?” she speculated, stopping before a -gray bear, who was philosophically playing with a tassel which once, -perhaps, formed part of a lady’s parasol. - -“I’m afraid Rodney didn’t like my coming,” Ralph remarked. - -“No. But he’ll soon get over that,” she replied. The detachment -expressed by her voice puzzled Ralph, and he would have been glad if -she had explained her meaning further. But he was not going to press -her for explanations. Each moment was to be, as far as he could make -it, complete in itself, owing nothing of its happiness to explanations, -borrowing neither bright nor dark tints from the future. - -“The bears seem happy,” he remarked. “But we must buy them a bag of -something. There’s the place to buy buns. Let’s go and get them.” They -walked to the counter piled with little paper bags, and each -simultaneously produced a shilling and pressed it upon the young lady, -who did not know whether to oblige the lady or the gentleman, but -decided, from conventional reasons, that it was the part of the -gentleman to pay. - -“I wish to pay,” said Ralph peremptorily, refusing the coin which -Katharine tendered. “I have a reason for what I do,” he added, seeing -her smile at his tone of decision. - -“I believe you have a reason for everything,” she agreed, breaking the -bun into parts and tossing them down the bears’ throats, “but I can’t -believe it’s a good one this time. What is your reason?” - -He refused to tell her. He could not explain to her that he was -offering up consciously all his happiness to her, and wished, absurdly -enough, to pour every possession he had upon the blazing pyre, even his -silver and gold. He wished to keep this distance between them—the -distance which separates the devotee from the image in the shrine. - -Circumstances conspired to make this easier than it would have been, -had they been seated in a drawing-room, for example, with a tea-tray -between them. He saw her against a background of pale grottos and sleek -hides; camels slanted their heavy-lidded eyes at her, giraffes -fastidiously observed her from their melancholy eminence, and the -pink-lined trunks of elephants cautiously abstracted buns from her -outstretched hands. Then there were the hothouses. He saw her bending -over pythons coiled upon the sand, or considering the brown rock -breaking the stagnant water of the alligators’ pool, or searching some -minute section of tropical forest for the golden eye of a lizard or the -indrawn movement of the green frogs’ flanks. In particular, he saw her -outlined against the deep green waters, in which squadrons of silvery -fish wheeled incessantly, or ogled her for a moment, pressing their -distorted mouths against the glass, quivering their tails straight out -behind them. Again, there was the insect house, where she lifted the -blinds of the little cages, and marveled at the purple circles marked -upon the rich tussore wings of some lately emerged and semi-conscious -butterfly, or at caterpillars immobile like the knobbed twigs of a -pale-skinned tree, or at slim green snakes stabbing the glass wall -again and again with their flickering cleft tongues. The heat of the -air, and the bloom of heavy flowers, which swam in water or rose -stiffly from great red jars, together with the display of curious -patterns and fantastic shapes, produced an atmosphere in which human -beings tended to look pale and to fall silent. - -Opening the door of a house which rang with the mocking and profoundly -unhappy laughter of monkeys, they discovered William and Cassandra. -William appeared to be tempting some small reluctant animal to descend -from an upper perch to partake of half an apple. Cassandra was reading -out, in her high-pitched tones, an account of this creature’s secluded -disposition and nocturnal habits. She saw Katharine and exclaimed: - -“Here you are! Do prevent William from torturing this unfortunate -aye-aye.” - -“We thought we’d lost you,” said William. He looked from one to the -other, and seemed to take stock of Denham’s unfashionable appearance. -He seemed to wish to find some outlet for malevolence, but, failing -one, he remained silent. The glance, the slight quiver of the upper -lip, were not lost upon Katharine. - -“William isn’t kind to animals,” she remarked. “He doesn’t know what -they like and what they don’t like.” - -“I take it you’re well versed in these matters, Denham,” said Rodney, -withdrawing his hand with the apple. - -“It’s mainly a question of knowing how to stroke them,” Denham replied. - -“Which is the way to the Reptile House?” Cassandra asked him, not from -a genuine desire to visit the reptiles, but in obedience to her -new-born feminine susceptibility, which urged her to charm and -conciliate the other sex. Denham began to give her directions, and -Katharine and William moved on together. - -“I hope you’ve had a pleasant afternoon,” William remarked. - -“I like Ralph Denham,” she replied. - -“Ça se voit,” William returned, with superficial urbanity. - -Many retorts were obvious, but wishing, on the whole, for peace, -Katharine merely inquired: - -“Are you coming back to tea?” - -“Cassandra and I thought of having tea at a little shop in Portland -Place,” he replied. “I don’t know whether you and Denham would care to -join us.” - -“I’ll ask him,” she replied, turning her head to look for him. But he -and Cassandra were absorbed in the aye-aye once more. - -William and Katharine watched them for a moment, and each looked -curiously at the object of the other’s preference. But resting his eye -upon Cassandra, to whose elegance the dressmakers had now done justice, -William said sharply: - -“If you come, I hope you won’t do your best to make me ridiculous.” - -“If that’s what you’re afraid of I certainly shan’t come,” Katharine -replied. - -They were professedly looking into the enormous central cage of -monkeys, and being thoroughly annoyed by William, she compared him to a -wretched misanthropical ape, huddled in a scrap of old shawl at the end -of a pole, darting peevish glances of suspicion and distrust at his -companions. Her tolerance was deserting her. The events of the past -week had worn it thin. She was in one of those moods, perhaps not -uncommon with either sex, when the other becomes very clearly -distinguished, and of contemptible baseness, so that the necessity of -association is degrading, and the tie, which at such moments is always -extremely close, drags like a halter round the neck. William’s exacting -demands and his jealousy had pulled her down into some horrible swamp -of her nature where the primeval struggle between man and woman still -rages. - -“You seem to delight in hurting me,” William persisted. “Why did you -say that just now about my behavior to animals?” As he spoke he rattled -his stick against the bars of the cage, which gave his words an -accompaniment peculiarly exasperating to Katharine’s nerves. - -“Because it’s true. You never see what any one feels,” she said. “You -think of no one but yourself.” - -“That is not true,” said William. By his determined rattling he had now -collected the animated attention of some half-dozen apes. Either to -propitiate them, or to show his consideration for their feelings, he -proceeded to offer them the apple which he held. - -The sight, unfortunately, was so comically apt in its illustration of -the picture in her mind, the ruse was so transparent, that Katharine -was seized with laughter. She laughed uncontrollably. William flushed -red. No display of anger could have hurt his feelings more profoundly. -It was not only that she was laughing at him; the detachment of the -sound was horrible. - -“I don’t know what you’re laughing at,” he muttered, and, turning, -found that the other couple had rejoined them. As if the matter had -been privately agreed upon, the couples separated once more, Katharine -and Denham passing out of the house without more than a perfunctory -glance round them. Denham obeyed what seemed to be Katharine’s wish in -thus making haste. Some change had come over her. He connected it with -her laughter, and her few words in private with Rodney; he felt that -she had become unfriendly to him. She talked, but her remarks were -indifferent, and when he spoke her attention seemed to wander. This -change of mood was at first extremely disagreeable to him; but soon he -found it salutary. The pale drizzling atmosphere of the day affected -him, also. The charm, the insidious magic in which he had luxuriated, -were suddenly gone; his feeling had become one of friendly respect, and -to his great pleasure he found himself thinking spontaneously of the -relief of finding himself alone in his room that night. In his surprise -at the suddenness of the change, and at the extent of his freedom, he -bethought him of a daring plan, by which the ghost of Katharine could -be more effectually exorcised than by mere abstinence. He would ask her -to come home with him to tea. He would force her through the mill of -family life; he would place her in a light unsparing and revealing. His -family would find nothing to admire in her, and she, he felt certain, -would despise them all, and this, too, would help him. He felt himself -becoming more and more merciless towards her. By such courageous -measures any one, he thought, could end the absurd passions which were -the cause of so much pain and waste. He could foresee a time when his -experiences, his discovery, and his triumph were made available for -younger brothers who found themselves in the same predicament. He -looked at his watch, and remarked that the gardens would soon be -closed. - -“Anyhow,” he added, “I think we’ve seen enough for one afternoon. Where -have the others got to?” He looked over his shoulder, and, seeing no -trace of them, remarked at once: - -“We’d better be independent of them. The best plan will be for you to -come back to tea with me.” - -“Why shouldn’t you come with me?” she asked. - -“Because we’re next door to Highgate here,” he replied promptly. - -She assented, having very little notion whether Highgate was next door -to Regent’s Park or not. She was only glad to put off her return to the -family tea-table in Chelsea for an hour or two. They proceeded with -dogged determination through the winding roads of Regent’s Park, and -the Sunday-stricken streets of the neighborhood, in the direction of -the Tube station. Ignorant of the way, she resigned herself entirely to -him, and found his silence a convenient cover beneath which to continue -her anger with Rodney. - -When they stepped out of the train into the still grayer gloom of -Highgate, she wondered, for the first time, where he was taking her. -Had he a family, or did he live alone in rooms? On the whole she was -inclined to believe that he was the only son of an aged, and possibly -invalid, mother. She sketched lightly, upon the blank vista down which -they walked, the little white house and the tremulous old lady rising -from behind her tea-table to greet her with faltering words about “my -son’s friends,” and was on the point of asking Ralph to tell her what -she might expect, when he jerked open one of the infinite number of -identical wooden doors, and led her up a tiled path to a porch in the -Alpine style of architecture. As they listened to the shaking of the -bell in the basement, she could summon no vision to replace the one so -rudely destroyed. - -“I must warn you to expect a family party,” said Ralph. “They’re mostly -in on Sundays. We can go to my room afterwards.” - -“Have you many brothers and sisters?” she asked, without concealing her -dismay. - -“Six or seven,” he replied grimly, as the door opened. - -While Ralph took off his coat, she had time to notice the ferns and -photographs and draperies, and to hear a hum, or rather a babble, of -voices talking each other down, from the sound of them. The rigidity of -extreme shyness came over her. She kept as far behind Denham as she -could, and walked stiffly after him into a room blazing with unshaded -lights, which fell upon a number of people, of different ages, sitting -round a large dining-room table untidily strewn with food, and -unflinchingly lit up by incandescent gas. Ralph walked straight to the -far end of the table. - -“Mother, this is Miss Hilbery,” he said. - -A large elderly lady, bent over an unsatisfactory spirit-lamp, looked -up with a little frown, and observed: - -“I beg your pardon. I thought you were one of my own girls. Dorothy,” -she continued on the same breath, to catch the servant before she left -the room, “we shall want some more methylated spirits—unless the lamp -itself is out of order. If one of you could invent a good spirit-lamp—” -she sighed, looking generally down the table, and then began seeking -among the china before her for two clean cups for the new-comers. - -The unsparing light revealed more ugliness than Katharine had seen in -one room for a very long time. It was the ugliness of enormous folds of -brown material, looped and festooned, of plush curtains, from which -depended balls and fringes, partially concealing bookshelves swollen -with black school-texts. Her eye was arrested by crossed scabbards of -fretted wood upon the dull green wall, and wherever there was a high -flat eminence, some fern waved from a pot of crinkled china, or a -bronze horse reared so high that the stump of a tree had to sustain his -forequarters. The waters of family life seemed to rise and close over -her head, and she munched in silence. - -At length Mrs. Denham looked up from her teacups and remarked: - -“You see, Miss Hilbery, my children all come in at different hours and -want different things. (The tray should go up if you’ve done, Johnnie.) -My boy Charles is in bed with a cold. What else can you -expect?—standing in the wet playing football. We did try drawing-room -tea, but it didn’t do.” - -A boy of sixteen, who appeared to be Johnnie, grumbled derisively both -at the notion of drawing-room tea and at the necessity of carrying a -tray up to his brother. But he took himself off, being enjoined by his -mother to mind what he was doing, and shut the door after him. - -“It’s much nicer like this,” said Katharine, applying herself with -determination to the dissection of her cake; they had given her too -large a slice. She knew that Mrs. Denham suspected her of critical -comparisons. She knew that she was making poor progress with her cake. -Mrs. Denham had looked at her sufficiently often to make it clear to -Katharine that she was asking who this young woman was, and why Ralph -had brought her to tea with them. There was an obvious reason, which -Mrs. Denham had probably reached by this time. Outwardly, she was -behaving with rather rusty and laborious civility. She was making -conversation about the amenities of Highgate, its development and -situation. - -“When I first married,” she said, “Highgate was quite separate from -London, Miss Hilbery, and this house, though you wouldn’t believe it, -had a view of apple orchards. That was before the Middletons built -their house in front of us.” - -“It must be a great advantage to live at the top of a hill,” said -Katharine. Mrs. Denham agreed effusively, as if her opinion of -Katharine’s sense had risen. - -“Yes, indeed, we find it very healthy,” she said, and she went on, as -people who live in the suburbs so often do, to prove that it was -healthier, more convenient, and less spoilt than any suburb round -London. She spoke with such emphasis that it was quite obvious that she -expressed unpopular views, and that her children disagreed with her. - -“The ceiling’s fallen down in the pantry again,” said Hester, a girl of -eighteen, abruptly. - -“The whole house will be down one of these days,” James muttered. - -“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Denham. “It’s only a little bit of plaster—I -don’t see how any house could be expected to stand the wear and tear -you give it.” Here some family joke exploded, which Katharine could not -follow. Even Mrs. Denham laughed against her will. - -“Miss Hilbery’s thinking us all so rude,” she added reprovingly. Miss -Hilbery smiled and shook her head, and was conscious that a great many -eyes rested upon her, for a moment, as if they would find pleasure in -discussing her when she was gone. Owing, perhaps, to this critical -glance, Katharine decided that Ralph Denham’s family was commonplace, -unshapely, lacking in charm, and fitly expressed by the hideous nature -of their furniture and decorations. She glanced along a mantelpiece -ranged with bronze chariots, silver vases, and china ornaments that -were either facetious or eccentric. - -She did not apply her judgment consciously to Ralph, but when she -looked at him, a moment later, she rated him lower than at any other -time of their acquaintanceship. - -He had made no effort to tide over the discomforts of her introduction, -and now, engaged in argument with his brother, apparently forgot her -presence. She must have counted upon his support more than she -realized, for this indifference, emphasized, as it was, by the -insignificant commonplace of his surroundings, awoke her, not only to -that ugliness, but to her own folly. She thought of one scene after -another in a few seconds, with that shudder which is almost a blush. -She had believed him when he spoke of friendship. She had believed in a -spiritual light burning steadily and steadfastly behind the erratic -disorder and incoherence of life. The light was now gone out, suddenly, -as if a sponge had blotted it. The litter of the table and the tedious -but exacting conversation of Mrs. Denham remained: they struck, indeed, -upon a mind bereft of all defences, and, keenly conscious of the -degradation which is the result of strife whether victorious or not, -she thought gloomily of her loneliness, of life’s futility, of the -barren prose of reality, of William Rodney, of her mother, and the -unfinished book. - -Her answers to Mrs. Denham were perfunctory to the verge of rudeness, -and to Ralph, who watched her narrowly, she seemed further away than -was compatible with her physical closeness. He glanced at her, and -ground out further steps in his argument, determined that no folly -should remain when this experience was over. Next moment, a silence, -sudden and complete, descended upon them all. The silence of all these -people round the untidy table was enormous and hideous; something -horrible seemed about to burst from it, but they endured it -obstinately. A second later the door opened and there was a stir of -relief; cries of “Hullo, Joan! There’s nothing left for you to eat,” -broke up the oppressive concentration of so many eyes upon the -table-cloth, and set the waters of family life dashing in brisk little -waves again. It was obvious that Joan had some mysterious and -beneficent power upon her family. She went up to Katharine as if she -had heard of her, and was very glad to see her at last. She explained -that she had been visiting an uncle who was ill, and that had kept her. -No, she hadn’t had any tea, but a slice of bread would do. Some one -handed up a hot cake, which had been keeping warm in the fender; she -sat down by her mother’s side, Mrs. Denham’s anxieties seemed to relax, -and every one began eating and drinking, as if tea had begun over -again. Hester voluntarily explained to Katharine that she was reading -to pass some examination, because she wanted more than anything in the -whole world to go to Newnham. - -“Now, just let me hear you decline ‘amo’—I love,” Johnnie demanded. - -“No, Johnnie, no Greek at meal-times,” said Joan, overhearing him -instantly. “She’s up at all hours of the night over her books, Miss -Hilbery, and I’m sure that’s not the way to pass examinations,” she -went on, smiling at Katharine, with the worried humorous smile of the -elder sister whose younger brothers and sisters have become almost like -children of her own. - -“Joan, you don’t really think that ‘amo’ is Greek?” Ralph - -asked. - -“Did I say Greek? Well, never mind. No dead languages at tea-time. My -dear boy, don’t trouble to make me any toast—” - -“Or if you do, surely there’s the toasting-fork somewhere?” said Mrs. -Denham, still cherishing the belief that the bread-knife could be -spoilt. “Do one of you ring and ask for one,” she said, without any -conviction that she would be obeyed. “But is Ann coming to be with -Uncle Joseph?” she continued. “If so, surely they had better send Amy -to us—” and in the mysterious delight of learning further details of -these arrangements, and suggesting more sensible plans of her own, -which, from the aggrieved way in which she spoke, she did not seem to -expect any one to adopt, Mrs. Denham completely forgot the presence of -a well-dressed visitor, who had to be informed about the amenities of -Highgate. As soon as Joan had taken her seat, an argument had sprung up -on either side of Katharine, as to whether the Salvation Army has any -right to play hymns at street corners on Sunday mornings, thereby -making it impossible for James to have his sleep out, and tampering -with the rights of individual liberty. - -“You see, James likes to lie in bed and sleep like a hog,” said -Johnnie, explaining himself to Katharine, whereupon James fired up and, -making her his goal, also exclaimed: - -“Because Sundays are my one chance in the week of having my sleep out. -Johnnie messes with stinking chemicals in the pantry—” - -They appealed to her, and she forgot her cake and began to laugh and -talk and argue with sudden animation. The large family seemed to her so -warm and various that she forgot to censure them for their taste in -pottery. But the personal question between James and Johnnie merged -into some argument already, apparently, debated, so that the parts had -been distributed among the family, in which Ralph took the lead; and -Katharine found herself opposed to him and the champion of Johnnie’s -cause, who, it appeared, always lost his head and got excited in -argument with Ralph. - -“Yes, yes, that’s what I mean. She’s got it right,” he exclaimed, after -Katharine had restated his case, and made it more precise. The debate -was left almost solely to Katharine and Ralph. They looked into each -other’s eyes fixedly, like wrestlers trying to see what movement is -coming next, and while Ralph spoke, Katharine bit her lower lip, and -was always ready with her next point as soon as he had done. They were -very well matched, and held the opposite views. - -But at the most exciting stage of the argument, for no reason that -Katharine could see, all chairs were pushed back, and one after another -the Denham family got up and went out of the door, as if a bell had -summoned them. She was not used to the clockwork regulations of a large -family. She hesitated in what she was saying, and rose. Mrs. Denham and -Joan had drawn together and stood by the fireplace, slightly raising -their skirts above their ankles, and discussing something which had an -air of being very serious and very private. They appeared to have -forgotten her presence among them. Ralph stood holding the door open -for her. - -“Won’t you come up to my room?” he said. And Katharine, glancing back -at Joan, who smiled at her in a preoccupied way, followed Ralph -upstairs. She was thinking of their argument, and when, after the long -climb, he opened his door, she began at once. - -“The question is, then, at what point is it right for the individual to -assert his will against the will of the State.” - -For some time they continued the argument, and then the intervals -between one statement and the next became longer and longer, and they -spoke more speculatively and less pugnaciously, and at last fell -silent. Katharine went over the argument in her mind, remembering how, -now and then, it had been set conspicuously on the right course by some -remark offered either by James or by Johnnie. - -“Your brothers are very clever,” she said. “I suppose you’re in the -habit of arguing?” - -“James and Johnnie will go on like that for hours,” Ralph replied. “So -will Hester, if you start her upon Elizabethan dramatists.” - -“And the little girl with the pigtail?” - -“Molly? She’s only ten. But they’re always arguing among themselves.” - -He was immensely pleased by Katharine’s praise of his brothers and -sisters. He would have liked to go on telling her about them, but he -checked himself. - -“I see that it must be difficult to leave them,” Katharine continued. -His deep pride in his family was more evident to him, at that moment, -than ever before, and the idea of living alone in a cottage was -ridiculous. All that brotherhood and sisterhood, and a common childhood -in a common past mean, all the stability, the unambitious comradeship, -and tacit understanding of family life at its best, came to his mind, -and he thought of them as a company, of which he was the leader, bound -on a difficult, dreary, but glorious voyage. And it was Katharine who -had opened his eyes to this, he thought. - -A little dry chirp from the corner of the room now roused her -attention. - -“My tame rook,” he explained briefly. “A cat had bitten one of its -legs.” She looked at the rook, and her eyes went from one object to -another. - -“You sit here and read?” she said, her eyes resting upon his books. He -said that he was in the habit of working there at night. - -“The great advantage of Highgate is the view over London. At night the -view from my window is splendid.” He was extremely anxious that she -should appreciate his view, and she rose to see what was to be seen. It -was already dark enough for the turbulent haze to be yellow with the -light of street lamps, and she tried to determine the quarters of the -city beneath her. The sight of her gazing from his window gave him a -peculiar satisfaction. When she turned, at length, he was still sitting -motionless in his chair. - -“It must be late,” she said. “I must be going.” She settled upon the -arm of the chair irresolutely, thinking that she had no wish to go -home. William would be there, and he would find some way of making -things unpleasant for her, and the memory of their quarrel came back to -her. She had noticed Ralph’s coldness, too. She looked at him, and from -his fixed stare she thought that he must be working out some theory, -some argument. He had thought, perhaps, of some fresh point in his -position, as to the bounds of personal liberty. She waited, silently, -thinking about liberty. - -“You’ve won again,” he said at last, without moving. - -“I’ve won?” she repeated, thinking of the argument. - -“I wish to God I hadn’t asked you here,” he burst out. - -“What do you mean?” - -“When you’re here, it’s different—I’m happy. You’ve only to walk to the -window—you’ve only to talk about liberty. When I saw you down there -among them all—” He stopped short. - -“You thought how ordinary I was.” - -“I tried to think so. But I thought you more wonderful than ever.” - -An immense relief, and a reluctance to enjoy that relief, conflicted in -her heart. - -She slid down into the chair. - -“I thought you disliked me,” she said. - -“God knows I tried,” he replied. “I’ve done my best to see you as you -are, without any of this damned romantic nonsense. That was why I asked -you here, and it’s increased my folly. When you’re gone I shall look -out of that window and think of you. I shall waste the whole evening -thinking of you. I shall waste my whole life, I believe.” - -He spoke with such vehemence that her relief disappeared; she frowned; -and her tone changed to one almost of severity. - -“This is what I foretold. We shall gain nothing but unhappiness. Look -at me, Ralph.” He looked at her. “I assure you that I’m far more -ordinary than I appear. Beauty means nothing whatever. In fact, the -most beautiful women are generally the most stupid. I’m not that, but -I’m a matter-of-fact, prosaic, rather ordinary character; I order the -dinner, I pay the bills, I do the accounts, I wind up the clock, and I -never look at a book.” - -“You forget—” he began, but she would not let him speak. - -“You come and see me among flowers and pictures, and think me -mysterious, romantic, and all the rest of it. Being yourself very -inexperienced and very emotional, you go home and invent a story about -me, and now you can’t separate me from the person you’ve imagined me to -be. You call that, I suppose, being in love; as a matter of fact it’s -being in delusion. All romantic people are the same,” she added. “My -mother spends her life in making stories about the people she’s fond -of. But I won’t have you do it about me, if I can help it.” - -“You can’t help it,” he said. - -“I warn you it’s the source of all evil.” - -“And of all good,” he added. - -“You’ll find out that I’m not what you think me.” - -“Perhaps. But I shall gain more than I lose.” - -“If such gain’s worth having.” - -They were silent for a space. - -“That may be what we have to face,” he said. “There may be nothing -else. Nothing but what we imagine.” - -“The reason of our loneliness,” she mused, and they were silent for a -time. - -“When are you to be married?” he asked abruptly, with a change of tone. - -“Not till September, I think. It’s been put off.” - -“You won’t be lonely then,” he said. “According to what people say, -marriage is a very queer business. They say it’s different from -anything else. It may be true. I’ve known one or two cases where it -seems to be true.” He hoped that she would go on with the subject. But -she made no reply. He had done his best to master himself, and his -voice was sufficiently indifferent, but her silence tormented him. She -would never speak to him of Rodney of her own accord, and her reserve -left a whole continent of her soul in darkness. - -“It may be put off even longer than that,” she said, as if by an -afterthought. “Some one in the office is ill, and William has to take -his place. We may put it off for some time in fact.” - -“That’s rather hard on him, isn’t it?” Ralph asked. - -“He has his work,” she replied. “He has lots of things that interest -him.... I know I’ve been to that place,” she broke off, pointing to a -photograph. “But I can’t remember where it is—oh, of course it’s -Oxford. Now, what about your cottage?” - -“I’m not going to take it.” - -“How you change your mind!” she smiled. - -“It’s not that,” he said impatiently. “It’s that I want to be where I -can see you.” - -“Our compact is going to hold in spite of all I’ve said?” she asked. - -“For ever, so far as I’m concerned,” he replied. - -“You’re going to go on dreaming and imagining and making up stories -about me as you walk along the street, and pretending that we’re riding -in a forest, or landing on an island—” - -“No. I shall think of you ordering dinner, paying bills, doing the -accounts, showing old ladies the relics—” - -“That’s better,” she said. “You can think of me to-morrow morning -looking up dates in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography.’” - -“And forgetting your purse,” Ralph added. - -At this she smiled, but in another moment her smile faded, either -because of his words or of the way in which he spoke them. She was -capable of forgetting things. He saw that. But what more did he see? -Was he not looking at something she had never shown to anybody? Was it -not something so profound that the notion of his seeing it almost -shocked her? Her smile faded, and for a moment she seemed upon the -point of speaking, but looking at him in silence, with a look that -seemed to ask what she could not put into words, she turned and bade -him good night. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - - -Like a strain of music, the effect of Katharine’s presence slowly died -from the room in which Ralph sat alone. The music had ceased in the -rapture of its melody. He strained to catch the faintest lingering -echoes; for a moment the memory lulled him into peace; but soon it -failed, and he paced the room so hungry for the sound to come again -that he was conscious of no other desire left in life. She had gone -without speaking; abruptly a chasm had been cut in his course, down -which the tide of his being plunged in disorder; fell upon rocks; flung -itself to destruction. The distress had an effect of physical ruin and -disaster. He trembled; he was white; he felt exhausted, as if by a -great physical effort. He sank at last into a chair standing opposite -her empty one, and marked, mechanically, with his eye upon the clock, -how she went farther and farther from him, was home now, and now, -doubtless, again with Rodney. But it was long before he could realize -these facts; the immense desire for her presence churned his senses -into foam, into froth, into a haze of emotion that removed all facts -from his grasp, and gave him a strange sense of distance, even from the -material shapes of wall and window by which he was surrounded. The -prospect of the future, now that the strength of his passion was -revealed to him, appalled him. - -The marriage would take place in September, she had said; that allowed -him, then, six full months in which to undergo these terrible extremes -of emotion. Six months of torture, and after that the silence of the -grave, the isolation of the insane, the exile of the damned; at best, a -life from which the chief good was knowingly and for ever excluded. An -impartial judge might have assured him that his chief hope of recovery -lay in this mystic temper, which identified a living woman with much -that no human beings long possess in the eyes of each other; she would -pass, and the desire for her vanish, but his belief in what she stood -for, detached from her, would remain. This line of thought offered, -perhaps, some respite, and possessed of a brain that had its station -considerably above the tumult of the senses, he tried to reduce the -vague and wandering incoherency of his emotions to order. The sense of -self-preservation was strong in him, and Katharine herself had -strangely revived it by convincing him that his family deserved and -needed all his strength. She was right, and for their sake, if not for -his own, this passion, which could bear no fruit, must be cut off, -uprooted, shown to be as visionary and baseless as she had maintained. -The best way of achieving this was not to run away from her, but to -face her, and having steeped himself in her qualities, to convince his -reason that they were, as she assured him, not those that he imagined. -She was a practical woman, a domestic wife for an inferior poet, -endowed with romantic beauty by some freak of unintelligent Nature. No -doubt her beauty itself would not stand examination. He had the means -of settling this point at least. He possessed a book of photographs -from the Greek statues; the head of a goddess, if the lower part were -concealed, had often given him the ecstasy of being in Katharine’s -presence. He took it down from the shelf and found the picture. To this -he added a note from her, bidding him meet her at the Zoo. He had a -flower which he had picked at Kew to teach her botany. Such were his -relics. He placed them before him, and set himself to visualize her so -clearly that no deception or delusion was possible. In a second he -could see her, with the sun slanting across her dress, coming towards -him down the green walk at Kew. He made her sit upon the seat beside -him. He heard her voice, so low and yet so decided in its tone; she -spoke reasonably of indifferent matters. He could see her faults, and -analyze her virtues. His pulse became quieter, and his brain increased -in clarity. This time she could not escape him. The illusion of her -presence became more and more complete. They seemed to pass in and out -of each other’s minds, questioning and answering. The utmost fullness -of communion seemed to be theirs. Thus united, he felt himself raised -to an eminence, exalted, and filled with a power of achievement such as -he had never known in singleness. Once more he told over -conscientiously her faults, both of face and character; they were -clearly known to him; but they merged themselves in the flawless union -that was born of their association. They surveyed life to its uttermost -limits. How deep it was when looked at from this height! How sublime! -How the commonest things moved him almost to tears! Thus, he forgot the -inevitable limitations; he forgot her absence, he thought it of no -account whether she married him or another; nothing mattered, save that -she should exist, and that he should love her. Some words of these -reflections were uttered aloud, and it happened that among them were -the words, “I love her.” It was the first time that he had used the -word “love” to describe his feeling; madness, romance, hallucination—he -had called it by these names before; but having, apparently by -accident, stumbled upon the word “love,” he repeated it again and again -with a sense of revelation. - -“But I’m in love with you!” he exclaimed, with something like dismay. -He leant against the window-sill, looking over the city as she had -looked. Everything had become miraculously different and completely -distinct. His feelings were justified and needed no further -explanation. But he must impart them to some one, because his discovery -was so important that it concerned other people too. Shutting the book -of Greek photographs, and hiding his relics, he ran downstairs, -snatched his coat, and passed out of doors. - -The lamps were being lit, but the streets were dark enough and empty -enough to let him walk his fastest, and to talk aloud as he walked. He -had no doubt where he was going. He was going to find Mary Datchet. The -desire to share what he felt, with some one who understood it, was so -imperious that he did not question it. He was soon in her street. He -ran up the stairs leading to her flat two steps at a time, and it never -crossed his mind that she might not be at home. As he rang her bell, he -seemed to himself to be announcing the presence of something wonderful -that was separate from himself, and gave him power and authority over -all other people. Mary came to the door after a moment’s pause. He was -perfectly silent, and in the dusk his face looked completely white. He -followed her into her room. - -“Do you know each other?” she said, to his extreme surprise, for he had -counted on finding her alone. A young man rose, and said that he knew -Ralph by sight. - -“We were just going through some papers,” said Mary. “Mr. Basnett has -to help me, because I don’t know much about my work yet. It’s the new -society,” she explained. “I’m the secretary. I’m no longer at Russell -Square.” - -The voice in which she gave this information was so constrained as to -sound almost harsh. - -“What are your aims?” said Ralph. He looked neither at Mary nor at Mr. -Basnett. Mr. Basnett thought he had seldom seen a more disagreeable or -formidable man than this friend of Mary’s, this sarcastic-looking, -white-faced Mr. Denham, who seemed to demand, as if by right, an -account of their proposals, and to criticize them before he had heard -them. Nevertheless, he explained his projects as clearly as he could, -and knew that he wished Mr. Denham to think well of them. - -“I see,” said Ralph, when he had done. “D’you know, Mary,” he suddenly -remarked, “I believe I’m in for a cold. Have you any quinine?” The look -which he cast at her frightened her; it expressed mutely, perhaps -without his own consciousness, something deep, wild, and passionate. -She left the room at once. Her heart beat fast at the knowledge of -Ralph’s presence; but it beat with pain, and with an extraordinary -fear. She stood listening for a moment to the voices in the next room. - -“Of course, I agree with you,” she heard Ralph say, in this strange -voice, to Mr. Basnett. “But there’s more that might be done. Have you -seen Judson, for instance? You should make a point of getting him.” - -Mary returned with the quinine. - -“Judson’s address?” Mr. Basnett inquired, pulling out his notebook and -preparing to write. For twenty minutes, perhaps, he wrote down names, -addresses, and other suggestions that Ralph dictated to him. Then, when -Ralph fell silent, Mr. Basnett felt that his presence was not desired, -and thanking Ralph for his help, with a sense that he was very young -and ignorant compared with him, he said good-bye. - -“Mary,” said Ralph, directly Mr. Basnett had shut the door and they -were alone together. “Mary,” he repeated. But the old difficulty of -speaking to Mary without reserve prevented him from continuing. His -desire to proclaim his love for Katharine was still strong in him, but -he had felt, directly he saw Mary, that he could not share it with her. -The feeling increased as he sat talking to Mr. Basnett. And yet all the -time he was thinking of Katharine, and marveling at his love. The tone -in which he spoke Mary’s name was harsh. - -“What is it, Ralph?” she asked, startled by his tone. She looked at him -anxiously, and her little frown showed that she was trying painfully to -understand him, and was puzzled. He could feel her groping for his -meaning, and he was annoyed with her, and thought how he had always -found her slow, painstaking, and clumsy. He had behaved badly to her, -too, which made his irritation the more acute. Without waiting for him -to answer, she rose as if his answer were indifferent to her, and began -to put in order some papers that Mr. Basnett had left on the table. She -hummed a scrap of a tune under her breath, and moved about the room as -if she were occupied in making things tidy, and had no other concern. - -“You’ll stay and dine?” she said casually, returning to her seat. - -“No,” Ralph replied. She did not press him further. They sat side by -side without speaking, and Mary reached her hand for her work basket, -and took out her sewing and threaded a needle. - -“That’s a clever young man,” Ralph observed, referring to Mr. Basnett. - -“I’m glad you thought so. It’s tremendously interesting work, and -considering everything, I think we’ve done very well. But I’m inclined -to agree with you; we ought to try to be more conciliatory. We’re -absurdly strict. It’s difficult to see that there may be sense in what -one’s opponents say, though they are one’s opponents. Horace Basnett is -certainly too uncompromising. I mustn’t forget to see that he writes -that letter to Judson. You’re too busy, I suppose, to come on to our -committee?” She spoke in the most impersonal manner. - -“I may be out of town,” Ralph replied, with equal distance of manner. - -“Our executive meets every week, of course,” she observed. “But some of -our members don’t come more than once a month. Members of Parliament -are the worst; it was a mistake, I think, to ask them.” - -She went on sewing in silence. - -“You’ve not taken your quinine,” she said, looking up and seeing the -tabloids upon the mantelpiece. - -“I don’t want it,” said Ralph shortly. - -“Well, you know best,” she replied tranquilly. - -“Mary, I’m a brute!” he exclaimed. “Here I come and waste your time, -and do nothing but make myself disagreeable.” - -“A cold coming on does make one feel wretched,” she replied. - -“I’ve not got a cold. That was a lie. There’s nothing the matter with -me. I’m mad, I suppose. I ought to have had the decency to keep away. -But I wanted to see you—I wanted to tell you—I’m in love, Mary.” He -spoke the word, but, as he spoke it, it seemed robbed of substance. - -“In love, are you?” she said quietly. “I’m glad, Ralph.” - -“I suppose I’m in love. Anyhow, I’m out of my mind. I can’t think, I -can’t work, I don’t care a hang for anything in the world. Good -Heavens, Mary! I’m in torment! One moment I’m happy; next I’m -miserable. I hate her for half an hour; then I’d give my whole life to -be with her for ten minutes; all the time I don’t know what I feel, or -why I feel it; it’s insanity, and yet it’s perfectly reasonable. Can -you make any sense of it? Can you see what’s happened? I’m raving, I -know; don’t listen, Mary; go on with your work.” - -He rose and began, as usual, to pace up and down the room. He knew that -what he had just said bore very little resemblance to what he felt, for -Mary’s presence acted upon him like a very strong magnet, drawing from -him certain expressions which were not those he made use of when he -spoke to himself, nor did they represent his deepest feelings. He felt -a little contempt for himself at having spoken thus; but somehow he had -been forced into speech. - -“Do sit down,” said Mary suddenly. “You make me so—” She spoke with -unusual irritability, and Ralph, noticing it with surprise, sat down at -once. - -“You haven’t told me her name—you’d rather not, I suppose?” - -“Her name? Katharine Hilbery.” - -“But she’s engaged—” - -“To Rodney. They’re to be married in September.” - -“I see,” said Mary. But in truth the calm of his manner, now that he -was sitting down once more, wrapt her in the presence of something -which she felt to be so strong, so mysterious, so incalculable, that -she scarcely dared to attempt to intercept it by any word or question -that she was able to frame. She looked at Ralph blankly, with a kind of -awe in her face, her lips slightly parted, and her brows raised. He was -apparently quite unconscious of her gaze. Then, as if she could look no -longer, she leant back in her chair, and half closed her eyes. The -distance between them hurt her terribly; one thing after another came -into her mind, tempting her to assail Ralph with questions, to force -him to confide in her, and to enjoy once more his intimacy. But she -rejected every impulse, for she could not speak without doing violence -to some reserve which had grown between them, putting them a little far -from each other, so that he seemed to her dignified and remote, like a -person she no longer knew well. - -“Is there anything that I could do for you?” she asked gently, and even -with courtesy, at length. - -“You could see her—no, that’s not what I want; you mustn’t bother about -me, Mary.” He, too, spoke very gently. - -“I’m afraid no third person can do anything to help,” she added. - -“No,” he shook his head. “Katharine was saying to-day how lonely we -are.” She saw the effort with which he spoke Katharine’s name, and -believed that he forced himself to make amends now for his concealment -in the past. At any rate, she was conscious of no anger against him; -but rather of a deep pity for one condemned to suffer as she had -suffered. But in the case of Katharine it was different; she was -indignant with Katharine. - -“There’s always work,” she said, a little aggressively. - -Ralph moved directly. - -“Do you want to be working now?” he asked. - -“No, no. It’s Sunday,” she replied. “I was thinking of Katharine. She -doesn’t understand about work. She’s never had to. She doesn’t know -what work is. I’ve only found out myself quite lately. But it’s the -thing that saves one—I’m sure of that.” - -“There are other things, aren’t there?” he hesitated. - -“Nothing that one can count upon,” she returned. “After all, other -people—” she stopped, but forced herself to go on. “Where should I be -now if I hadn’t got to go to my office every day? Thousands of people -would tell you the same thing—thousands of women. I tell you, work is -the only thing that saved me, Ralph.” He set his mouth, as if her words -rained blows on him; he looked as if he had made up his mind to bear -anything she might say, in silence. He had deserved it, and there would -be relief in having to bear it. But she broke off, and rose as if to -fetch something from the next room. Before she reached the door she -turned back, and stood facing him, self-possessed, and yet defiant and -formidable in her composure. - -“It’s all turned out splendidly for me,” she said. “It will for you, -too. I’m sure of that. Because, after all, Katharine is worth it.” - -“Mary—!” he exclaimed. But her head was turned away, and he could not -say what he wished to say. “Mary, you’re splendid,” he concluded. She -faced him as he spoke, and gave him her hand. She had suffered and -relinquished, she had seen her future turned from one of infinite -promise to one of barrenness, and yet, somehow, over what she scarcely -knew, and with what results she could hardly foretell, she had -conquered. With Ralph’s eyes upon her, smiling straight back at him -serenely and proudly, she knew, for the first time, that she had -conquered. She let him kiss her hand. - -The streets were empty enough on Sunday night, and if the Sabbath, and -the domestic amusements proper to the Sabbath, had not kept people -indoors, a high strong wind might very probably have done so. Ralph -Denham was aware of a tumult in the street much in accordance with his -own sensations. The gusts, sweeping along the Strand, seemed at the -same time to blow a clear space across the sky in which stars appeared, -and for a short time the quick-speeding silver moon riding through -clouds, as if they were waves of water surging round her and over her. -They swamped her, but she emerged; they broke over her and covered her -again; she issued forth indomitable. In the country fields all the -wreckage of winter was being dispersed; the dead leaves, the withered -bracken, the dry and discolored grass, but no bud would be broken, nor -would the new stalks that showed above the earth take any harm, and -perhaps to-morrow a line of blue or yellow would show through a slit in -their green. But the whirl of the atmosphere alone was in Denham’s -mood, and what of star or blossom appeared was only as a light gleaming -for a second upon heaped waves fast following each other. He had not -been able to speak to Mary, though for a moment he had come near enough -to be tantalized by a wonderful possibility of understanding. But the -desire to communicate something of the very greatest importance -possessed him completely; he still wished to bestow this gift upon some -other human being; he sought their company. More by instinct than by -conscious choice, he took the direction which led to Rodney’s rooms. He -knocked loudly upon his door; but no one answered. He rang the bell. It -took him some time to accept the fact that Rodney was out. When he -could no longer pretend that the sound of the wind in the old building -was the sound of some one rising from his chair, he ran downstairs -again, as if his goal had been altered and only just revealed to him. -He walked in the direction of Chelsea. - -But physical fatigue, for he had not dined and had tramped both far and -fast, made him sit for a moment upon a seat on the Embankment. One of -the regular occupants of those seats, an elderly man who had drunk -himself, probably, out of work and lodging, drifted up, begged a match, -and sat down beside him. It was a windy night, he said; times were -hard; some long story of bad luck and injustice followed, told so often -that the man seemed to be talking to himself, or, perhaps, the neglect -of his audience had long made any attempt to catch their attention seem -scarcely worth while. When he began to speak Ralph had a wild desire to -talk to him; to question him; to make him understand. He did, in fact, -interrupt him at one point; but it was useless. The ancient story of -failure, ill-luck, undeserved disaster, went down the wind, -disconnected syllables flying past Ralph’s ears with a queer -alternation of loudness and faintness as if, at certain moments, the -man’s memory of his wrongs revived and then flagged, dying down at last -into a grumble of resignation, which seemed to represent a final lapse -into the accustomed despair. The unhappy voice afflicted Ralph, but it -also angered him. And when the elderly man refused to listen and -mumbled on, an odd image came to his mind of a lighthouse besieged by -the flying bodies of lost birds, who were dashed senseless, by the -gale, against the glass. He had a strange sensation that he was both -lighthouse and bird; he was steadfast and brilliant; and at the same -time he was whirled, with all other things, senseless against the -glass. He got up, left his tribute of silver, and pressed on, with the -wind against him. The image of the lighthouse and the storm full of -birds persisted, taking the place of more definite thoughts, as he -walked past the Houses of Parliament and down Grosvenor Road, by the -side of the river. In his state of physical fatigue, details merged -themselves in the vaster prospect, of which the flying gloom and the -intermittent lights of lamp-posts and private houses were the outward -token, but he never lost his sense of walking in the direction of -Katharine’s house. He took it for granted that something would then -happen, and, as he walked on, his mind became more and more full of -pleasure and expectancy. Within a certain radius of her house the -streets came under the influence of her presence. Each house had an -individuality known to Ralph, because of the tremendous individuality -of the house in which she lived. For some yards before reaching the -Hilberys’ door he walked in a trance of pleasure, but when he reached -it, and pushed the gate of the little garden open, he hesitated. He did -not know what to do next. There was no hurry, however, for the outside -of the house held pleasure enough to last him some time longer. He -crossed the road, and leant against the balustrade of the Embankment, -fixing his eyes upon the house. - -Lights burnt in the three long windows of the drawing-room. The space -of the room behind became, in Ralph’s vision, the center of the dark, -flying wilderness of the world; the justification for the welter of -confusion surrounding it; the steady light which cast its beams, like -those of a lighthouse, with searching composure over the trackless -waste. In this little sanctuary were gathered together several -different people, but their identity was dissolved in a general glory -of something that might, perhaps, be called civilization; at any rate, -all dryness, all safety, all that stood up above the surge and -preserved a consciousness of its own, was centered in the drawing-room -of the Hilberys. Its purpose was beneficent; and yet so far above his -level as to have something austere about it, a light that cast itself -out and yet kept itself aloof. Then he began, in his mind, to -distinguish different individuals within, consciously refusing as yet -to attack the figure of Katharine. His thoughts lingered over Mrs. -Hilbery and Cassandra; and then he turned to Rodney and Mr. Hilbery. -Physically, he saw them bathed in that steady flow of yellow light -which filled the long oblongs of the windows; in their movements they -were beautiful; and in their speech he figured a reserve of meaning, -unspoken, but understood. At length, after all this half-conscious -selection and arrangement, he allowed himself to approach the figure of -Katharine herself; and instantly the scene was flooded with excitement. -He did not see her in the body; he seemed curiously to see her as a -shape of light, the light itself; he seemed, simplified and exhausted -as he was, to be like one of those lost birds fascinated by the -lighthouse and held to the glass by the splendor of the blaze. - -These thoughts drove him to tramp a beat up and down the pavement -before the Hilberys’ gate. He did not trouble himself to make any plans -for the future. Something of an unknown kind would decide both the -coming year and the coming hour. Now and again, in his vigil, he sought -the light in the long windows, or glanced at the ray which gilded a few -leaves and a few blades of grass in the little garden. For a long time -the light burnt without changing. He had just reached the limit of his -beat and was turning, when the front door opened, and the aspect of the -house was entirely changed. A black figure came down the little pathway -and paused at the gate. Denham understood instantly that it was Rodney. -Without hesitation, and conscious only of a great friendliness for any -one coming from that lighted room, he walked straight up to him and -stopped him. In the flurry of the wind Rodney was taken aback, and for -the moment tried to press on, muttering something, as if he suspected a -demand upon his charity. - -“Goodness, Denham, what are you doing here?” he exclaimed, recognizing -him. - -Ralph mumbled something about being on his way home. They walked on -together, though Rodney walked quick enough to make it plain that he -had no wish for company. - -He was very unhappy. That afternoon Cassandra had repulsed him; he had -tried to explain to her the difficulties of the situation, and to -suggest the nature of his feelings for her without saying anything -definite or anything offensive to her. But he had lost his head; under -the goad of Katharine’s ridicule he had said too much, and Cassandra, -superb in her dignity and severity, had refused to hear another word, -and threatened an immediate return to her home. His agitation, after an -evening spent between the two women, was extreme. Moreover, he could -not help suspecting that Ralph was wandering near the Hilberys’ house, -at this hour, for reasons connected with Katharine. There was probably -some understanding between them—not that anything of the kind mattered -to him now. He was convinced that he had never cared for any one save -Cassandra, and Katharine’s future was no concern of his. Aloud, he -said, shortly, that he was very tired and wished to find a cab. But on -Sunday night, on the Embankment, cabs were hard to come by, and Rodney -found himself constrained to walk some distance, at any rate, in -Denham’s company. Denham maintained his silence. Rodney’s irritation -lapsed. He found the silence oddly suggestive of the good masculine -qualities which he much respected, and had at this moment great reason -to need. After the mystery, difficulty, and uncertainty of dealing with -the other sex, intercourse with one’s own is apt to have a composing -and even ennobling influence, since plain speaking is possible and -subterfuges of no avail. Rodney, too, was much in need of a confidant; -Katharine, despite her promises of help, had failed him at the critical -moment; she had gone off with Denham; she was, perhaps, tormenting -Denham as she had tormented him. How grave and stable he seemed, -speaking little, and walking firmly, compared with what Rodney knew of -his own torments and indecisions! He began to cast about for some way -of telling the story of his relations with Katharine and Cassandra that -would not lower him in Denham’s eyes. It then occurred to him that, -perhaps, Katharine herself had confided in Denham; they had something -in common; it was likely that they had discussed him that very -afternoon. The desire to discover what they had said of him now came -uppermost in his mind. He recalled Katharine’s laugh; he remembered -that she had gone, laughing, to walk with Denham. - -“Did you stay long after we’d left?” he asked abruptly. - -“No. We went back to my house.” - -This seemed to confirm Rodney’s belief that he had been discussed. He -turned over the unpalatable idea for a while, in silence. - -“Women are incomprehensible creatures, Denham!” he then exclaimed. - -“Um,” said Denham, who seemed to himself possessed of complete -understanding, not merely of women, but of the entire universe. He -could read Rodney, too, like a book. He knew that he was unhappy, and -he pitied him, and wished to help him. - -“You say something and they—fly into a passion. Or for no reason at -all, they laugh. I take it that no amount of education will—” The -remainder of the sentence was lost in the high wind, against which they -had to struggle; but Denham understood that he referred to Katharine’s -laughter, and that the memory of it was still hurting him. In -comparison with Rodney, Denham felt himself very secure; he saw Rodney -as one of the lost birds dashed senseless against the glass; one of the -flying bodies of which the air was full. But he and Katharine were -alone together, aloft, splendid, and luminous with a twofold radiance. -He pitied the unstable creature beside him; he felt a desire to protect -him, exposed without the knowledge which made his own way so direct. -They were united as the adventurous are united, though one reaches the -goal and the other perishes by the way. - -“You couldn’t laugh at some one you cared for.” - -This sentence, apparently addressed to no other human being, reached -Denham’s ears. The wind seemed to muffle it and fly away with it -directly. Had Rodney spoken those words? - -“You love her.” Was that his own voice, which seemed to sound in the -air several yards in front of him? - -“I’ve suffered tortures, Denham, tortures!” - -“Yes, yes, I know that.” - -“She’s laughed at me.” - -“Never—to me.” - -The wind blew a space between the words—blew them so far away that they -seemed unspoken. - -“How I’ve loved her!” - -This was certainly spoken by the man at Denham’s side. The voice had -all the marks of Rodney’s character, and recalled, with; strange -vividness, his personal appearance. Denham could see him against the -blank buildings and towers of the horizon. He saw him dignified, -exalted, and tragic, as he might have appeared thinking of Katharine -alone in his rooms at night. - -“I am in love with Katharine myself. That is why I am here to-night.” - -Ralph spoke distinctly and deliberately, as if Rodney’s confession had -made this statement necessary. - -Rodney exclaimed something inarticulate. - -“Ah, I’ve always known it,” he cried, “I’ve known it from the first. -You’ll marry her!” - -The cry had a note of despair in it. Again the wind intercepted their -words. They said no more. At length they drew up beneath a lamp-post, -simultaneously. - -“My God, Denham, what fools we both are!” Rodney exclaimed. They looked -at each other, queerly, in the light of the lamp. Fools! They seemed to -confess to each other the extreme depths of their folly. For the -moment, under the lamp-post, they seemed to be aware of some common -knowledge which did away with the possibility of rivalry, and made them -feel more sympathy for each other than for any one else in the world. -Giving simultaneously a little nod, as if in confirmation of this -understanding, they parted without speaking again. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - - -Between twelve and one that Sunday night Katharine lay in bed, not -asleep, but in that twilight region where a detached and humorous view -of our own lot is possible; or if we must be serious, our seriousness -is tempered by the swift oncome of slumber and oblivion. She saw the -forms of Ralph, William, Cassandra, and herself, as if they were all -equally unsubstantial, and, in putting off reality, had gained a kind -of dignity which rested upon each impartially. Thus rid of any -uncomfortable warmth of partisanship or load of obligation, she was -dropping off to sleep when a light tap sounded upon her door. A moment -later Cassandra stood beside her, holding a candle and speaking in the -low tones proper to the time of night. - -“Are you awake, Katharine?” - -“Yes, I’m awake. What is it?” - -She roused herself, sat up, and asked what in Heaven’s name Cassandra -was doing? - -“I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I’d come and speak to you—only for a -moment, though. I’m going home to-morrow.” - -“Home? Why, what has happened?” - -“Something happened to-day which makes it impossible for me to stay -here.” - -Cassandra spoke formally, almost solemnly; the announcement was clearly -prepared and marked a crisis of the utmost gravity. She continued what -seemed to be part of a set speech. - -“I have decided to tell you the whole truth, Katharine. William allowed -himself to behave in a way which made me extremely uncomfortable -to-day.” - -Katharine seemed to waken completely, and at once to be in control of -herself. - -“At the Zoo?” she asked. - -“No, on the way home. When we had tea.” - -As if foreseeing that the interview might be long, and the night -chilly, Katharine advised Cassandra to wrap herself in a quilt. -Cassandra did so with unbroken solemnity. - -“There’s a train at eleven,” she said. “I shall tell Aunt Maggie that I -have to go suddenly.... I shall make Violet’s visit an excuse. But, -after thinking it over, I don’t see how I can go without telling you -the truth.” - -She was careful to abstain from looking in Katharine’s direction. There -was a slight pause. - -“But I don’t see the least reason why you should go,” said Katharine -eventually. Her voice sounded so astonishingly equable that Cassandra -glanced at her. It was impossible to suppose that she was either -indignant or surprised; she seemed, on the contrary, sitting up in bed, -with her arms clasped round her knees and a little frown on her brow, -to be thinking closely upon a matter of indifference to her. - -“Because I can’t allow any man to behave to me in that way,” Cassandra -replied, and she added, “particularly when I know that he is engaged to -some one else.” - -“But you like him, don’t you?” Katharine inquired. - -“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Cassandra exclaimed indignantly. “I -consider his conduct, under the circumstances, most disgraceful.” - -This was the last of the sentences of her premeditated speech; and -having spoken it she was left unprovided with any more to say in that -particular style. When Katharine remarked: - -“I should say it had everything to do with it,” Cassandra’s -self-possession deserted her. - -“I don’t understand you in the least, Katharine. How can you behave as -you behave? Ever since I came here I’ve been amazed by you!” - -“You’ve enjoyed yourself, haven’t you?” Katharine asked. - -“Yes, I have,” Cassandra admitted. - -“Anyhow, my behavior hasn’t spoiled your visit.” - -“No,” Cassandra allowed once more. She was completely at a loss. In her -forecast of the interview she had taken it for granted that Katharine, -after an outburst of incredulity, would agree that Cassandra must -return home as soon as possible. But Katharine, on the contrary, -accepted her statement at once, seemed neither shocked nor surprised, -and merely looked rather more thoughtful than usual. From being a -mature woman charged with an important mission, Cassandra shrunk to the -stature of an inexperienced child. - -“Do you think I’ve been very foolish about it?” she asked. - -Katharine made no answer, but still sat deliberating silently, and a -certain feeling of alarm took possession of Cassandra. Perhaps her -words had struck far deeper than she had thought, into depths beyond -her reach, as so much of Katharine was beyond her reach. She thought -suddenly that she had been playing with very dangerous tools. - -Looking at her at length, Katharine asked slowly, as if she found the -question very difficult to ask. - -“But do you care for William?” - -She marked the agitation and bewilderment of the girl’s expression, and -how she looked away from her. - -“Do you mean, am I in love with him?” Cassandra asked, breathing -quickly, and nervously moving her hands. - -“Yes, in love with him,” Katharine repeated. - -“How can I love the man you’re engaged to marry?” Cassandra burst out. - -“He may be in love with you.” - -“I don’t think you’ve any right to say such things, Katharine,” -Cassandra exclaimed. “Why do you say them? Don’t you mind in the least -how William behaves to other women? If I were engaged, I couldn’t bear -it!” - -“We’re not engaged,” said Katharine, after a pause. - -“Katharine!” Cassandra cried. - -“No, we’re not engaged,” Katharine repeated. “But no one knows it but -ourselves.” - -“But why—I don’t understand—you’re not engaged!” Cassandra said again. -“Oh, that explains it! You’re not in love with him! You don’t want to -marry him!” - -“We aren’t in love with each other any longer,” said Katharine, as if -disposing of something for ever and ever. - -“How queer, how strange, how unlike other people you are, Katharine,” -Cassandra said, her whole body and voice seeming to fall and collapse -together, and no trace of anger or excitement remaining, but only a -dreamy quietude. - -“You’re not in love with him?” - -“But I love him,” said Katharine. - -Cassandra remained bowed, as if by the weight of the revelation, for -some little while longer. Nor did Katharine speak. Her attitude was -that of some one who wishes to be concealed as much as possible from -observation. She sighed profoundly; she was absolutely silent, and -apparently overcome by her thoughts. - -“D’you know what time it is?” she said at length, and shook her pillow, -as if making ready for sleep. - -Cassandra rose obediently, and once more took up her candle. Perhaps -the white dressing-gown, and the loosened hair, and something unseeing -in the expression of the eyes gave her a likeness to a woman walking in -her sleep. Katharine, at least, thought so. - -“There’s no reason why I should go home, then?” Cassandra said, -pausing. “Unless you want me to go, Katharine? What _do_ you want me to -do?” - -For the first time their eyes met. - -“You wanted us to fall in love,” Cassandra exclaimed, as if she read -the certainty there. But as she looked she saw a sight that surprised -her. The tears rose slowly in Katharine’s eyes and stood there, -brimming but contained—the tears of some profound emotion, happiness, -grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature that to -express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending her head and -receiving the tears upon her cheek, accepted them in silence as the -consecration of her love. - -“Please, miss,” said the maid, about eleven o’clock on the following -morning, “Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen.” - -A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the -country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room, -was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and -absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted. -The maid’s message had a curious effect upon Katharine. - -She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said -emphatically and even tragically: - -“You know what that means.” - -Cassandra had understood nothing. - -“Aunt Celia is in the kitchen,” Katharine repeated. - -“Why in the kitchen?” Cassandra asked, not unnaturally. - -“Probably because she’s discovered something,” Katharine replied. -Cassandra’s thoughts flew to the subject of her preoccupation. - -“About us?” she inquired. - -“Heaven knows,” Katharine replied. “I shan’t let her stay in the -kitchen, though. I shall bring her up here.” - -The sternness with which this was said suggested that to bring Aunt -Celia upstairs was, for some reason, a disciplinary measure. - -“For goodness’ sake, Katharine,” Cassandra exclaimed, jumping from her -chair and showing signs of agitation, “don’t be rash. Don’t let her -suspect. Remember, nothing’s certain—” - -Katharine assured her by nodding her head several times, but the manner -in which she left the room was not calculated to inspire complete -confidence in her diplomacy. - -Mrs. Milvain was sitting, or rather perching, upon the edge of a chair -in the servants’ room. Whether there was any sound reason for her -choice of a subterranean chamber, or whether it corresponded with the -spirit of her quest, Mrs. Milvain invariably came in by the back door -and sat in the servants’ room when she was engaged in confidential -family transactions. The ostensible reason she gave was that neither -Mr. nor Mrs. Hilbery should be disturbed. But, in truth, Mrs. Milvain -depended even more than most elderly women of her generation upon the -delicious emotions of intimacy, agony, and secrecy, and the additional -thrill provided by the basement was one not lightly to be forfeited. -She protested almost plaintively when Katharine proposed to go -upstairs. - -“I’ve something that I want to say to you in _private_,” she said, -hesitating reluctantly upon the threshold of her ambush. - -“The drawing-room is empty—” - -“But we might meet your mother upon the stairs. We might disturb your -father,” Mrs. Milvain objected, taking the precaution to speak in a -whisper already. - -But as Katharine’s presence was absolutely necessary to the success of -the interview, and as Katharine obstinately receded up the kitchen -stairs, Mrs. Milvain had no course but to follow her. She glanced -furtively about her as she proceeded upstairs, drew her skirts -together, and stepped with circumspection past all doors, whether they -were open or shut. - -“Nobody will overhear us?” she murmured, when the comparative sanctuary -of the drawing-room had been reached. “I see that I have interrupted -you,” she added, glancing at the flowers strewn upon the floor. A -moment later she inquired, “Was some one sitting with you?” noticing a -handkerchief that Cassandra had dropped in her flight. - -“Cassandra was helping me to put the flowers in water,” said Katharine, -and she spoke so firmly and clearly that Mrs. Milvain glanced nervously -at the main door and then at the curtain which divided the little room -with the relics from the drawing-room. - -“Ah, Cassandra is still with you,” she remarked. “And did William send -you those lovely flowers?” - -Katharine sat down opposite her aunt and said neither yes nor no. She -looked past her, and it might have been thought that she was -considering very critically the pattern of the curtains. Another -advantage of the basement, from Mrs. Milvain’s point of view, was that -it made it necessary to sit very close together, and the light was dim -compared with that which now poured through three windows upon -Katharine and the basket of flowers, and gave even the slight angular -figure of Mrs. Milvain herself a halo of gold. - -“They’re from Stogdon House,” said Katharine abruptly, with a little -jerk of her head. - -Mrs. Milvain felt that it would be easier to tell her niece what she -wished to say if they were actually in physical contact, for the -spiritual distance between them was formidable. Katharine, however, -made no overtures, and Mrs. Milvain, who was possessed of rash but -heroic courage, plunged without preface: - -“People are talking about you, Katharine. That is why I have come this -morning. You forgive me for saying what I’d much rather not say? What I -say is only for your own sake, my child.” - -“There’s nothing to forgive yet, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine, with -apparent good humor. - -“People are saying that William goes everywhere with you and Cassandra, -and that he is always paying her attentions. At the Markhams’ dance he -sat out five dances with her. At the Zoo they were seen alone together. -They left together. They never came back here till seven in the -evening. But that is not all. They say his manner is very marked—he is -quite different when she is there.” - -Mrs. Milvain, whose words had run themselves together, and whose voice -had raised its tone almost to one of protest, here ceased, and looked -intently at Katharine, as if to judge the effect of her communication. -A slight rigidity had passed over Katharine’s face. Her lips were -pressed together; her eyes were contracted, and they were still fixed -upon the curtain. These superficial changes covered an extreme inner -loathing such as might follow the display of some hideous or indecent -spectacle. The indecent spectacle was her own action beheld for the -first time from the outside; her aunt’s words made her realize how -infinitely repulsive the body of life is without its soul. - -“Well?” she said at length. - -Mrs. Milvain made a gesture as if to bring her closer, but it was not -returned. - -“We all know how good you are—how unselfish—how you sacrifice yourself -to others. But you’ve been too unselfish, Katharine. You have made -Cassandra happy, and she has taken advantage of your goodness.” - -“I don’t understand, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine. “What has Cassandra -done?” - -“Cassandra has behaved in a way that I could not have thought -possible,” said Mrs. Milvain warmly. “She has been utterly -selfish—utterly heartless. I must speak to her before I go.” - -“I don’t understand,” Katharine persisted. - -Mrs. Milvain looked at her. Was it possible that Katharine really -doubted? That there was something that Mrs. Milvain herself did not -understand? She braced herself, and pronounced the tremendous words: - -“Cassandra has stolen William’s love.” - -Still the words seemed to have curiously little effect. - -“Do you mean,” said Katharine, “that he has fallen in love with her?” - -“There are ways of _making_ men fall in love with one, Katharine.” - -Katharine remained silent. The silence alarmed Mrs. Milvain, and she -began hurriedly: - -“Nothing would have made me say these things but your own good. I have -not wished to interfere; I have not wished to give you pain. I am a -useless old woman. I have no children of my own. I only want to see you -happy, Katharine.” - -Again she stretched forth her arms, but they remained empty. - -“You are not going to say these things to Cassandra,” said Katharine -suddenly. “You’ve said them to me; that’s enough.” - -Katharine spoke so low and with such restraint that Mrs. Milvain had to -strain to catch her words, and when she heard them she was dazed by -them. - -“I’ve made you angry! I knew I should!” she exclaimed. She quivered, -and a kind of sob shook her; but even to have made Katharine angry was -some relief, and allowed her to feel some of the agreeable sensations -of martyrdom. - -“Yes,” said Katharine, standing up, “I’m so angry that I don’t want to -say anything more. I think you’d better go, Aunt Celia. We don’t -understand each other.” - -At these words Mrs. Milvain looked for a moment terribly apprehensive; -she glanced at her niece’s face, but read no pity there, whereupon she -folded her hands upon a black velvet bag which she carried in an -attitude that was almost one of prayer. Whatever divinity she prayed -to, if pray she did, at any rate she recovered her dignity in a -singular way and faced her niece. - -“Married love,” she said slowly and with emphasis upon every word, “is -the most sacred of all loves. The love of husband and wife is the most -holy we know. That is the lesson Mamma’s children learnt from her; that -is what they can never forget. I have tried to speak as she would have -wished her daughter to speak. You are her grandchild.” - -Katharine seemed to judge this defence upon its merits, and then to -convict it of falsity. - -“I don’t see that there is any excuse for your behavior,” she said. - -At these words Mrs. Milvain rose and stood for a moment beside her -niece. She had never met with such treatment before, and she did not -know with what weapons to break down the terrible wall of resistance -offered her by one who, by virtue of youth and beauty and sex, should -have been all tears and supplications. But Mrs. Milvain herself was -obstinate; upon a matter of this kind she could not admit that she was -either beaten or mistaken. She beheld herself the champion of married -love in its purity and supremacy; what her niece stood for she was -quite unable to say, but she was filled with the gravest suspicions. -The old woman and the young woman stood side by side in unbroken -silence. Mrs. Milvain could not make up her mind to withdraw while her -principles trembled in the balance and her curiosity remained -unappeased. She ransacked her mind for some question that should force -Katharine to enlighten her, but the supply was limited, the choice -difficult, and while she hesitated the door opened and William Rodney -came in. He carried in his hand an enormous and splendid bunch of white -and purple flowers, and, either not seeing Mrs. Milvain, or -disregarding her, he advanced straight to Katharine, and presented the -flowers with the words: - -“These are for you, Katharine.” - -Katharine took them with a glance that Mrs. Milvain did not fail to -intercept. But with all her experience, she did not know what to make -of it. She watched anxiously for further illumination. William greeted -her without obvious sign of guilt, and, explaining that he had a -holiday, both he and Katharine seemed to take it for granted that his -holiday should be celebrated with flowers and spent in Cheyne Walk. A -pause followed; that, too, was natural; and Mrs. Milvain began to feel -that she laid herself open to a charge of selfishness if she stayed. -The mere presence of a young man had altered her disposition curiously, -and filled her with a desire for a scene which should end in an -emotional forgiveness. She would have given much to clasp both nephew -and niece in her arms. But she could not flatter herself that any hope -of the customary exaltation remained. - -“I must go,” she said, and she was conscious of an extreme flatness of -spirit. - -Neither of them said anything to stop her. William politely escorted -her downstairs, and somehow, amongst her protests and embarrassments, -Mrs. Milvain forgot to say good-bye to Katharine. She departed, -murmuring words about masses of flowers and a drawing-room always -beautiful even in the depths of winter. - -William came back to Katharine; he found her standing where he had left -her. - -“I’ve come to be forgiven,” he said. “Our quarrel was perfectly hateful -to me. I’ve not slept all night. You’re not angry with me, are you, -Katharine?” - -She could not bring herself to answer him until she had rid her mind of -the impression that her aunt had made on her. It seemed to her that the -very flowers were contaminated, and Cassandra’s pocket-handkerchief, -for Mrs. Milvain had used them for evidence in her investigations. - -“She’s been spying upon us,” she said, “following us about London, -overhearing what people are saying—” - -“Mrs. Milvain?” Rodney exclaimed. “What has she told you?” - -His air of open confidence entirely vanished. - -“Oh, people are saying that you’re in love with Cassandra, and that you -don’t care for me.” - -“They have seen us?” he asked. - -“Everything we’ve done for a fortnight has been seen.” - -“I told you that would happen!” he exclaimed. - -He walked to the window in evident perturbation. Katharine was too -indignant to attend to him. She was swept away by the force of her own -anger. Clasping Rodney’s flowers, she stood upright and motionless. - -Rodney turned away from the window. - -“It’s all been a mistake,” he said. “I blame myself for it. I should -have known better. I let you persuade me in a moment of madness. I beg -you to forget my insanity, Katharine.” - -“She wished even to persecute Cassandra!” Katharine burst out, not -listening to him. “She threatened to speak to her. She’s capable of -it—she’s capable of anything!” - -“Mrs. Milvain is not tactful, I know, but you exaggerate, Katharine. -People are talking about us. She was right to tell us. It only confirms -my own feeling—the position is monstrous.” - -At length Katharine realized some part of what he meant. - -“You don’t mean that this influences you, William?” she asked in -amazement. - -“It does,” he said, flushing. “It’s intensely disagreeable to me. I -can’t endure that people should gossip about us. And then there’s your -cousin—Cassandra—” He paused in embarrassment. - -“I came here this morning, Katharine,” he resumed, with a change of -voice, “to ask you to forget my folly, my bad temper, my inconceivable -behavior. I came, Katharine, to ask whether we can’t return to the -position we were in before this—this season of lunacy. Will you take me -back, Katharine, once more and for ever?” - -No doubt her beauty, intensified by emotion and enhanced by the flowers -of bright color and strange shape which she carried wrought upon -Rodney, and had its share in bestowing upon her the old romance. But a -less noble passion worked in him, too; he was inflamed by jealousy. His -tentative offer of affection had been rudely and, as he thought, -completely repulsed by Cassandra on the preceding day. Denham’s -confession was in his mind. And ultimately, Katharine’s dominion over -him was of the sort that the fevers of the night cannot exorcise. - -“I was as much to blame as you were yesterday,” she said gently, -disregarding his question. “I confess, William, the sight of you and -Cassandra together made me jealous, and I couldn’t control myself. I -laughed at you, I know.” - -“You jealous!” William exclaimed. “I assure you, Katharine, you’ve not -the slightest reason to be jealous. Cassandra dislikes me, so far as -she feels about me at all. I was foolish enough to try to explain the -nature of our relationship. I couldn’t resist telling her what I -supposed myself to feel for her. She refused to listen, very rightly. -But she left me in no doubt of her scorn.” - -Katharine hesitated. She was confused, agitated, physically tired, and -had already to reckon with the violent feeling of dislike aroused by -her aunt which still vibrated through all the rest of her feelings. She -sank into a chair and dropped her flowers upon her lap. - -“She charmed me,” Rodney continued. “I thought I loved her. But that’s -a thing of the past. It’s all over, Katharine. It was a dream—an -hallucination. We were both equally to blame, but no harm’s done if you -believe how truly I care for you. Say you believe me!” - -He stood over her, as if in readiness to seize the first sign of her -assent. Precisely at that moment, owing, perhaps, to her vicissitudes -of feeling, all sense of love left her, as in a moment a mist lifts -from the earth. And when the mist departed a skeleton world and -blankness alone remained—a terrible prospect for the eyes of the living -to behold. He saw the look of terror in her face, and without -understanding its origin, took her hand in his. With the sense of -companionship returned a desire, like that of a child for shelter, to -accept what he had to offer her—and at that moment it seemed that he -offered her the only thing that could make it tolerable to live. She -let him press his lips to her cheek, and leant her head upon his arm. -It was the moment of his triumph. It was the only moment in which she -belonged to him and was dependent upon his protection. - -“Yes, yes, yes,” he murmured, “you accept me, Katharine. You love me.” - -For a moment she remained silent. He then heard her murmur: - -“Cassandra loves you more than I do.” - -“Cassandra?” he whispered. - -“She loves you,” Katharine repeated. She raised herself and repeated -the sentence yet a third time. “She loves you.” - -William slowly raised himself. He believed instinctively what Katharine -said, but what it meant to him he was unable to understand. Could -Cassandra love him? Could she have told Katharine that she loved him? -The desire to know the truth of this was urgent, unknown though the -consequences might be. The thrill of excitement associated with the -thought of Cassandra once more took possession of him. No longer was it -the excitement of anticipation and ignorance; it was the excitement of -something greater than a possibility, for now he knew her and had -measure of the sympathy between them. But who could give him certainty? -Could Katharine, Katharine who had lately lain in his arms, Katharine -herself the most admired of women? He looked at her, with doubt, and -with anxiety, but said nothing. - -“Yes, yes,” she said, interpreting his wish for assurance, “it’s true. -I know what she feels for you.” - -“She loves me?” - -Katharine nodded. - -“Ah, but who knows what I feel? How can I be sure of my feeling myself? -Ten minutes ago I asked you to marry me. I still wish it—I don’t know -what I wish—” - -He clenched his hands and turned away. He suddenly faced her and -demanded: “Tell me what you feel for Denham.” - -“For Ralph Denham?” she asked. “Yes!” she exclaimed, as if she had -found the answer to some momentarily perplexing question. “You’re -jealous of me, William; but you’re not in love with me. I’m jealous of -you. Therefore, for both our sakes, I say, speak to Cassandra at once.” - -He tried to compose himself. He walked up and down the room; he paused -at the window and surveyed the flowers strewn upon the floor. Meanwhile -his desire to have Katharine’s assurance confirmed became so insistent -that he could no longer deny the overmastering strength of his feeling -for Cassandra. - -“You’re right,” he exclaimed, coming to a standstill and rapping his -knuckles sharply upon a small table carrying one slender vase. “I love -Cassandra.” - -As he said this, the curtains hanging at the door of the little room -parted, and Cassandra herself stepped forth. - -“I have overheard every word!” she exclaimed. - -A pause succeeded this announcement. Rodney made a step forward and -said: - -“Then you know what I wish to ask you. Give me your answer—” - -She put her hands before her face; she turned away and seemed to shrink -from both of them. - -“What Katharine said,” she murmured. “But,” she added, raising her head -with a look of fear from the kiss with which he greeted her admission, -“how frightfully difficult it all is! Our feelings, I mean—yours and -mine and Katharine’s. Katharine, tell me, are we doing right?” - -“Right—of course we’re doing right,” William answered her, “if, after -what you’ve heard, you can marry a man of such incomprehensible -confusion, such deplorable—” - -“Don’t, William,” Katharine interposed; “Cassandra has heard us; she -can judge what we are; she knows better than we could tell her.” - -But, still holding William’s hand, questions and desires welled up in -Cassandra’s heart. Had she done wrong in listening? Why did Aunt Celia -blame her? Did Katharine think her right? Above all, did William really -love her, for ever and ever, better than any one? - -“I must be first with him, Katharine!” she exclaimed. “I can’t share -him even with you.” - -“I shall never ask that,” said Katharine. She moved a little away from -where they sat and began half-consciously sorting her flowers. - -“But you’ve shared with me,” Cassandra said. “Why can’t I share with -you? Why am I so mean? I know why it is,” she added. “We understand -each other, William and I. You’ve never understood each other. You’re -too different.” - -“I’ve never admired anybody more,” William interposed. - -“It’s not that”—Cassandra tried to enlighten him—“it’s understanding.” - -“Have I never understood you, Katharine? Have I been very selfish?” - -“Yes,” Cassandra interposed. “You’ve asked her for sympathy, and she’s -not sympathetic; you’ve wanted her to be practical, and she’s not -practical. You’ve been selfish; you’ve been exacting—and so has -Katharine—but it wasn’t anybody’s fault.” - -Katharine had listened to this attempt at analysis with keen attention. -Cassandra’s words seemed to rub the old blurred image of life and -freshen it so marvelously that it looked new again. She turned to -William. - -“It’s quite true,” she said. “It was nobody’s fault.” - -“There are many things that he’ll always come to you for,” Cassandra -continued, still reading from her invisible book. “I accept that, -Katharine. I shall never dispute it. I want to be generous as you’ve -been generous. But being in love makes it more difficult for me.” - -They were silent. At length William broke the silence. - -“One thing I beg of you both,” he said, and the old nervousness of -manner returned as he glanced at Katharine. “We will never discuss -these matters again. It’s not that I’m timid and conventional, as you -think, Katharine. It’s that it spoils things to discuss them; it -unsettles people’s minds; and now we’re all so happy—” - -Cassandra ratified this conclusion so far as she was concerned, and -William, after receiving the exquisite pleasure of her glance, with its -absolute affection and trust, looked anxiously at Katharine. - -“Yes, I’m happy,” she assured him. “And I agree. We will never talk -about it again.” - -“Oh, Katharine, Katharine!” Cassandra cried, holding out her arms while -the tears ran down her cheeks. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - - -The day was so different from other days to three people in the house -that the common routine of household life—the maid waiting at table, -Mrs. Hilbery writing a letter, the clock striking, and the door -opening, and all the other signs of long-established civilization -appeared suddenly to have no meaning save as they lulled Mr. and Mrs. -Hilbery into the belief that nothing unusual had taken place. It -chanced that Mrs. Hilbery was depressed without visible cause, unless a -certain crudeness verging upon coarseness in the temper of her favorite -Elizabethans could be held responsible for the mood. At any rate, she -had shut up “The Duchess of Malfi” with a sigh, and wished to know, so -she told Rodney at dinner, whether there wasn’t some young writer with -a touch of the great spirit—somebody who made you believe that life was -_beautiful?_ She got little help from Rodney, and after singing her -plaintive requiem for the death of poetry by herself, she charmed -herself into good spirits again by remembering the existence of Mozart. -She begged Cassandra to play to her, and when they went upstairs -Cassandra opened the piano directly, and did her best to create an -atmosphere of unmixed beauty. At the sound of the first notes Katharine -and Rodney both felt an enormous sense of relief at the license which -the music gave them to loosen their hold upon the mechanism of -behavior. They lapsed into the depths of thought. Mrs. Hilbery was soon -spirited away into a perfectly congenial mood, that was half reverie -and half slumber, half delicious melancholy and half pure bliss. Mr. -Hilbery alone attended. He was extremely musical, and made Cassandra -aware that he listened to every note. She played her best, and won his -approval. Leaning slightly forward in his chair, and turning his little -green stone, he weighed the intention of her phrases approvingly, but -stopped her suddenly to complain of a noise behind him. The window was -unhasped. He signed to Rodney, who crossed the room immediately to put -the matter right. He stayed a moment longer by the window than was, -perhaps, necessary, and having done what was needed, drew his chair a -little closer than before to Katharine’s side. The music went on. Under -cover of some exquisite run of melody, he leant towards her and -whispered something. She glanced at her father and mother, and a moment -later left the room, almost unobserved, with Rodney. - -“What is it?” she asked, as soon as the door was shut. - -Rodney made no answer, but led her downstairs into the dining-room on -the ground floor. Even when he had shut the door he said nothing, but -went straight to the window and parted the curtains. He beckoned to -Katharine. - -“There he is again,” he said. “Look, there—under the lamp-post.” - -Katharine looked. She had no idea what Rodney was talking about. A -vague feeling of alarm and mystery possessed her. She saw a man -standing on the opposite side of the road facing the house beneath a -lamp-post. As they looked the figure turned, walked a few steps, and -came back again to his old position. It seemed to her that he was -looking fixedly at her, and was conscious of her gaze on him. She knew, -in a flash, who the man was who was watching them. She drew the curtain -abruptly. - -“Denham,” said Rodney. “He was there last night too.” He spoke sternly. -His whole manner had become full of authority. Katharine felt almost as -if he accused her of some crime. She was pale and uncomfortably -agitated, as much by the strangeness of Rodney’s behavior as by the -sight of Ralph Denham. - -“If he chooses to come—” she said defiantly. - -“You can’t let him wait out there. I shall tell him to come in.” Rodney -spoke with such decision that when he raised his arm Katharine expected -him to draw the curtain instantly. She caught his hand with a little -exclamation. - -“Wait!” she cried. “I don’t allow you.” - -“You can’t wait,” he replied. “You’ve gone too far.” His hand remained -upon the curtain. “Why don’t you admit, Katharine,” he broke out, -looking at her with an expression of contempt as well as of anger, -“that you love him? Are you going to treat him as you treated me?” - -She looked at him, wondering, in spite of all her perplexity, at the -spirit that possessed him. - -“I forbid you to draw the curtain,” she said. - -He reflected, and then took his hand away. - -“I’ve no right to interfere,” he concluded. “I’ll leave you. Or, if you -like, we’ll go back to the drawing-room.” - -“No. I can’t go back,” she said, shaking her head. She bent her head in -thought. - -“You love him, Katharine,” Rodney said suddenly. His tone had lost -something of its sternness, and might have been used to urge a child to -confess its fault. She raised her eyes and fixed them upon him. - -“I love him?” she repeated. He nodded. She searched his face, as if for -further confirmation of his words, and, as he remained silent and -expectant, turned away once more and continued her thoughts. He -observed her closely, but without stirring, as if he gave her time to -make up her mind to fulfil her obvious duty. The strains of Mozart -reached them from the room above. - -“Now,” she said suddenly, with a sort of desperation, rising from her -chair and seeming to command Rodney to fulfil his part. He drew the -curtain instantly, and she made no attempt to stop him. Their eyes at -once sought the same spot beneath the lamp-post. - -“He’s not there!” she exclaimed. - -No one was there. William threw the window up and looked out. The wind -rushed into the room, together with the sound of distant wheels, -footsteps hurrying along the pavement, and the cries of sirens hooting -down the river. - -“Denham!” William cried. - -“Ralph!” said Katharine, but she spoke scarcely louder than she might -have spoken to some one in the same room. With their eyes fixed upon -the opposite side of the road, they did not notice a figure close to -the railing which divided the garden from the street. But Denham had -crossed the road and was standing there. They were startled by his -voice close at hand. - -“Rodney!” - -“There you are! Come in, Denham.” Rodney went to the front door and -opened it. “Here he is,” he said, bringing Ralph with him into the -dining-room where Katharine stood, with her back to the open window. -Their eyes met for a second. Denham looked half dazed by the strong -light, and, buttoned in his overcoat, with his hair ruffled across his -forehead by the wind, he seemed like somebody rescued from an open boat -out at sea. William promptly shut the window and drew the curtains. He -acted with a cheerful decision as if he were master of the situation, -and knew exactly what he meant to do. - -“You’re the first to hear the news, Denham,” he said. “Katharine isn’t -going to marry me, after all.” - -“Where shall I put—” Ralph began vaguely, holding out his hat and -glancing about him; he balanced it carefully against a silver bowl that -stood upon the sideboard. He then sat himself down rather heavily at -the head of the oval dinner-table. Rodney stood on one side of him and -Katharine on the other. He appeared to be presiding over some meeting -from which most of the members were absent. Meanwhile, he waited, and -his eyes rested upon the glow of the beautifully polished mahogany -table. - -“William is engaged to Cassandra,” said Katharine briefly. - -At that Denham looked up quickly at Rodney. Rodney’s expression -changed. He lost his self-possession. He smiled a little nervously, and -then his attention seemed to be caught by a fragment of melody from the -floor above. He seemed for a moment to forget the presence of the -others. He glanced towards the door. - -“I congratulate you,” said Denham. - -“Yes, yes. We’re all mad—quite out of our minds, Denham,” he said. -“It’s partly Katharine’s doing—partly mine.” He looked oddly round the -room as if he wished to make sure that the scene in which he played a -part had some real existence. “Quite mad,” he repeated. “Even -Katharine—” His gaze rested upon her finally, as if she, too, had -changed from his old view of her. He smiled at her as if to encourage -her. “Katharine shall explain,” he said, and giving a little nod to -Denham, he left the room. - -Katharine sat down at once, and leant her chin upon her hands. So long -as Rodney was in the room the proceedings of the evening had seemed to -be in his charge, and had been marked by a certain unreality. Now that -she was alone with Ralph she felt at once that a constraint had been -taken from them both. She felt that they were alone at the bottom of -the house, which rose, story upon story, upon the top of them. - -“Why were you waiting out there?” she asked. - -“For the chance of seeing you,” he replied. - -“You would have waited all night if it hadn’t been for William. It’s -windy too. You must have been cold. What could you see? Nothing but our -windows.” - -“It was worth it. I heard you call me.” - -“I called you?” She had called unconsciously. - -“They were engaged this morning,” she told him, after a pause. - -“You’re glad?” he asked. - -She bent her head. “Yes, yes,” she sighed. “But you don’t know how good -he is—what he’s done for me—” Ralph made a sound of understanding. “You -waited there last night too?” she asked. - -“Yes. I can wait,” Denham replied. - -The words seemed to fill the room with an emotion which Katharine -connected with the sound of distant wheels, the footsteps hurrying -along the pavement, the cries of sirens hooting down the river, the -darkness and the wind. She saw the upright figure standing beneath the -lamp-post. - -“Waiting in the dark,” she said, glancing at the window, as if he saw -what she was seeing. “Ah, but it’s different—” She broke off. “I’m not -the person you think me. Until you realize that it’s impossible—” - -Placing her elbows on the table, she slid her ruby ring up and down her -finger abstractedly. She frowned at the rows of leather-bound books -opposite her. Ralph looked keenly at her. Very pale, but sternly -concentrated upon her meaning, beautiful but so little aware of herself -as to seem remote from him also, there was something distant and -abstract about her which exalted him and chilled him at the same time. - -“No, you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know you. I’ve never known you.” - -“Yet perhaps you know me better than any one else,” she mused. - -Some detached instinct made her aware that she was gazing at a book -which belonged by rights to some other part of the house. She walked -over to the shelf, took it down, and returned to her seat, placing the -book on the table between them. Ralph opened it and looked at the -portrait of a man with a voluminous white shirt-collar, which formed -the frontispiece. - -“I say I do know you, Katharine,” he affirmed, shutting the book. “It’s -only for moments that I go mad.” - -“Do you call two whole nights a moment?” - -“I swear to you that now, at this instant, I see you precisely as you -are. No one has ever known you as I know you.... Could you have taken -down that book just now if I hadn’t known you?” - -“That’s true,” she replied, “but you can’t think how I’m divided—how -I’m at my ease with you, and how I’m bewildered. The unreality—the -dark—the waiting outside in the wind—yes, when you look at me, not -seeing me, and I don’t see you either.... But I do see,” she went on -quickly, changing her position and frowning again, “heaps of things, -only not you.” - -“Tell me what you see,” he urged. - -But she could not reduce her vision to words, since it was no single -shape colored upon the dark, but rather a general excitement, an -atmosphere, which, when she tried to visualize it, took form as a wind -scouring the flanks of northern hills and flashing light upon -cornfields and pools. - -“Impossible,” she sighed, laughing at the ridiculous notion of putting -any part of this into words. - -“Try, Katharine,” Ralph urged her. - -“But I can’t—I’m talking a sort of nonsense—the sort of nonsense one -talks to oneself.” She was dismayed by the expression of longing and -despair upon his face. “I was thinking about a mountain in the North of -England,” she attempted. “It’s too silly—I won’t go on.” - -“We were there together?” he pressed her. - -“No. I was alone.” She seemed to be disappointing the desire of a -child. His face fell. - -“You’re always alone there?” - -“I can’t explain.” She could not explain that she was essentially alone -there. “It’s not a mountain in the North of England. It’s an -imagination—a story one tells oneself. You have yours too?” - -“You’re with me in mine. You’re the thing I make up, you see.” - -“Oh, I see,” she sighed. “That’s why it’s so impossible.” She turned -upon him almost fiercely. “You must try to stop it,” she said. - -“I won’t,” he replied roughly, “because I—” He stopped. He realized -that the moment had come to impart that news of the utmost importance -which he had tried to impart to Mary Datchet, to Rodney upon the -Embankment, to the drunken tramp upon the seat. How should he offer it -to Katharine? He looked quickly at her. He saw that she was only half -attentive to him; only a section of her was exposed to him. The sight -roused in him such desperation that he had much ado to control his -impulse to rise and leave the house. Her hand lay loosely curled upon -the table. He seized it and grasped it firmly as if to make sure of her -existence and of his own. “Because I love you, Katharine,” he said. - -Some roundness or warmth essential to that statement was absent from -his voice, and she had merely to shake her head very slightly for him -to drop her hand and turn away in shame at his own impotence. He -thought that she had detected his wish to leave her. She had discerned -the break in his resolution, the blankness in the heart of his vision. -It was true that he had been happier out in the street, thinking of -her, than now that he was in the same room with her. He looked at her -with a guilty expression on his face. But her look expressed neither -disappointment nor reproach. Her pose was easy, and she seemed to give -effect to a mood of quiet speculation by the spinning of her ruby ring -upon the polished table. Denham forgot his despair in wondering what -thoughts now occupied her. - -“You don’t believe me?” he said. His tone was humble, and made her -smile at him. - -“As far as I understand you—but what should you advise me to do with -this ring?” she asked, holding it out. - -“I should advise you to let me keep it for you,” he replied, in the -same tone of half-humorous gravity. - -“After what you’ve said, I can hardly trust you—unless you’ll unsay -what you’ve said?” - -“Very well. I’m not in love with you.” - -“But I think you _are_ in love with me.... As I am with you,” she added -casually enough. “At least,” she said slipping her ring back to its old -position, “what other word describes the state we’re in?” - -She looked at him gravely and inquiringly, as if in search of help. - -“It’s when I’m with you that I doubt it, not when I’m alone,” he -stated. - -“So I thought,” she replied. - -In order to explain to her his state of mind, Ralph recounted his -experience with the photograph, the letter, and the flower picked at -Kew. She listened very seriously. - -“And then you went raving about the streets,” she mused. “Well, it’s -bad enough. But my state is worse than yours, because it hasn’t -anything to do with facts. It’s an hallucination, pure and simple—an -intoxication.... One can be in love with pure reason?” she hazarded. -“Because if you’re in love with a vision, I believe that that’s what -I’m in love with.” - -This conclusion seemed fantastic and profoundly unsatisfactory to -Ralph, but after the astonishing variations of his own sentiments -during the past half-hour he could not accuse her of fanciful -exaggeration. - -“Rodney seems to know his own mind well enough,” he said almost -bitterly. The music, which had ceased, had now begun again, and the -melody of Mozart seemed to express the easy and exquisite love of the -two upstairs. - -“Cassandra never doubted for a moment. But we—” she glanced at him as -if to ascertain his position, “we see each other only now and then—” - -“Like lights in a storm—” - -“In the midst of a hurricane,” she concluded, as the window shook -beneath the pressure of the wind. They listened to the sound in -silence. - -Here the door opened with considerable hesitation, and Mrs. Hilbery’s -head appeared, at first with an air of caution, but having made sure -that she had admitted herself to the dining-room and not to some more -unusual region, she came completely inside and seemed in no way taken -aback by the sight she saw. She seemed, as usual, bound on some quest -of her own which was interrupted pleasantly but strangely by running -into one of those queer, unnecessary ceremonies that other people -thought fit to indulge in. - -“Please don’t let me interrupt you, Mr.—” she was at a loss, as usual, -for the name, and Katharine thought that she did not recognize him. “I -hope you’ve found something nice to read,” she added, pointing to the -book upon the table. “Byron—ah, Byron. I’ve known people who knew Lord -Byron,” she said. - -Katharine, who had risen in some confusion, could not help smiling at -the thought that her mother found it perfectly natural and desirable -that her daughter should be reading Byron in the dining-room late at -night alone with a strange young man. She blessed a disposition that -was so convenient, and felt tenderly towards her mother and her -mother’s eccentricities. But Ralph observed that although Mrs. Hilbery -held the book so close to her eyes she was not reading a word. - -“My dear mother, why aren’t you in bed?” Katharine exclaimed, changing -astonishingly in the space of a minute to her usual condition of -authoritative good sense. “Why are you wandering about?” - -“I’m sure I should like your poetry better than I like Lord Byron’s,” -said Mrs. Hilbery, addressing Ralph Denham. - -“Mr. Denham doesn’t write poetry; he has written articles for father, -for the Review,” Katharine said, as if prompting her memory. - -“Oh dear! How dull!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed, with a sudden laugh that -rather puzzled her daughter. - -Ralph found that she had turned upon him a gaze that was at once very -vague and very penetrating. - -“But I’m sure you read poetry at night. I always judge by the -expression of the eyes,” Mrs. Hilbery continued. (“The windows of the -soul,” she added parenthetically.) “I don’t know much about the law,” -she went on, “though many of my relations were lawyers. Some of them -looked very handsome, too, in their wigs. But I think I do know a -little about poetry,” she added. “And all the things that aren’t -written down, but—but—” She waved her hand, as if to indicate the -wealth of unwritten poetry all about them. “The night and the stars, -the dawn coming up, the barges swimming past, the sun setting.... Ah -dear,” she sighed, “well, the sunset is very lovely too. I sometimes -think that poetry isn’t so much what we write as what we feel, Mr. -Denham.” - -During this speech of her mother’s Katharine had turned away, and Ralph -felt that Mrs. Hilbery was talking to him apart, with a desire to -ascertain something about him which she veiled purposely by the -vagueness of her words. He felt curiously encouraged and heartened by -the beam in her eye rather than by her actual words. From the distance -of her age and sex she seemed to be waving to him, hailing him as a -ship sinking beneath the horizon might wave its flag of greeting to -another setting out upon the same voyage. He bent his head, saying -nothing, but with a curious certainty that she had read an answer to -her inquiry that satisfied her. At any rate, she rambled off into a -description of the Law Courts which turned to a denunciation of English -justice, which, according to her, imprisoned poor men who couldn’t pay -their debts. “Tell me, shall we ever do without it all?” she asked, but -at this point Katharine gently insisted that her mother should go to -bed. Looking back from half-way up the staircase, Katharine seemed to -see Denham’s eyes watching her steadily and intently with an expression -that she had guessed in them when he stood looking at the windows -across the road. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - - -The tray which brought Katharine’s cup of tea the next morning brought, -also, a note from her mother, announcing that it was her intention to -catch an early train to Stratford-on-Avon that very day. - -“Please find out the best way of getting there,” the note ran, “and -wire to dear Sir John Burdett to expect me, with my love. I’ve been -dreaming all night of you and Shakespeare, dearest Katharine.” - -This was no momentary impulse. Mrs. Hilbery had been dreaming of -Shakespeare any time these six months, toying with the idea of an -excursion to what she considered the heart of the civilized world. To -stand six feet above Shakespeare’s bones, to see the very stones worn -by his feet, to reflect that the oldest man’s oldest mother had very -likely seen Shakespeare’s daughter—such thoughts roused an emotion in -her, which she expressed at unsuitable moments, and with a passion that -would not have been unseemly in a pilgrim to a sacred shrine. The only -strange thing was that she wished to go by herself. But, naturally -enough, she was well provided with friends who lived in the -neighborhood of Shakespeare’s tomb, and were delighted to welcome her; -and she left later to catch her train in the best of spirits. There was -a man selling violets in the street. It was a fine day. She would -remember to send Mr. Hilbery the first daffodil she saw. And, as she -ran back into the hall to tell Katharine, she felt, she had always -felt, that Shakespeare’s command to leave his bones undisturbed applied -only to odious curiosity-mongers—not to dear Sir John and herself. -Leaving her daughter to cogitate the theory of Anne Hathaway’s sonnets, -and the buried manuscripts here referred to, with the implied menace to -the safety of the heart of civilization itself, she briskly shut the -door of her taxi-cab, and was whirled off upon the first stage of her -pilgrimage. - -The house was oddly different without her. Katharine found the maids -already in possession of her room, which they meant to clean thoroughly -during her absence. To Katharine it seemed as if they had brushed away -sixty years or so with the first flick of their damp dusters. It seemed -to her that the work she had tried to do in that room was being swept -into a very insignificant heap of dust. The china shepherdesses were -already shining from a bath of hot water. The writing-table might have -belonged to a professional man of methodical habits. - -Gathering together a few papers upon which she was at work, Katharine -proceeded to her own room with the intention of looking through them, -perhaps, in the course of the morning. But she was met on the stairs by -Cassandra, who followed her up, but with such intervals between each -step that Katharine began to feel her purpose dwindling before they had -reached the door. Cassandra leant over the banisters, and looked down -upon the Persian rug that lay on the floor of the hall. - -“Doesn’t everything look odd this morning?” she inquired. “Are you -really going to spend the morning with those dull old letters, because -if so—” - -The dull old letters, which would have turned the heads of the most -sober of collectors, were laid upon a table, and, after a moment’s -pause, Cassandra, looking grave all of a sudden, asked Katharine where -she should find the “History of England” by Lord Macaulay. It was -downstairs in Mr. Hilbery’s study. The cousins descended together in -search of it. They diverged into the drawing-room for the good reason -that the door was open. The portrait of Richard Alardyce attracted -their attention. - -“I wonder what he was like?” It was a question that Katharine had often -asked herself lately. - -“Oh, a fraud like the rest of them—at least Henry says so,” Cassandra -replied. “Though I don’t believe everything Henry says,” she added a -little defensively. - -Down they went into Mr. Hilbery’s study, where they began to look among -his books. So desultory was this examination that some fifteen minutes -failed to discover the work they were in search of. - -“Must you read Macaulay’s History, Cassandra?” Katharine asked, with a -stretch of her arms. - -“I must,” Cassandra replied briefly. - -“Well, I’m going to leave you to look for it by yourself.” - -“Oh, no, Katharine. Please stay and help me. You see—you see—I told -William I’d read a little every day. And I want to tell him that I’ve -begun when he comes.” - -“When does William come?” Katharine asked, turning to the shelves -again. - -“To tea, if that suits you?” - -“If it suits me to be out, I suppose you mean.” - -“Oh, you’re horrid.... Why shouldn’t you—?” - -“Yes?” - -“Why shouldn’t you be happy too?” - -“I am quite happy,” Katharine replied. - -“I mean as I am. Katharine,” she said impulsively, “do let’s be married -on the same day.” - -“To the same man?” - -“Oh, no, no. But why shouldn’t you marry—some one else?” - -“Here’s your Macaulay,” said Katharine, turning round with the book in -her hand. “I should say you’d better begin to read at once if you mean -to be educated by tea-time.” - -“Damn Lord Macaulay!” cried Cassandra, slapping the book upon the -table. “Would you rather not talk?” - -“We’ve talked enough already,” Katharine replied evasively. - -“I know I shan’t be able to settle to Macaulay,” said Cassandra, -looking ruefully at the dull red cover of the prescribed volume, which, -however, possessed a talismanic property, since William admired it. He -had advised a little serious reading for the morning hours. - -“Have _you_ read Macaulay?” she asked. - -“No. William never tried to educate me.” As she spoke she saw the light -fade from Cassandra’s face, as if she had implied some other, more -mysterious, relationship. She was stung with compunction. She marveled -at her own rashness in having influenced the life of another, as she -had influenced Cassandra’s life. - -“We weren’t serious,” she said quickly. - -“But I’m fearfully serious,” said Cassandra, with a little shudder, and -her look showed that she spoke the truth. She turned and glanced at -Katharine as she had never glanced at her before. There was fear in her -glance, which darted on her and then dropped guiltily. Oh, Katharine -had everything—beauty, mind, character. She could never compete with -Katharine; she could never be safe so long as Katharine brooded over -her, dominating her, disposing of her. She called her cold, unseeing, -unscrupulous, but the only sign she gave outwardly was a curious -one—she reached out her hand and grasped the volume of history. At that -moment the bell of the telephone rang and Katharine went to answer it. -Cassandra, released from observation, dropped her book and clenched her -hands. She suffered more fiery torture in those few minutes than she -had suffered in the whole of her life; she learnt more of her -capacities for feeling. But when Katharine reappeared she was calm, and -had gained a look of dignity that was new to her. - -“Was that him?” she asked. - -“It was Ralph Denham,” Katharine replied. - -“I meant Ralph Denham.” - -“Why did you mean Ralph Denham? What has William told you about Ralph -Denham?” The accusation that Katharine was calm, callous, and -indifferent was not possible in face of her present air of animation. -She gave Cassandra no time to frame an answer. “Now, when are you and -William going to be married?” she asked. - -Cassandra made no reply for some moments. It was, indeed, a very -difficult question to answer. In conversation the night before, William -had indicated to Cassandra that, in his belief, Katharine was becoming -engaged to Ralph Denham in the dining-room. Cassandra, in the rosy -light of her own circumstances, had been disposed to think that the -matter must be settled already. But a letter which she had received -that morning from William, while ardent in its expression of affection, -had conveyed to her obliquely that he would prefer the announcement of -their engagement to coincide with that of Katharine’s. This document -Cassandra now produced, and read aloud, with considerable excisions and -much hesitation. - -“... a thousand pities—ahem—I fear we shall cause a great deal of -natural annoyance. If, on the other hand, what I have reason to think -will happen, should happen—within reasonable time, and the present -position is not in any way offensive to you, delay would, in my -opinion, serve all our interests better than a premature explanation, -which is bound to cause more surprise than is desirable—” - -“Very like William,” Katharine exclaimed, having gathered the drift of -these remarks with a speed that, by itself, disconcerted Cassandra. - -“I quite understand his feelings,” Cassandra replied. “I quite agree -with them. I think it would be much better, if you intend to marry Mr. -Denham, that we should wait as William says.” - -“But, then, if I don’t marry him for months—or, perhaps, not at all?” - -Cassandra was silent. The prospect appalled her. Katharine had been -telephoning to Ralph Denham; she looked queer, too; she must be, or -about to become, engaged to him. But if Cassandra could have overheard -the conversation upon the telephone, she would not have felt so certain -that it tended in that direction. It was to this effect: - -“I’m Ralph Denham speaking. I’m in my right senses now.” - -“How long did you wait outside the house?” - -“I went home and wrote you a letter. I tore it up.” - -“I shall tear up everything too.” - -“I shall come.” - -“Yes. Come to-day.” - -“I must explain to you—” - -“Yes. We must explain—” - -A long pause followed. Ralph began a sentence, which he canceled with -the word, “Nothing.” Suddenly, together, at the same moment, they said -good-bye. And yet, if the telephone had been miraculously connected -with some higher atmosphere pungent with the scent of thyme and the -savor of salt, Katharine could hardly have breathed in a keener sense -of exhilaration. She ran downstairs on the crest of it. She was amazed -to find herself already committed by William and Cassandra to marry the -owner of the halting voice she had just heard on the telephone. The -tendency of her spirit seemed to be in an altogether different -direction; and of a different nature. She had only to look at Cassandra -to see what the love that results in an engagement and marriage means. -She considered for a moment, and then said: “If you don’t want to tell -people yourselves, I’ll do it for you. I know William has feelings -about these matters that make it very difficult for him to do -anything.” - -“Because he’s fearfully sensitive about other people’s feelings,” said -Cassandra. “The idea that he could upset Aunt Maggie or Uncle Trevor -would make him ill for weeks.” - -This interpretation of what she was used to call William’s -conventionality was new to Katharine. And yet she felt it now to be the -true one. - -“Yes, you’re right,” she said. - -“And then he worships beauty. He wants life to be beautiful in every -part of it. Have you ever noticed how exquisitely he finishes -everything? Look at the address on that envelope. Every letter is -perfect.” - -Whether this applied also to the sentiments expressed in the letter, -Katharine was not so sure; but when William’s solicitude was spent upon -Cassandra it not only failed to irritate her, as it had done when she -was the object of it, but appeared, as Cassandra said, the fruit of his -love of beauty. - -“Yes,” she said, “he loves beauty.” - -“I hope we shall have a great many children,” said Cassandra. “He loves -children.” - -This remark made Katharine realize the depths of their intimacy better -than any other words could have done; she was jealous for one moment; -but the next she was humiliated. She had known William for years, and -she had never once guessed that he loved children. She looked at the -queer glow of exaltation in Cassandra’s eyes, through which she was -beholding the true spirit of a human being, and wished that she would -go on talking about William for ever. Cassandra was not unwilling to -gratify her. She talked on. The morning slipped away. Katharine -scarcely changed her position on the edge of her father’s -writing-table, and Cassandra never opened the “History of England.” - -And yet it must be confessed that there were vast lapses in the -attention which Katharine bestowed upon her cousin. The atmosphere was -wonderfully congenial for thoughts of her own. She lost herself -sometimes in such deep reverie that Cassandra, pausing, could look at -her for moments unperceived. What could Katharine be thinking about, -unless it were Ralph Denham? She was satisfied, by certain random -replies, that Katharine had wandered a little from the subject of -William’s perfections. But Katharine made no sign. She always ended -these pauses by saying something so natural that Cassandra was deluded -into giving fresh examples of her absorbing theme. Then they lunched, -and the only sign that Katharine gave of abstraction was to forget to -help the pudding. She looked so like her mother, as she sat there -oblivious of the tapioca, that Cassandra was startled into exclaiming: - -“How like Aunt Maggie you look!” - -“Nonsense,” said Katharine, with more irritation than the remark seemed -to call for. - -In truth, now that her mother was away, Katharine did feel less -sensible than usual, but as she argued it to herself, there was much -less need for sense. Secretly, she was a little shaken by the evidence -which the morning had supplied of her immense capacity for—what could -one call it?—rambling over an infinite variety of thoughts that were -too foolish to be named. She was, for example, walking down a road in -Northumberland in the August sunset; at the inn she left her companion, -who was Ralph Denham, and was transported, not so much by her own feet -as by some invisible means, to the top of a high hill. Here the scents, -the sounds among the dry heather-roots, the grass-blades pressed upon -the palm of her hand, were all so perceptible that she could experience -each one separately. After this her mind made excursions into the dark -of the air, or settled upon the surface of the sea, which could be -discovered over there, or with equal unreason it returned to its couch -of bracken beneath the stars of midnight, and visited the snow valleys -of the moon. These fancies would have been in no way strange, since the -walls of every mind are decorated with some such tracery, but she found -herself suddenly pursuing such thoughts with an extreme ardor, which -became a desire to change her actual condition for something matching -the conditions of her dream. Then she started; then she awoke to the -fact that Cassandra was looking at her in amazement. - -Cassandra would have liked to feel certain that, when Katharine made no -reply at all or one wide of the mark, she was making up her mind to get -married at once, but it was difficult, if this were so, to account for -some remarks that Katharine let fall about the future. She recurred -several times to the summer, as if she meant to spend that season in -solitary wandering. She seemed to have a plan in her mind which -required Bradshaws and the names of inns. - -Cassandra was driven finally, by her own unrest, to put on her clothes -and wander out along the streets of Chelsea, on the pretence that she -must buy something. But, in her ignorance of the way, she became -panic-stricken at the thought of being late, and no sooner had she -found the shop she wanted, than she fled back again in order to be at -home when William came. He came, indeed, five minutes after she had sat -down by the tea-table, and she had the happiness of receiving him -alone. His greeting put her doubts of his affection at rest, but the -first question he asked was: - -“Has Katharine spoken to you?” - -“Yes. But she says she’s not engaged. She doesn’t seem to think she’s -ever going to be engaged.” - -William frowned, and looked annoyed. - -“They telephoned this morning, and she behaves very oddly. She forgets -to help the pudding,” Cassandra added by way of cheering him. - -“My dear child, after what I saw and heard last night, it’s not a -question of guessing or suspecting. Either she’s engaged to him—or—” - -He left his sentence unfinished, for at this point Katharine herself -appeared. With his recollections of the scene the night before, he was -too self-conscious even to look at her, and it was not until she told -him of her mother’s visit to Stratford-on-Avon that he raised his eyes. -It was clear that he was greatly relieved. He looked round him now, as -if he felt at his ease, and Cassandra exclaimed: - -“Don’t you think everything looks quite different?” - -“You’ve moved the sofa?” he asked. - -“No. Nothing’s been touched,” said Katharine. “Everything’s exactly the -same.” But as she said this, with a decision which seemed to make it -imply that more than the sofa was unchanged, she held out a cup into -which she had forgotten to pour any tea. Being told of her -forgetfulness, she frowned with annoyance, and said that Cassandra was -demoralizing her. The glance she cast upon them, and the resolute way -in which she plunged them into speech, made William and Cassandra feel -like children who had been caught prying. They followed her obediently, -making conversation. Any one coming in might have judged them -acquaintances met, perhaps, for the third time. If that were so, one -must have concluded that the hostess suddenly bethought her of an -engagement pressing for fulfilment. First Katharine looked at her -watch, and then she asked William to tell her the right time. When told -that it was ten minutes to five she rose at once, and said: - -“Then I’m afraid I must go.” - -She left the room, holding her unfinished bread and butter in her hand. -William glanced at Cassandra. - -“Well, she IS queer!” Cassandra exclaimed. - -William looked perturbed. He knew more of Katharine than Cassandra did, -but even he could not tell—. In a second Katharine was back again -dressed in outdoor things, still holding her bread and butter in her -bare hand. - -“If I’m late, don’t wait for me,” she said. “I shall have dined,” and -so saying, she left them. - -“But she can’t—” William exclaimed, as the door shut, “not without any -gloves and bread and butter in her hand!” They ran to the window, and -saw her walking rapidly along the street towards the City. Then she -vanished. - -“She must have gone to meet Mr. Denham,” Cassandra exclaimed. - -“Goodness knows!” William interjected. - -The incident impressed them both as having something queer and ominous -about it out of all proportion to its surface strangeness. - -“It’s the sort of way Aunt Maggie behaves,” said Cassandra, as if in -explanation. - -William shook his head, and paced up and down the room looking -extremely perturbed. - -“This is what I’ve been foretelling,” he burst out. “Once set the -ordinary conventions aside—Thank Heaven Mrs. Hilbery is away. But -there’s Mr. Hilbery. How are we to explain it to him? I shall have to -leave you.” - -“But Uncle Trevor won’t be back for hours, William!” Cassandra -implored. - -“You never can tell. He may be on his way already. Or suppose Mrs. -Milvain—your Aunt Celia—or Mrs. Cosham, or any other of your aunts or -uncles should be shown in and find us alone together. You know what -they’re saying about us already.” - -Cassandra was equally stricken by the sight of William’s agitation, and -appalled by the prospect of his desertion. - -“We might hide,” she exclaimed wildly, glancing at the curtain which -separated the room with the relics. - -“I refuse entirely to get under the table,” said William sarcastically. - -She saw that he was losing his temper with the difficulties of the -situation. Her instinct told her that an appeal to his affection, at -this moment, would be extremely ill-judged. She controlled herself, sat -down, poured out a fresh cup of tea, and sipped it quietly. This -natural action, arguing complete self-mastery, and showing her in one -of those feminine attitudes which William found adorable, did more than -any argument to compose his agitation. It appealed to his chivalry. He -accepted a cup. Next she asked for a slice of cake. By the time the -cake was eaten and the tea drunk the personal question had lapsed, and -they were discussing poetry. Insensibly they turned from the question -of dramatic poetry in general, to the particular example which reposed -in William’s pocket, and when the maid came in to clear away the -tea-things, William had asked permission to read a short passage aloud, -“unless it bored her?” - -Cassandra bent her head in silence, but she showed a little of what she -felt in her eyes, and thus fortified, William felt confident that it -would take more than Mrs. Milvain herself to rout him from his -position. He read aloud. - -Meanwhile Katharine walked rapidly along the street. If called upon to -explain her impulsive action in leaving the tea-table, she could have -traced it to no better cause than that William had glanced at -Cassandra; Cassandra at William. Yet, because they had glanced, her -position was impossible. If one forgot to pour out a cup of tea they -rushed to the conclusion that she was engaged to Ralph Denham. She knew -that in half an hour or so the door would open, and Ralph Denham would -appear. She could not sit there and contemplate seeing him with -William’s and Cassandra’s eyes upon them, judging their exact degree of -intimacy, so that they might fix the wedding-day. She promptly decided -that she would meet Ralph out of doors; she still had time to reach -Lincoln’s Inn Fields before he left his office. She hailed a cab, and -bade it take her to a shop for selling maps which she remembered in -Great Queen Street, since she hardly liked to be set down at his door. -Arrived at the shop, she bought a large scale map of Norfolk, and thus -provided, hurried into Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and assured herself of the -position of Messrs. Hoper and Grateley’s office. The great gas -chandeliers were alight in the office windows. She conceived that he -sat at an enormous table laden with papers beneath one of them in the -front room with the three tall windows. Having settled his position -there, she began walking to and fro upon the pavement. Nobody of his -build appeared. She scrutinized each male figure as it approached and -passed her. Each male figure had, nevertheless, a look of him, due, -perhaps, to the professional dress, the quick step, the keen glance -which they cast upon her as they hastened home after the day’s work. -The square itself, with its immense houses all so fully occupied and -stern of aspect, its atmosphere of industry and power, as if even the -sparrows and the children were earning their daily bread, as if the sky -itself, with its gray and scarlet clouds, reflected the serious -intention of the city beneath it, spoke of him. Here was the fit place -for their meeting, she thought; here was the fit place for her to walk -thinking of him. She could not help comparing it with the domestic -streets of Chelsea. With this comparison in her mind, she extended her -range a little, and turned into the main road. The great torrent of -vans and carts was sweeping down Kingsway; pedestrians were streaming -in two currents along the pavements. She stood fascinated at the -corner. The deep roar filled her ears; the changing tumult had the -inexpressible fascination of varied life pouring ceaselessly with a -purpose which, as she looked, seemed to her, somehow, the normal -purpose for which life was framed; its complete indifference to the -individuals, whom it swallowed up and rolled onwards, filled her with -at least a temporary exaltation. The blend of daylight and of lamplight -made her an invisible spectator, just as it gave the people who passed -her a semi-transparent quality, and left the faces pale ivory ovals in -which the eyes alone were dark. They tended the enormous rush of the -current—the great flow, the deep stream, the unquenchable tide. She -stood unobserved and absorbed, glorying openly in the rapture that had -run subterraneously all day. Suddenly she was clutched, unwilling, from -the outside, by the recollection of her purpose in coming there. She -had come to find Ralph Denham. She hastily turned back into Lincoln’s -Inn Fields, and looked for her landmark—the light in the three tall -windows. She sought in vain. The faces of the houses had now merged in -the general darkness, and she had difficulty in determining which she -sought. Ralph’s three windows gave back on their ghostly glass panels -only a reflection of the gray and greenish sky. She rang the bell, -peremptorily, under the painted name of the firm. After some delay she -was answered by a caretaker, whose pail and brush of themselves told -her that the working day was over and the workers gone. Nobody, save -perhaps Mr. Grateley himself, was left, she assured Katharine; every -one else had been gone these ten minutes. - -The news woke Katharine completely. Anxiety gained upon her. She -hastened back into Kingsway, looking at people who had miraculously -regained their solidity. She ran as far as the Tube station, -overhauling clerk after clerk, solicitor after solicitor. Not one of -them even faintly resembled Ralph Denham. More and more plainly did she -see him; and more and more did he seem to her unlike any one else. At -the door of the station she paused, and tried to collect her thoughts. -He had gone to her house. By taking a cab she could be there probably -in advance of him. But she pictured herself opening the drawing-room -door, and William and Cassandra looking up, and Ralph’s entrance a -moment later, and the glances—the insinuations. No; she could not face -it. She would write him a letter and take it at once to his house. She -bought paper and pencil at the bookstall, and entered an A.B.C. shop, -where, by ordering a cup of coffee, she secured an empty table, and -began at vice to write: - -“I came to meet you and I have missed you. I could not face William and -Cassandra. They want us—” here she paused. “They insist that we are -engaged,” she substituted, “and we couldn’t talk at all, or explain -anything. I want—” Her wants were so vast, now that she was in -communication with Ralph, that the pencil was utterly inadequate to -conduct them on to the paper; it seemed as if the whole torrent of -Kingsway had to run down her pencil. She gazed intently at a notice -hanging on the gold-encrusted wall opposite, “... to say all kinds of -things,” she added, writing each word with the painstaking of a child. -But, when she raised her eyes again to meditate the next sentence, she -was aware of a waitress, whose expression intimated that it was closing -time, and, looking round, Katharine saw herself almost the last person -left in the shop. She took up her letter, paid her bill, and found -herself once more in the street. She would now take a cab to Highgate. -But at that moment it flashed upon her that she could not remember the -address. This check seemed to let fall a barrier across a very powerful -current of desire. She ransacked her memory in desperation, hunting for -the name, first by remembering the look of the house, and then by -trying, in memory, to retrace the words she had written once, at least, -upon an envelope. The more she pressed the farther the words receded. -Was the house an Orchard Something, on the street a Hill? She gave it -up. Never, since she was a child, had she felt anything like this -blankness and desolation. There rushed in upon her, as if she were -waking from some dream, all the consequences of her inexplicable -indolence. She figured Ralph’s face as he turned from her door without -a word of explanation, receiving his dismissal as a blow from herself, -a callous intimation that she did not wish to see him. She followed his -departure from her door; but it was far more easy to see him marching -far and fast in any direction for any length of time than to conceive -that he would turn back to Highgate. Perhaps he would try once more to -see her in Cheyne Walk? It was proof of the clearness with which she -saw him, that she started forward as this possibility occurred to her, -and almost raised her hand to beckon to a cab. No; he was too proud to -come again; he rejected the desire and walked on and on, on and on—If -only she could read the names of those visionary streets down which he -passed! But her imagination betrayed her at this point, or mocked her -with a sense of their strangeness, darkness, and distance. Indeed, -instead of helping herself to any decision, she only filled her mind -with the vast extent of London and the impossibility of finding any -single figure that wandered off this way and that way, turned to the -right and to the left, chose that dingy little back street where the -children were playing in the road, and so—She roused herself -impatiently. She walked rapidly along Holborn. Soon she turned and -walked as rapidly in the other direction. This indecision was not -merely odious, but had something that alarmed her about it, as she had -been alarmed slightly once or twice already that day; she felt unable -to cope with the strength of her own desires. To a person controlled by -habit, there was humiliation as well as alarm in this sudden release of -what appeared to be a very powerful as well as an unreasonable force. -An aching in the muscles of her right hand now showed her that she was -crushing her gloves and the map of Norfolk in a grip sufficient to -crack a more solid object. She relaxed her grasp; she looked anxiously -at the faces of the passers-by to see whether their eyes rested on her -for a moment longer than was natural, or with any curiosity. But having -smoothed out her gloves, and done what she could to look as usual, she -forgot spectators, and was once more given up to her desperate desire -to find Ralph Denham. It was a desire now—wild, irrational, -unexplained, resembling something felt in childhood. Once more she -blamed herself bitterly for her carelessness. But finding herself -opposite the Tube station, she pulled herself up and took counsel -swiftly, as of old. It flashed upon her that she would go at once to -Mary Datchet, and ask her to give her Ralph’s address. The decision was -a relief, not only in giving her a goal, but in providing her with a -rational excuse for her own actions. It gave her a goal certainly, but -the fact of having a goal led her to dwell exclusively upon her -obsession; so that when she rang the bell of Mary’s flat, she did not -for a moment consider how this demand would strike Mary. To her extreme -annoyance Mary was not at home; a charwoman opened the door. All -Katharine could do was to accept the invitation to wait. She waited -for, perhaps, fifteen minutes, and spent them in pacing from one end of -the room to the other without intermission. When she heard Mary’s key -in the door she paused in front of the fireplace, and Mary found her -standing upright, looking at once expectant and determined, like a -person who has come on an errand of such importance that it must be -broached without preface. - -Mary exclaimed in surprise. - -“Yes, yes,” Katharine said, brushing these remarks aside, as if they -were in the way. - -“Have you had tea?” - -“Oh yes,” she said, thinking that she had had tea hundreds of years -ago, somewhere or other. - -Mary paused, took off her gloves, and, finding matches, proceeded to -light the fire. - -Katharine checked her with an impatient movement, and said: - -“Don’t light the fire for me.... I want to know Ralph Denham’s -address.” - -She was holding a pencil and preparing to write on the envelope. She -waited with an imperious expression. - -“The Apple Orchard, Mount Ararat Road, Highgate,” Mary said, speaking -slowly and rather strangely. - -“Oh, I remember now!” Katharine exclaimed, with irritation at her own -stupidity. “I suppose it wouldn’t take twenty minutes to drive there?” -She gathered up her purse and gloves and seemed about to go. - -“But you won’t find him,” said Mary, pausing with a match in her hand. -Katharine, who had already turned towards the door, stopped and looked -at her. - -“Why? Where is he?” she asked. - -“He won’t have left his office.” - -“But he has left the office,” she replied. “The only question is will -he have reached home yet? He went to see me at Chelsea; I tried to meet -him and missed him. He will have found no message to explain. So I must -find him—as soon as possible.” - -Mary took in the situation at her leisure. - -“But why not telephone?” she said. - -Katharine immediately dropped all that she was holding; her strained -expression relaxed, and exclaiming, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of -that!” she seized the telephone receiver and gave her number. Mary -looked at her steadily, and then left the room. At length Katharine -heard, through all the superimposed weight of London, the mysterious -sound of feet in her own house mounting to the little room, where she -could almost see the pictures and the books; she listened with extreme -intentness to the preparatory vibrations, and then established her -identity. - -“Has Mr. Denham called?” - -“Yes, miss.” - -“Did he ask for me?” - -“Yes. We said you were out, miss.” - -“Did he leave any message?” - -“No. He went away. About twenty minutes ago, miss.” - -Katharine hung up the receiver. She walked the length of the room in -such acute disappointment that she did not at first perceive Mary’s -absence. Then she called in a harsh and peremptory tone: - -“Mary.” - -Mary was taking off her outdoor things in the bedroom. She heard -Katharine call her. “Yes,” she said, “I shan’t be a moment.” But the -moment prolonged itself, as if for some reason Mary found satisfaction -in making herself not only tidy, but seemly and ornamented. A stage in -her life had been accomplished in the last months which left its traces -for ever upon her bearing. Youth, and the bloom of youth, had receded, -leaving the purpose of her face to show itself in the hollower cheeks, -the firmer lips, the eyes no longer spontaneously observing at random, -but narrowed upon an end which was not near at hand. This woman was now -a serviceable human being, mistress of her own destiny, and thus, by -some combination of ideas, fit to be adorned with the dignity of silver -chains and glowing brooches. She came in at her leisure and asked: -“Well, did you get an answer?” - -“He has left Chelsea already,” Katharine replied. - -“Still, he won’t be home yet,” said Mary. - -Katharine was once more irresistibly drawn to gaze upon an imaginary -map of London, to follow the twists and turns of unnamed streets. - -“I’ll ring up his home and ask whether he’s back.” Mary crossed to the -telephone and, after a series of brief remarks, announced: - -“No. His sister says he hasn’t come back yet.” - -“Ah!” She applied her ear to the telephone once more. “They’ve had a -message. He won’t be back to dinner.” - -“Then what is he going to do?” - -Very pale, and with her large eyes fixed not so much upon Mary as upon -vistas of unresponding blankness, Katharine addressed herself also not -so much to Mary as to the unrelenting spirit which now appeared to mock -her from every quarter of her survey. - -After waiting a little time Mary remarked indifferently: - -“I really don’t know.” Slackly lying back in her armchair, she watched -the little flames beginning to creep among the coals indifferently, as -if they, too, were very distant and indifferent. - -Katharine looked at her indignantly and rose. - -“Possibly he may come here,” Mary continued, without altering the -abstract tone of her voice. “It would be worth your while to wait if -you want to see him to-night.” She bent forward and touched the wood, -so that the flames slipped in between the interstices of the coal. - -Katharine reflected. “I’ll wait half an hour,” she said. - -Mary rose, went to the table, spread out her papers under the -green-shaded lamp and, with an action that was becoming a habit, -twisted a lock of hair round and round in her fingers. Once she looked -unperceived at her visitor, who never moved, who sat so still, with -eyes so intent, that you could almost fancy that she was watching -something, some face that never looked up at her. Mary found herself -unable to go on writing. She turned her eyes away, but only to be aware -of the presence of what Katharine looked at. There were ghosts in the -room, and one, strangely and sadly, was the ghost of herself. The -minutes went by. - -“What would be the time now?” said Katharine at last. The half-hour was -not quite spent. - -“I’m going to get dinner ready,” said Mary, rising from her table. - -“Then I’ll go,” said Katharine. - -“Why don’t you stay? Where are you going?” - -Katharine looked round the room, conveying her uncertainty in her -glance. - -“Perhaps I might find him,” she mused. - -“But why should it matter? You’ll see him another day.” - -Mary spoke, and intended to speak, cruelly enough. - -“I was wrong to come here,” Katharine replied. - -Their eyes met with antagonism, and neither flinched. - -“You had a perfect right to come here,” Mary answered. - -A loud knocking at the door interrupted them. Mary went to open it, and -returning with some note or parcel, Katharine looked away so that Mary -might not read her disappointment. - -“Of course you had a right to come,” Mary repeated, laying the note -upon the table. - -“No,” said Katharine. “Except that when one’s desperate one has a sort -of right. I am desperate. How do I know what’s happening to him now? He -may do anything. He may wander about the streets all night. Anything -may happen to him.” - -She spoke with a self-abandonment that Mary had never seen in her. - -“You know you exaggerate; you’re talking nonsense,” she said roughly. - -“Mary, I must talk—I must tell you—” - -“You needn’t tell me anything,” Mary interrupted her. “Can’t I see for -myself?” - -“No, no,” Katharine exclaimed. “It’s not that—” - -Her look, passing beyond Mary, beyond the verge of the room and out -beyond any words that came her way, wildly and passionately, convinced -Mary that she, at any rate, could not follow such a glance to its end. -She was baffled; she tried to think herself back again into the height -of her love for Ralph. Pressing her fingers upon her eyelids, she -murmured: - -“You forget that I loved him too. I thought I knew him. I _did_ know -him.” - -And yet, what had she known? She could not remember it any more. She -pressed her eyeballs until they struck stars and suns into her -darkness. She convinced herself that she was stirring among ashes. She -desisted. She was astonished at her discovery. She did not love Ralph -any more. She looked back dazed into the room, and her eyes rested upon -the table with its lamp-lit papers. The steady radiance seemed for a -second to have its counterpart within her; she shut her eyes; she -opened them and looked at the lamp again; another love burnt in the -place of the old one, or so, in a momentary glance of amazement, she -guessed before the revelation was over and the old surroundings -asserted themselves. She leant in silence against the mantelpiece. - -“There are different ways of loving,” she murmured, half to herself, at -length. - -Katharine made no reply and seemed unaware of her words. She seemed -absorbed in her own thoughts. - -“Perhaps he’s waiting in the street again to-night,” she exclaimed. -“I’ll go now. I might find him.” - -“It’s far more likely that he’ll come here,” said Mary, and Katharine, -after considering for a moment, said: - -“I’ll wait another half-hour.” - -She sank down into her chair again, and took up the same position which -Mary had compared to the position of one watching an unseeing face. She -watched, indeed, not a face, but a procession, not of people, but of -life itself: the good and bad; the meaning; the past, the present, and -the future. All this seemed apparent to her, and she was not ashamed of -her extravagance so much as exalted to one of the pinnacles of -existence, where it behoved the world to do her homage. No one but she -herself knew what it meant to miss Ralph Denham on that particular -night; into this inadequate event crowded feelings that the great -crises of life might have failed to call forth. She had missed him, and -knew the bitterness of all failure; she desired him, and knew the -torment of all passion. It did not matter what trivial accidents led to -this culmination. Nor did she care how extravagant she appeared, nor -how openly she showed her feelings. - -When the dinner was ready Mary told her to come, and she came -submissively, as if she let Mary direct her movements for her. They ate -and drank together almost in silence, and when Mary told her to eat -more, she ate more; when she was told to drink wine, she drank it. -Nevertheless, beneath this superficial obedience, Mary knew that she -was following her own thoughts unhindered. She was not inattentive so -much as remote; she looked at once so unseeing and so intent upon some -vision of her own that Mary gradually felt more than protective—she -became actually alarmed at the prospect of some collision between -Katharine and the forces of the outside world. Directly they had done, -Katharine announced her intention of going. - -“But where are you going to?” Mary asked, desiring vaguely to hinder -her. - -“Oh, I’m going home—no, to Highgate perhaps.” - -Mary saw that it would be useless to try to stop her. All she could do -was to insist upon coming too, but she met with no opposition; -Katharine seemed indifferent to her presence. In a few minutes they -were walking along the Strand. They walked so rapidly that Mary was -deluded into the belief that Katharine knew where she was going. She -herself was not attentive. She was glad of the movement along lamp-lit -streets in the open air. She was fingering, painfully and with fear, -yet with strange hope, too, the discovery which she had stumbled upon -unexpectedly that night. She was free once more at the cost of a gift, -the best, perhaps, that she could offer, but she was, thank Heaven, in -love no longer. She was tempted to spend the first instalment of her -freedom in some dissipation; in the pit of the Coliseum, for example, -since they were now passing the door. Why not go in and celebrate her -independence of the tyranny of love? Or, perhaps, the top of an omnibus -bound for some remote place such as Camberwell, or Sidcup, or the Welsh -Harp would suit her better. She noticed these names painted on little -boards for the first time for weeks. Or should she return to her room, -and spend the night working out the details of a very enlightened and -ingenious scheme? Of all possibilities this appealed to her most, and -brought to mind the fire, the lamplight, the steady glow which had -seemed lit in the place where a more passionate flame had once burnt. - -Now Katharine stopped, and Mary woke to the fact that instead of having -a goal she had evidently none. She paused at the edge of the crossing, -and looked this way and that, and finally made as if in the direction -of Haverstock Hill. - -“Look here—where are you going?” Mary cried, catching her by the hand. -“We must take that cab and go home.” She hailed a cab and insisted that -Katharine should get in, while she directed the driver to take them to -Cheyne Walk. - -Katharine submitted. “Very well,” she said. “We may as well go there as -anywhere else.” - -A gloom seemed to have fallen on her. She lay back in her corner, -silent and apparently exhausted. Mary, in spite of her own -preoccupation, was struck by her pallor and her attitude of dejection. - -“I’m sure we shall find him,” she said more gently than she had yet -spoken. - -“It may be too late,” Katharine replied. Without understanding her, -Mary began to pity her for what she was suffering. - -“Nonsense,” she said, taking her hand and rubbing it. “If we don’t find -him there we shall find him somewhere else.” - -“But suppose he’s walking about the streets—for hours and hours?” - -She leant forward and looked out of the window. - -“He may refuse ever to speak to me again,” she said in a low voice, -almost to herself. - -The exaggeration was so immense that Mary did not attempt to cope with -it, save by keeping hold of Katharine’s wrist. She half expected that -Katharine might open the door suddenly and jump out. Perhaps Katharine -perceived the purpose with which her hand was held. - -“Don’t be frightened,” she said, with a little laugh. “I’m not going to -jump out of the cab. It wouldn’t do much good after all.” - -Upon this, Mary ostentatiously withdrew her hand. - -“I ought to have apologized,” Katharine continued, with an effort, “for -bringing you into all this business; I haven’t told you half, either. -I’m no longer engaged to William Rodney. He is to marry Cassandra -Otway. It’s all arranged—all perfectly right.... And after he’d waited -in the streets for hours and hours, William made me bring him in. He -was standing under the lamp-post watching our windows. He was perfectly -white when he came into the room. William left us alone, and we sat and -talked. It seems ages and ages ago, now. Was it last night? Have I been -out long? What’s the time?” She sprang forward to catch sight of a -clock, as if the exact time had some important bearing on her case. - -“Only half-past eight!” she exclaimed. “Then he may be there still.” -She leant out of the window and told the cabman to drive faster. - -“But if he’s not there, what shall I do? Where could I find him? The -streets are so crowded.” - -“We shall find him,” Mary repeated. - -Mary had no doubt but that somehow or other they would find him. But -suppose they did find him? She began to think of Ralph with a sort of -strangeness, in her effort to understand how he could be capable of -satisfying this extraordinary desire. Once more she thought herself -back to her old view of him and could, with an effort, recall the haze -which surrounded his figure, and the sense of confused, heightened -exhilaration which lay all about his neighborhood, so that for months -at a time she had never exactly heard his voice or seen his face—or so -it now seemed to her. The pain of her loss shot through her. Nothing -would ever make up—not success, or happiness, or oblivion. But this -pang was immediately followed by the assurance that now, at any rate, -she knew the truth; and Katharine, she thought, stealing a look at her, -did not know the truth; yes, Katharine was immensely to be pitied. - -The cab, which had been caught in the traffic, was now liberated and -sped on down Sloane Street. Mary was conscious of the tension with -which Katharine marked its progress, as if her mind were fixed upon a -point in front of them, and marked, second by second, their approach to -it. She said nothing, and in silence Mary began to fix her mind, in -sympathy at first, and later in forgetfulness of her companion, upon a -point in front of them. She imagined a point distant as a low star upon -the horizon of the dark. There for her too, for them both, was the goal -for which they were striving, and the end for the ardors of their -spirits was the same: but where it was, or what it was, or why she felt -convinced that they were united in search of it, as they drove swiftly -down the streets of London side by side, she could not have said. - -“At last,” Katharine breathed, as the cab drew up at the door. She -jumped out and scanned the pavement on either side. Mary, meanwhile, -rang the bell. The door opened as Katharine assured herself that no one -of the people within view had any likeness to Ralph. On seeing her, the -maid said at once: - -“Mr. Denham called again, miss. He has been waiting for you for some -time.” - -Katharine vanished from Mary’s sight. The door shut between them, and -Mary walked slowly and thoughtfully up the street alone. - -Katharine turned at once to the dining-room. But with her fingers upon -the handle, she held back. Perhaps she realized that this was a moment -which would never come again. Perhaps, for a second, it seemed to her -that no reality could equal the imagination she had formed. Perhaps she -was restrained by some vague fear or anticipation, which made her dread -any exchange or interruption. But if these doubts and fears or this -supreme bliss restrained her, it was only for a moment. In another -second she had turned the handle and, biting her lip to control -herself, she opened the door upon Ralph Denham. An extraordinary -clearness of sight seemed to possess her on beholding him. So little, -so single, so separate from all else he appeared, who had been the -cause of these extreme agitations and aspirations. She could have -laughed in his face. But, gaining upon this clearness of sight against -her will, and to her dislike, was a flood of confusion, of relief, of -certainty, of humility, of desire no longer to strive and to -discriminate, yielding to which, she let herself sink within his arms -and confessed her love. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - - -Nobody asked Katharine any questions next day. If cross-examined she -might have said that nobody spoke to her. She worked a little, wrote a -little, ordered the dinner, and sat, for longer than she knew, with her -head on her hand piercing whatever lay before her, whether it was a -letter or a dictionary, as if it were a film upon the deep prospects -that revealed themselves to her kindling and brooding eyes. She rose -once, and going to the bookcase, took out her father’s Greek dictionary -and spread the sacred pages of symbols and figures before her. She -smoothed the sheets with a mixture of affectionate amusement and hope. -Would other eyes look on them with her one day? The thought, long -intolerable, was now just bearable. - -She was quite unaware of the anxiety with which her movements were -watched and her expression scanned. Cassandra was careful not to be -caught looking at her, and their conversation was so prosaic that were -it not for certain jolts and jerks between the sentences, as if the -mind were kept with difficulty to the rails, Mrs. Milvain herself could -have detected nothing of a suspicious nature in what she overheard. - -William, when he came in late that afternoon and found Cassandra alone, -had a very serious piece of news to impart. He had just passed -Katharine in the street and she had failed to recognize him. - -“That doesn’t matter with me, of course, but suppose it happened with -somebody else? What would they think? They would suspect something -merely from her expression. She looked—she looked”—he hesitated—“like -some one walking in her sleep.” - -To Cassandra the significant thing was that Katharine had gone out -without telling her, and she interpreted this to mean that she had gone -out to meet Ralph Denham. But to her surprise William drew no comfort -from this probability. - -“Once throw conventions aside,” he began, “once do the things that -people don’t do—” and the fact that you are going to meet a young man -is no longer proof of anything, except, indeed, that people will talk. - -Cassandra saw, not without a pang of jealousy, that he was extremely -solicitous that people should not talk about Katharine, as if his -interest in her were still proprietary rather than friendly. As they -were both ignorant of Ralph’s visit the night before they had not that -reason to comfort themselves with the thought that matters were -hastening to a crisis. These absences of Katharine’s, moreover, left -them exposed to interruptions which almost destroyed their pleasure in -being alone together. The rainy evening made it impossible to go out; -and, indeed, according to William’s code, it was considerably more -damning to be seen out of doors than surprised within. They were so -much at the mercy of bells and doors that they could hardly talk of -Macaulay with any conviction, and William preferred to defer the second -act of his tragedy until another day. - -Under these circumstances Cassandra showed herself at her best. She -sympathized with William’s anxieties and did her utmost to share them; -but still, to be alone together, to be running risks together, to be -partners in the wonderful conspiracy, was to her so enthralling that -she was always forgetting discretion, breaking out into exclamations -and admirations which finally made William believe that, although -deplorable and upsetting, the situation was not without its sweetness. - -When the door did open, he started, but braved the forthcoming -revelation. It was not Mrs. Milvain, however, but Katharine herself who -entered, closely followed by Ralph Denham. With a set expression which -showed what an effort she was making, Katharine encountered their eyes, -and saying, “We’re not going to interrupt you,” she led Denham behind -the curtain which hung in front of the room with the relics. This -refuge was none of her willing, but confronted with wet pavements and -only some belated museum or Tube station for shelter, she was forced, -for Ralph’s sake, to face the discomforts of her own house. Under the -street lamps she had thought him looking both tired and strained. - -Thus separated, the two couples remained occupied for some time with -their own affairs. Only the lowest murmurs penetrated from one section -of the room to the other. At length the maid came in to bring a message -that Mr. Hilbery would not be home for dinner. It was true that there -was no need that Katharine should be informed, but William began to -inquire Cassandra’s opinion in such a way as to show that, with or -without reason, he wished very much to speak to her. - -From motives of her own Cassandra dissuaded him. - -“But don’t you think it’s a little unsociable?” he hazarded. “Why not -do something amusing?—go to the play, for instance? Why not ask -Katharine and Ralph, eh?” The coupling of their names in this manner -caused Cassandra’s heart to leap with pleasure. - -“Don’t you think they must be—?” she began, but William hastily took -her up. - -“Oh, I know nothing about that. I only thought we might amuse -ourselves, as your uncle’s out.” - -He proceeded on his embassy with a mixture of excitement and -embarrassment which caused him to turn aside with his hand on the -curtain, and to examine intently for several moments the portrait of a -lady, optimistically said by Mrs. Hilbery to be an early work of Sir -Joshua Reynolds. Then, with some unnecessary fumbling, he drew aside -the curtain, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground, repeated his -message and suggested that they should all spend the evening at the -play. Katharine accepted the suggestion with such cordiality that it -was strange to find her of no clear mind as to the precise spectacle -she wished to see. She left the choice entirely to Ralph and William, -who, taking counsel fraternally over an evening paper, found themselves -in agreement as to the merits of a music-hall. This being arranged, -everything else followed easily and enthusiastically. Cassandra had -never been to a music-hall. Katharine instructed her in the peculiar -delights of an entertainment where Polar bears follow directly upon -ladies in full evening dress, and the stage is alternately a garden of -mystery, a milliner’s band-box, and a fried-fish shop in the Mile End -Road. Whatever the exact nature of the program that night, it fulfilled -the highest purposes of dramatic art, so far, at least, as four of the -audience were concerned. - -No doubt the actors and the authors would have been surprised to learn -in what shape their efforts reached those particular eyes and ears; but -they could not have denied that the effect as a whole was tremendous. -The hall resounded with brass and strings, alternately of enormous pomp -and majesty, and then of sweetest lamentation. The reds and creams of -the background, the lyres and harps and urns and skulls, the -protuberances of plaster, the fringes of scarlet plush, the sinking and -blazing of innumerable electric lights, could scarcely have been -surpassed for decorative effect by any craftsman of the ancient or -modern world. - -Then there was the audience itself, bare-shouldered, tufted and -garlanded in the stalls, decorous but festal in the balconies, and -frankly fit for daylight and street life in the galleries. But, however -they differed when looked at separately, they shared the same huge, -lovable nature in the bulk, which murmured and swayed and quivered all -the time the dancing and juggling and love-making went on in front of -it, slowly laughed and reluctantly left off laughing, and applauded -with a helter-skelter generosity which sometimes became unanimous and -overwhelming. Once William saw Katharine leaning forward and clapping -her hands with an abandonment that startled him. Her laugh rang out -with the laughter of the audience. - -For a second he was puzzled, as if this laughter disclosed something -that he had never suspected in her. But then Cassandra’s face caught -his eye, gazing with astonishment at the buffoon, not laughing, too -deeply intent and surprised to laugh at what she saw, and for some -moments he watched her as if she were a child. - -The performance came to an end, the illusion dying out first here and -then there, as some rose to put on their coats, others stood upright to -salute “God Save the King,” the musicians folded their music and -encased their instruments, and the lights sank one by one until the -house was empty, silent, and full of great shadows. Looking back over -her shoulder as she followed Ralph through the swing doors, Cassandra -marveled to see how the stage was already entirely without romance. -But, she wondered, did they really cover all the seats in brown holland -every night? - -The success of this entertainment was such that before they separated -another expedition had been planned for the next day. The next day was -Saturday; therefore both William and Ralph were free to devote the -whole afternoon to an expedition to Greenwich, which Cassandra had -never seen, and Katharine confused with Dulwich. On this occasion Ralph -was their guide. He brought them without accident to Greenwich. - -What exigencies of state or fantasies of imagination first gave birth -to the cluster of pleasant places by which London is surrounded is -matter of indifference now that they have adapted themselves so -admirably to the needs of people between the ages of twenty and thirty -with Saturday afternoons to spend. Indeed, if ghosts have any interest -in the affections of those who succeed them they must reap their -richest harvests when the fine weather comes again and the lovers, the -sightseers, and the holiday-makers pour themselves out of trains and -omnibuses into their old pleasure-grounds. It is true that they go, for -the most part, unthanked by name, although upon this occasion William -was ready to give such discriminating praise as the dead architects and -painters received seldom in the course of the year. They were walking -by the river bank, and Katharine and Ralph, lagging a little behind, -caught fragments of his lecture. Katharine smiled at the sound of his -voice; she listened as if she found it a little unfamiliar, intimately -though she knew it; she tested it. The note of assurance and happiness -was new. William was very happy. She learnt every hour what sources of -his happiness she had neglected. She had never asked him to teach her -anything; she had never consented to read Macaulay; she had never -expressed her belief that his play was second only to the works of -Shakespeare. She followed dreamily in their wake, smiling and -delighting in the sound which conveyed, she knew, the rapturous and yet -not servile assent of Cassandra. - -Then she murmured, “How can Cassandra—” but changed her sentence to the -opposite of what she meant to say and ended, “how could she herself -have been so blind?” But it was unnecessary to follow out such riddles -when the presence of Ralph supplied her with more interesting problems, -which somehow became involved with the little boat crossing the river, -the majestic and careworn City, and the steamers homecoming with their -treasury, or starting in search of it, so that infinite leisure would -be necessary for the proper disentanglement of one from the other. He -stopped, moreover, and began inquiring of an old boatman as to the -tides and the ships. In thus talking he seemed different, and even -looked different, she thought, against the river, with the steeples and -towers for background. His strangeness, his romance, his power to leave -her side and take part in the affairs of men, the possibility that they -should together hire a boat and cross the river, the speed and wildness -of this enterprise filled her mind and inspired her with such rapture, -half of love and half of adventure, that William and Cassandra were -startled from their talk, and Cassandra exclaimed, “She looks as if she -were offering up a sacrifice! Very beautiful,” she added quickly, -though she repressed, in deference to William, her own wonder that the -sight of Ralph Denham talking to a boatman on the banks of the Thames -could move any one to such an attitude of adoration. - -That afternoon, what with tea and the curiosities of the Thames tunnel -and the unfamiliarity of the streets, passed so quickly that the only -method of prolonging it was to plan another expedition for the -following day. Hampton Court was decided upon, in preference to -Hampstead, for though Cassandra had dreamt as a child of the brigands -of Hampstead, she had now transferred her affections completely and for -ever to William III. Accordingly, they arrived at Hampton Court about -lunch-time on a fine Sunday morning. Such unity marked their -expressions of admiration for the red-brick building that they might -have come there for no other purpose than to assure each other that -this palace was the stateliest palace in the world. They walked up and -down the Terrace, four abreast, and fancied themselves the owners of -the place, and calculated the amount of good to the world produced -indubitably by such a tenancy. - -“The only hope for us,” said Katharine, “is that William shall die, and -Cassandra shall be given rooms as the widow of a distinguished poet.” - -“Or—” Cassandra began, but checked herself from the liberty of -envisaging Katharine as the widow of a distinguished lawyer. Upon this, -the third day of junketing, it was tiresome to have to restrain oneself -even from such innocent excursions of fancy. She dared not question -William; he was inscrutable; he never seemed even to follow the other -couple with curiosity when they separated, as they frequently did, to -name a plant, or examine a fresco. Cassandra was constantly studying -their backs. She noticed how sometimes the impulse to move came from -Katharine, and sometimes from Ralph; how, sometimes, they walked slow, -as if in profound intercourse, and sometimes fast, as if in passionate. -When they came together again nothing could be more unconcerned than -their manner. - -“We have been wondering whether they ever catch a fish...” or, “We must -leave time to visit the Maze.” Then, to puzzle her further, William and -Ralph filled in all interstices of meal-times or railway journeys with -perfectly good-tempered arguments; or they discussed politics, or they -told stories, or they did sums together upon the backs of old envelopes -to prove something. She suspected that Katharine was absent-minded, but -it was impossible to tell. There were moments when she felt so young -and inexperienced that she almost wished herself back with the -silkworms at Stogdon House, and not embarked upon this bewildering -intrigue. - -These moments, however, were only the necessary shadow or chill which -proved the substance of her bliss, and did not damage the radiance -which seemed to rest equally upon the whole party. The fresh air of -spring, the sky washed of clouds and already shedding warmth from its -blue, seemed the reply vouchsafed by nature to the mood of her chosen -spirits. These chosen spirits were to be found also among the deer, -dumbly basking, and among the fish, set still in mid-stream, for they -were mute sharers in a benignant state not needing any exposition by -the tongue. No words that Cassandra could come by expressed the -stillness, the brightness, the air of expectancy which lay upon the -orderly beauty of the grass walks and gravel paths down which they went -walking four abreast that Sunday afternoon. Silently the shadows of the -trees lay across the broad sunshine; silence wrapt her heart in its -folds. The quivering stillness of the butterfly on the half-opened -flower, the silent grazing of the deer in the sun, were the sights her -eye rested upon and received as the images of her own nature laid open -to happiness and trembling in its ecstasy. - -But the afternoon wore on, and it became time to leave the gardens. As -they drove from Waterloo to Chelsea, Katharine began to have some -compunction about her father, which, together with the opening of -offices and the need of working in them on Monday, made it difficult to -plan another festival for the following day. Mr. Hilbery had taken -their absence, so far, with paternal benevolence, but they could not -trespass upon it indefinitely. Indeed, had they known it, he was -already suffering from their absence, and longing for their return. - -He had no dislike of solitude, and Sunday, in particular, was -pleasantly adapted for letter-writing, paying calls, or a visit to his -club. He was leaving the house on some such suitable expedition towards -tea-time when he found himself stopped on his own doorstep by his -sister, Mrs. Milvain. She should, on hearing that no one was at home, -have withdrawn submissively, but instead she accepted his half-hearted -invitation to come in, and he found himself in the melancholy position -of being forced to order tea for her and sit in the drawing-room while -she drank it. She speedily made it plain that she was only thus -exacting because she had come on a matter of business. He was by no -means exhilarated at the news. - -“Katharine is out this afternoon,” he remarked. “Why not come round -later and discuss it with her—with us both, eh?” - -“My dear Trevor, I have particular reasons for wishing to talk to you -alone.... Where is Katharine?” - -“She’s out with her young man, naturally. Cassandra plays the part of -chaperone very usefully. A charming young woman that—a great favorite -of mine.” He turned his stone between his fingers, and conceived -different methods of leading Celia away from her obsession, which, he -supposed, must have reference to the domestic affairs of Cyril as -usual. - -“With Cassandra,” Mrs. Milvain repeated significantly. “With -Cassandra.” - -“Yes, with Cassandra,” Mr. Hilbery agreed urbanely, pleased at the -diversion. “I think they said they were going to Hampton Court, and I -rather believe they were taking a protege of mine, Ralph Denham, a very -clever fellow, too, to amuse Cassandra. I thought the arrangement very -suitable.” He was prepared to dwell at some length upon this safe -topic, and trusted that Katharine would come in before he had done with -it. - -“Hampton Court always seems to me an ideal spot for engaged couples. -There’s the Maze, there’s a nice place for having tea—I forget what -they call it—and then, if the young man knows his business he contrives -to take his lady upon the river. Full of possibilities—full. Cake, -Celia?” Mr. Hilbery continued. “I respect my dinner too much, but that -can’t possibly apply to you. You’ve never observed that feast, so far -as I can remember.” - -Her brother’s affability did not deceive Mrs. Milvain; it slightly -saddened her; she well knew the cause of it. Blind and infatuated as -usual! - -“Who is this Mr. Denham?” she asked. - -“Ralph Denham?” said Mr. Hilbery, in relief that her mind had taken -this turn. “A very interesting young man. I’ve a great belief in him. -He’s an authority upon our mediaeval institutions, and if he weren’t -forced to earn his living he would write a book that very much wants -writing—” - -“He is not well off, then?” Mrs. Milvain interposed. - -“Hasn’t a penny, I’m afraid, and a family more or less dependent on -him.” - -“A mother and sisters?—His father is dead?” - -“Yes, his father died some years ago,” said Mr. Hilbery, who was -prepared to draw upon his imagination, if necessary, to keep Mrs. -Milvain supplied with facts about the private history of Ralph Denham -since, for some inscrutable reason, the subject took her fancy. - -“His father has been dead some time, and this young man had to take his -place—” - -“A legal family?” Mrs. Milvain inquired. “I fancy I’ve seen the name -somewhere.” - -Mr. Hilbery shook his head. “I should be inclined to doubt whether they -were altogether in that walk of life,” he observed. “I fancy that -Denham once told me that his father was a corn merchant. Perhaps he -said a stockbroker. He came to grief, anyhow, as stockbrokers have a -way of doing. I’ve a great respect for Denham,” he added. The remark -sounded to his ears unfortunately conclusive, and he was afraid that -there was nothing more to be said about Denham. He examined the tips of -his fingers carefully. “Cassandra’s grown into a very charming young -woman,” he started afresh. “Charming to look at, and charming to talk -to, though her historical knowledge is not altogether profound. Another -cup of tea?” - -Mrs. Milvain had given her cup a little push, which seemed to indicate -some momentary displeasure. But she did not want any more tea. - -“It is Cassandra that I have come about,” she began. “I am very sorry -to say that Cassandra is not at all what you think her, Trevor. She has -imposed upon your and Maggie’s goodness. She has behaved in a way that -would have seemed incredible—in this house of all houses—were it not -for other circumstances that are still more incredible.” - -Mr. Hilbery looked taken aback, and was silent for a second. - -“It all sounds very black,” he remarked urbanely, continuing his -examination of his finger-nails. “But I own I am completely in the -dark.” - -Mrs. Milvain became rigid, and emitted her message in little short -sentences of extreme intensity. - -“Who has Cassandra gone out with? William Rodney. Who has Katharine -gone out with? Ralph Denham. Why are they for ever meeting each other -round street corners, and going to music-halls, and taking cabs late at -night? Why will Katharine not tell me the truth when I question her? I -understand the reason now. Katharine has entangled herself with this -unknown lawyer; she has seen fit to condone Cassandra’s conduct.” - -There was another slight pause. - -“Ah, well, Katharine will no doubt have some explanation to give me,” -Mr. Hilbery replied imperturbably. “It’s a little too complicated for -me to take in all at once, I confess—and, if you won’t think me rude, -Celia, I think I’ll be getting along towards Knightsbridge.” - -Mrs. Milvain rose at once. - -“She has condoned Cassandra’s conduct and entangled herself with Ralph -Denham,” she repeated. She stood very erect with the dauntless air of -one testifying to the truth regardless of consequences. She knew from -past discussions that the only way to counter her brother’s indolence -and indifference was to shoot her statements at him in a compressed -form once finally upon leaving the room. Having spoken thus, she -restrained herself from adding another word, and left the house with -the dignity of one inspired by a great ideal. - -She had certainly framed her remarks in such a way as to prevent her -brother from paying his call in the region of Knightsbridge. He had no -fears for Katharine, but there was a suspicion at the back of his mind -that Cassandra might have been, innocently and ignorantly, led into -some foolish situation in one of their unshepherded dissipations. His -wife was an erratic judge of the conventions; he himself was lazy; and -with Katharine absorbed, very naturally—Here he recalled, as well as he -could, the exact nature of the charge. “She has condoned Cassandra’s -conduct and entangled herself with Ralph Denham.” From which it -appeared that Katharine was _not_ absorbed, or which of them was it -that had entangled herself with Ralph Denham? From this maze of -absurdity Mr. Hilbery saw no way out until Katharine herself came to -his help, so that he applied himself, very philosophically on the -whole, to a book. - -No sooner had he heard the young people come in and go upstairs than he -sent a maid to tell Miss Katharine that he wished to speak to her in -the study. She was slipping furs loosely onto the floor in the -drawing-room in front of the fire. They were all gathered round, -reluctant to part. The message from her father surprised Katharine, and -the others caught from her look, as she turned to go, a vague sense of -apprehension. - -Mr. Hilbery was reassured by the sight of her. He congratulated -himself, he prided himself, upon possessing a daughter who had a sense -of responsibility and an understanding of life profound beyond her -years. Moreover, she was looking to-day unusual; he had come to take -her beauty for granted; now he remembered it and was surprised by it. -He thought instinctively that he had interrupted some happy hour of -hers with Rodney, and apologized. - -“I’m sorry to bother you, my dear. I heard you come in, and thought I’d -better make myself disagreeable at once—as it seems, unfortunately, -that fathers are expected to make themselves disagreeable. Now, your -Aunt Celia has been to see me; your Aunt Celia has taken it into her -head apparently that you and Cassandra have been—let us say a little -foolish. This going about together—these pleasant little -parties—there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. I told her I saw no -harm in it, but I should just like to hear from yourself. Has Cassandra -been left a little too much in the company of Mr. Denham?” - -Katharine did not reply at once, and Mr. Hilbery tapped the coal -encouragingly with the poker. Then she said, without embarrassment or -apology: - -“I don’t see why I should answer Aunt Celia’s questions. I’ve told her -already that I won’t.” - -Mr. Hilbery was relieved and secretly amused at the thought of the -interview, although he could not license such irreverence outwardly. - -“Very good. Then you authorize me to tell her that she’s been mistaken, -and there was nothing but a little fun in it? You’ve no doubt, -Katharine, in your own mind? Cassandra is in our charge, and I don’t -intend that people should gossip about her. I suggest that you should -be a little more careful in future. Invite me to your next -entertainment.” - -She did not respond, as he had hoped, with any affectionate or humorous -reply. She meditated, pondering something or other, and he reflected -that even his Katharine did not differ from other women in the capacity -to let things be. Or had she something to say? - -“Have you a guilty conscience?” he inquired lightly. “Tell me, -Katharine,” he said more seriously, struck by something in the -expression of her eyes. - -“I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time,” she said, “I’m not going -to marry William.” - -“You’re not going—!” he exclaimed, dropping the poker in his immense -surprise. “Why? When? Explain yourself, Katharine.” - -“Oh, some time ago—a week, perhaps more.” Katharine spoke hurriedly and -indifferently, as if the matter could no longer concern any one. - -“But may I ask—why have I not been told of this—what do you mean by -it?” - -“We don’t wish to be married—that’s all.” - -“This is William’s wish as well as yours?” - -“Oh, yes. We agree perfectly.” - -Mr. Hilbery had seldom felt more completely at a loss. He thought that -Katharine was treating the matter with curious unconcern; she scarcely -seemed aware of the gravity of what she was saying; he did not -understand the position at all. But his desire to smooth everything -over comfortably came to his relief. No doubt there was some quarrel, -some whimsey on the part of William, who, though a good fellow, was a -little exacting sometimes—something that a woman could put right. But -though he inclined to take the easiest view of his responsibilities, he -cared too much for this daughter to let things be. - -“I confess I find great difficulty in following you. I should like to -hear William’s side of the story,” he said irritably. “I think he ought -to have spoken to me in the first instance.” - -“I wouldn’t let him,” said Katharine. “I know it must seem to you very -strange,” she added. “But I assure you, if you’d wait a little—until -mother comes back.” - -This appeal for delay was much to Mr. Hilbery’s liking. But his -conscience would not suffer it. People were talking. He could not -endure that his daughter’s conduct should be in any way considered -irregular. He wondered whether, in the circumstances, it would be -better to wire to his wife, to send for one of his sisters, to forbid -William the house, to pack Cassandra off home—for he was vaguely -conscious of responsibilities in her direction, too. His forehead was -becoming more and more wrinkled by the multiplicity of his anxieties, -which he was sorely tempted to ask Katharine to solve for him, when the -door opened and William Rodney appeared. This necessitated a complete -change, not only of manner, but of position also. - -“Here’s William,” Katharine exclaimed, in a tone of relief. “I’ve told -father we’re not engaged,” she said to him. “I’ve explained that I -prevented you from telling him.” - -William’s manner was marked by the utmost formality. He bowed very -slightly in the direction of Mr. Hilbery, and stood erect, holding one -lapel of his coat, and gazing into the center of the fire. He waited -for Mr. Hilbery to speak. - -Mr. Hilbery also assumed an appearance of formidable dignity. He had -risen to his feet, and now bent the top part of his body slightly -forward. - -“I should like your account of this affair, Rodney—if Katharine no -longer prevents you from speaking.” - -William waited two seconds at least. - -“Our engagement is at an end,” he said, with the utmost stiffness. - -“Has this been arrived at by your joint desire?” - -After a perceptible pause William bent his head, and Katharine said, as -if by an afterthought: - -“Oh, yes.” - -Mr. Hilbery swayed to and fro, and moved his lips as if to utter -remarks which remained unspoken. - -“I can only suggest that you should postpone any decision until the -effect of this misunderstanding has had time to wear off. You have now -known each other—” he began. - -“There’s been no misunderstanding,” Katharine interposed. “Nothing at -all.” She moved a few paces across the room, as if she intended to -leave them. Her preoccupied naturalness was in strange contrast to her -father’s pomposity and to William’s military rigidity. He had not once -raised his eyes. Katharine’s glance, on the other hand, ranged past the -two gentlemen, along the books, over the tables, towards the door. She -was paying the least possible attention, it seemed, to what was -happening. Her father looked at her with a sudden clouding and -troubling of his expression. Somehow his faith in her stability and -sense was queerly shaken. He no longer felt that he could ultimately -entrust her with the whole conduct of her own affairs after a -superficial show of directing them. He felt, for the first time in many -years, responsible for her. - -“Look here, we must get to the bottom of this,” he said, dropping his -formal manner and addressing Rodney as if Katharine were not present. -“You’ve had some difference of opinion, eh? Take my word for it, most -people go through this sort of thing when they’re engaged. I’ve seen -more trouble come from long engagements than from any other form of -human folly. Take my advice and put the whole matter out of your -minds—both of you. I prescribe a complete abstinence from emotion. -Visit some cheerful seaside resort, Rodney.” - -He was struck by William’s appearance, which seemed to him to indicate -profound feeling resolutely held in check. No doubt, he reflected, -Katharine had been very trying, unconsciously trying, and had driven -him to take up a position which was none of his willing. Mr. Hilbery -certainly did not overrate William’s sufferings. No minutes in his life -had hitherto extorted from him such intensity of anguish. He was now -facing the consequences of his insanity. He must confess himself -entirely and fundamentally other than Mr. Hilbery thought him. -Everything was against him. Even the Sunday evening and the fire and -the tranquil library scene were against him. Mr. Hilbery’s appeal to -him as a man of the world was terribly against him. He was no longer a -man of any world that Mr. Hilbery cared to recognize. But some power -compelled him, as it had compelled him to come downstairs, to make his -stand here and now, alone and unhelped by any one, without prospect of -reward. He fumbled with various phrases; and then jerked out: - -“I love Cassandra.” - -Mr. Hilbery’s face turned a curious dull purple. He looked at his -daughter. He nodded his head, as if to convey his silent command to her -to leave the room; but either she did not notice it or preferred not to -obey. - -“You have the impudence—” Mr. Hilbery began, in a dull, low voice that -he himself had never heard before, when there was a scuffling and -exclaiming in the hall, and Cassandra, who appeared to be insisting -against some dissuasion on the part of another, burst into the room. - -“Uncle Trevor,” she exclaimed, “I insist upon telling you the truth!” -She flung herself between Rodney and her uncle, as if she sought to -intercept their blows. As her uncle stood perfectly still, looking very -large and imposing, and as nobody spoke, she shrank back a little, and -looked first at Katharine and then at Rodney. “You must know the -truth,” she said, a little lamely. - -“You have the impudence to tell me this in Katharine’s presence?” Mr. -Hilbery continued, speaking with complete disregard of Cassandra’s -interruption. - -“I am aware, quite aware—” Rodney’s words, which were broken in sense, -spoken after a pause, and with his eyes upon the ground, nevertheless -expressed an astonishing amount of resolution. “I am quite aware what -you must think of me,” he brought out, looking Mr. Hilbery directly in -the eyes for the first time. - -“I could express my views on the subject more fully if we were alone,” -Mr. Hilbery returned. - -“But you forget me,” said Katharine. She moved a little towards Rodney, -and her movement seemed to testify mutely to her respect for him, and -her alliance with him. “I think William has behaved perfectly rightly, -and, after all, it is I who am concerned—I and Cassandra.” - -Cassandra, too, gave an indescribably slight movement which seemed to -draw the three of them into alliance together. Katharine’s tone and -glance made Mr. Hilbery once more feel completely at a loss, and in -addition, painfully and angrily obsolete; but in spite of an awful -inner hollowness he was outwardly composed. - -“Cassandra and Rodney have a perfect right to settle their own affairs -according to their own wishes; but I see no reason why they should do -so either in my room or in my house.... I wish to be quite clear on -this point, however; you are no longer engaged to Rodney.” - -He paused, and his pause seemed to signify that he was extremely -thankful for his daughter’s deliverance. - -Cassandra turned to Katharine, who drew her breath as if to speak and -checked herself; Rodney, too, seemed to await some movement on her -part; her father glanced at her as if he half anticipated some further -revelation. She remained perfectly silent. In the silence they heard -distinctly steps descending the staircase, and Katharine went straight -to the door. - -“Wait,” Mr. Hilbery commanded. “I wish to speak to you—alone,” he -added. - -She paused, holding the door ajar. - -“I’ll come back,” she said, and as she spoke she opened the door and -went out. They could hear her immediately speak to some one outside, -though the words were inaudible. - -Mr. Hilbery was left confronting the guilty couple, who remained -standing as if they did not accept their dismissal, and the -disappearance of Katharine had brought some change into the situation. -So, in his secret heart, Mr. Hilbery felt that it had, for he could not -explain his daughter’s behavior to his own satisfaction. - -“Uncle Trevor,” Cassandra exclaimed impulsively, “don’t be angry, -please. I couldn’t help it; I do beg you to forgive me.” - -Her uncle still refused to acknowledge her identity, and still talked -over her head as if she did not exist. - -“I suppose you have communicated with the Otways,” he said to Rodney -grimly. - -“Uncle Trevor, we wanted to tell you,” Cassandra replied for him. “We -waited—” she looked appealingly at Rodney, who shook his head ever so -slightly. - -“Yes? What were you waiting for?” her uncle asked sharply, looking at -her at last. - -The words died on her lips. It was apparent that she was straining her -ears as if to catch some sound outside the room that would come to her -help. He received no answer. He listened, too. - -“This is a most unpleasant business for all parties,” he concluded, -sinking into his chair again, hunching his shoulders and regarding the -flames. He seemed to speak to himself, and Rodney and Cassandra looked -at him in silence. - -“Why don’t you sit down?” he said suddenly. He spoke gruffly, but the -force of his anger was evidently spent, or some preoccupation had -turned his mood to other regions. While Cassandra accepted his -invitation, Rodney remained standing. - -“I think Cassandra can explain matters better in my absence,” he said, -and left the room, Mr. Hilbery giving his assent by a slight nod of the -head. - -Meanwhile, in the dining-room next door, Denham and Katharine were once -more seated at the mahogany table. They seemed to be continuing a -conversation broken off in the middle, as if each remembered the -precise point at which they had been interrupted, and was eager to go -on as quickly as possible. Katharine, having interposed a short account -of the interview with her father, Denham made no comment, but said: - -“Anyhow, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t see each other.” - -“Or stay together. It’s only marriage that’s out of the question,” -Katharine replied. - -“But if I find myself coming to want you more and more?” - -“If our lapses come more and more often?” - -He sighed impatiently, and said nothing for a moment. - -“But at least,” he renewed, “we’ve established the fact that my lapses -are still in some odd way connected with you; yours have nothing to do -with me. Katharine,” he added, his assumption of reason broken up by -his agitation, “I assure you that we are in love—what other people call -love. Remember that night. We had no doubts whatever then. We were -absolutely happy for half an hour. You had no lapse until the day -after; I had no lapse until yesterday morning. We’ve been happy at -intervals all day until I—went off my head, and you, quite naturally, -were bored.” - -“Ah,” she exclaimed, as if the subject chafed her, “I can’t make you -understand. It’s not boredom—I’m never bored. Reality—reality,” she -ejaculated, tapping her finger upon the table as if to emphasize and -perhaps explain her isolated utterance of this word. “I cease to be -real to you. It’s the faces in a storm again—the vision in a hurricane. -We come together for a moment and we part. It’s my fault, too. I’m as -bad as you are—worse, perhaps.” - -They were trying to explain, not for the first time, as their weary -gestures and frequent interruptions showed, what in their common -language they had christened their “lapses”; a constant source of -distress to them, in the past few days, and the immediate reason why -Ralph was on his way to leave the house when Katharine, listening -anxiously, heard him and prevented him. What was the cause of these -lapses? Either because Katharine looked more beautiful, or more -strange, because she wore something different, or said something -unexpected, Ralph’s sense of her romance welled up and overcame him -either into silence or into inarticulate expressions, which Katharine, -with unintentional but invariable perversity, interrupted or -contradicted with some severity or assertion of prosaic fact. Then the -vision disappeared, and Ralph expressed vehemently in his turn the -conviction that he only loved her shadow and cared nothing for her -reality. If the lapse was on her side it took the form of gradual -detachment until she became completely absorbed in her own thoughts, -which carried her away with such intensity that she sharply resented -any recall to her companion’s side. It was useless to assert that these -trances were always originated by Ralph himself, however little in -their later stages they had to do with him. The fact remained that she -had no need of him and was very loath to be reminded of him. How, then, -could they be in love? The fragmentary nature of their relationship was -but too apparent. - -Thus they sat depressed to silence at the dining-room table, oblivious -of everything, while Rodney paced the drawing-room overhead in such -agitation and exaltation of mind as he had never conceived possible, -and Cassandra remained alone with her uncle. Ralph, at length, rose and -walked gloomily to the window. He pressed close to the pane. Outside -were truth and freedom and the immensity only to be apprehended by the -mind in loneliness, and never communicated to another. What worse -sacrilege was there than to attempt to violate what he perceived by -seeking to impart it? Some movement behind him made him reflect that -Katharine had the power, if she chose, to be in person what he dreamed -of her spirit. He turned sharply to implore her help, when again he was -struck cold by her look of distance, her expression of intentness upon -some far object. As if conscious of his look upon her she rose and came -to him, standing close by his side, and looking with him out into the -dusky atmosphere. Their physical closeness was to him a bitter enough -comment upon the distance between their minds. Yet distant as she was, -her presence by his side transformed the world. He saw himself -performing wonderful deeds of courage; saving the drowning, rescuing -the forlorn. Impatient with this form of egotism, he could not shake -off the conviction that somehow life was wonderful, romantic, a master -worth serving so long as she stood there. He had no wish that she -should speak; he did not look at her or touch her; she was apparently -deep in her own thoughts and oblivious of his presence. - -The door opened without their hearing the sound. Mr. Hilbery looked -round the room, and for a moment failed to discover the two figures in -the window. He started with displeasure when he saw them, and observed -them keenly before he appeared able to make up his mind to say -anything. He made a movement finally that warned them of his presence; -they turned instantly. Without speaking, he beckoned to Katharine to -come to him, and, keeping his eyes from the region of the room where -Denham stood, he shepherded her in front of him back to the study. When -Katharine was inside the room he shut the study door carefully behind -him as if to secure himself from something that he disliked. - -“Now, Katharine,” he said, taking up his stand in front of the fire, -“you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain—” She remained silent. -“What inferences do you expect me to draw?” he said sharply.... “You -tell me that you are not engaged to Rodney; I see you on what appear to -be extremely intimate terms with another—with Ralph Denham. What am I -to conclude? Are you,” he added, as she still said nothing, “engaged to -Ralph Denham?” - -“No,” she replied. - -His sense of relief was great; he had been certain that her answer -would have confirmed his suspicions, but that anxiety being set at -rest, he was the more conscious of annoyance with her for her behavior. - -“Then all I can say is that you’ve very strange ideas of the proper way -to behave.... People have drawn certain conclusions, nor am I -surprised.... The more I think of it the more inexplicable I find it,” -he went on, his anger rising as he spoke. “Why am I left in ignorance -of what is going on in my own house? Why am I left to hear of these -events for the first time from my sister? Most disagreeable—most -upsetting. How I’m to explain to your Uncle Francis—but I wash my hands -of it. Cassandra goes tomorrow. I forbid Rodney the house. As for the -other young man, the sooner he makes himself scarce the better. After -placing the most implicit trust in you, Katharine—” He broke off, -disquieted by the ominous silence with which his words were received, -and looked at his daughter with the curious doubt as to her state of -mind which he had felt before, for the first time, this evening. He -perceived once more that she was not attending to what he said, but was -listening, and for a moment he, too, listened for sounds outside the -room. His certainty that there was some understanding between Denham -and Katharine returned, but with a most unpleasant suspicion that there -was something illicit about it, as the whole position between the young -people seemed to him gravely illicit. - -“I’ll speak to Denham,” he said, on the impulse of his suspicion, -moving as if to go. - -“I shall come with you,” Katharine said instantly, starting forward. - -“You will stay here,” said her father. - -“What are you going to say to him?” she asked. - -“I suppose I may say what I like in my own house?” he returned. - -“Then I go, too,” she replied. - -At these words, which seemed to imply a determination to go—to go for -ever, Mr. Hilbery returned to his position in front of the fire, and -began swaying slightly from side to side without for the moment making -any remark. - -“I understood you to say that you were not engaged to him,” he said at -length, fixing his eyes upon his daughter. - -“We are not engaged,” she said. - -“It should be a matter of indifference to you, then, whether he comes -here or not—I will not have you listening to other things when I am -speaking to you!” he broke off angrily, perceiving a slight movement on -her part to one side. “Answer me frankly, what is your relationship -with this young man?” - -“Nothing that I can explain to a third person,” she said obstinately. - -“I will have no more of these equivocations,” he replied. - -“I refuse to explain,” she returned, and as she said it the front door -banged to. “There!” she exclaimed. “He is gone!” She flashed such a -look of fiery indignation at her father that he lost his self-control -for a moment. - -“For God’s sake, Katharine, control yourself!” he cried. - -She looked for a moment like a wild animal caged in a civilized -dwelling-place. She glanced over the walls covered with books, as if -for a second she had forgotten the position of the door. Then she made -as if to go, but her father laid his hand upon her shoulder. He -compelled her to sit down. - -“These emotions have been very upsetting, naturally,” he said. His -manner had regained all its suavity, and he spoke with a soothing -assumption of paternal authority. “You’ve been placed in a very -difficult position, as I understand from Cassandra. Now let us come to -terms; we will leave these agitating questions in peace for the -present. Meanwhile, let us try to behave like civilized beings. Let us -read Sir Walter Scott. What d’you say to ‘The Antiquary,’ eh? Or ‘The -Bride of Lammermoor’?” - -He made his own choice, and before his daughter could protest or make -her escape, she found herself being turned by the agency of Sir Walter -Scott into a civilized human being. - -Yet Mr. Hilbery had grave doubts, as he read, whether the process was -more than skin-deep. Civilization had been very profoundly and -unpleasantly overthrown that evening; the extent of the ruin was still -undetermined; he had lost his temper, a physical disaster not to be -matched for the space of ten years or so; and his own condition -urgently required soothing and renovating at the hands of the classics. -His house was in a state of revolution; he had a vision of unpleasant -encounters on the staircase; his meals would be poisoned for days to -come; was literature itself a specific against such disagreeables? A -note of hollowness was in his voice as he read. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII - - -Considering that Mr. Hilbery lived in a house which was accurately -numbered in order with its fellows, and that he filled up forms, paid -rent, and had seven more years of tenancy to run, he had an excuse for -laying down laws for the conduct of those who lived in his house, and -this excuse, though profoundly inadequate, he found useful during the -interregnum of civilization with which he now found himself faced. In -obedience to those laws, Rodney disappeared; Cassandra was dispatched -to catch the eleven-thirty on Monday morning; Denham was seen no more; -so that only Katharine, the lawful occupant of the upper rooms, -remained, and Mr. Hilbery thought himself competent to see that she did -nothing further to compromise herself. As he bade her good morning next -day he was aware that he knew nothing of what she was thinking, but, as -he reflected with some bitterness, even this was an advance upon the -ignorance of the previous mornings. He went to his study, wrote, tore -up, and wrote again a letter to his wife, asking her to come back on -account of domestic difficulties which he specified at first, but in a -later draft more discreetly left unspecified. Even if she started the -very moment that she got it, he reflected, she would not be home till -Tuesday night, and he counted lugubriously the number of hours that he -would have to spend in a position of detestable authority alone with -his daughter. - -What was she doing now, he wondered, as he addressed the envelope to -his wife. He could not control the telephone. He could not play the -spy. She might be making any arrangements she chose. Yet the thought -did not disturb him so much as the strange, unpleasant, illicit -atmosphere of the whole scene with the young people the night before. -His sense of discomfort was almost physical. - -Had he known it, Katharine was far enough withdrawn, both physically -and spiritually, from the telephone. She sat in her room with the -dictionaries spreading their wide leaves on the table before her, and -all the pages which they had concealed for so many years arranged in a -pile. She worked with the steady concentration that is produced by the -successful effort to think down some unwelcome thought by means of -another thought. Having absorbed the unwelcome thought, her mind went -on with additional vigor, derived from the victory; on a sheet of paper -lines of figures and symbols frequently and firmly written down marked -the different stages of its progress. And yet it was broad daylight; -there were sounds of knocking and sweeping, which proved that living -people were at work on the other side of the door, and the door, which -could be thrown open in a second, was her only protection against the -world. But she had somehow risen to be mistress in her own kingdom, -assuming her sovereignty unconsciously. - -Steps approached her unheard. It is true that they were steps that -lingered, divagated, and mounted with the deliberation natural to one -past sixty whose arms, moreover, are full of leaves and blossoms; but -they came on steadily, and soon a tap of laurel boughs against the door -arrested Katharine’s pencil as it touched the page. She did not move, -however, and sat blank-eyed as if waiting for the interruption to -cease. Instead, the door opened. At first, she attached no meaning to -the moving mass of green which seemed to enter the room independently -of any human agency. Then she recognized parts of her mother’s face and -person behind the yellow flowers and soft velvet of the palm-buds. - -“From Shakespeare’s tomb!” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery, dropping the entire -mass upon the floor, with a gesture that seemed to indicate an act of -dedication. Then she flung her arms wide and embraced her daughter. - -“Thank God, Katharine!” she exclaimed. “Thank God!” she repeated. - -“You’ve come back?” said Katharine, very vaguely, standing up to -receive the embrace. - -Although she recognized her mother’s presence, she was very far from -taking part in the scene, and yet felt it to be amazingly appropriate -that her mother should be there, thanking God emphatically for unknown -blessings, and strewing the floor with flowers and leaves from -Shakespeare’s tomb. - -“Nothing else matters in the world!” Mrs. Hilbery continued. “Names -aren’t everything; it’s what we feel that’s everything. I didn’t want -silly, kind, interfering letters. I didn’t want your father to tell me. -I knew it from the first. I prayed that it might be so.” - -“You knew it?” Katharine repeated her mother’s words softly and -vaguely, looking past her. “How did you know it?” She began, like a -child, to finger a tassel hanging from her mother’s cloak. - -“The first evening you told me, Katharine. Oh, and thousands of -times—dinner-parties—talking about books—the way he came into the -room—your voice when you spoke of him.” - -Katharine seemed to consider each of these proofs separately. Then she -said gravely: - -“I’m not going to marry William. And then there’s Cassandra—” - -“Yes, there’s Cassandra,” said Mrs. Hilbery. “I own I was a little -grudging at first, but, after all, she plays the piano so beautifully. -Do tell me, Katharine,” she asked impulsively, “where did you go that -evening she played Mozart, and you thought I was asleep?” - -Katharine recollected with difficulty. - -“To Mary Datchet’s,” she remembered. - -“Ah!” said Mrs. Hilbery, with a slight note of disappointment in her -voice. “I had my little romance—my little speculation.” She looked at -her daughter. Katharine faltered beneath that innocent and penetrating -gaze; she flushed, turned away, and then looked up with very bright -eyes. - -“I’m not in love with Ralph Denham,” she said. - -“Don’t marry unless you’re in love!” said Mrs. Hilbery very quickly. -“But,” she added, glancing momentarily at her daughter, “aren’t there -different ways, Katharine—different—?” - -“We want to meet as often as we like, but to be free,” Katharine -continued. - -“To meet here, to meet in his house, to meet in the street.” Mrs. -Hilbery ran over these phrases as if she were trying chords that did -not quite satisfy her ear. It was plain that she had her sources of -information, and, indeed, her bag was stuffed with what she called -“kind letters” from the pen of her sister-in-law. - -“Yes. Or to stay away in the country,” Katharine concluded. - -Mrs. Hilbery paused, looked unhappy, and sought inspiration from the -window. - -“What a comfort he was in that shop—how he took me and found the ruins -at once—how _safe_ I felt with him—” - -“Safe? Oh, no, he’s fearfully rash—he’s always taking risks. He wants -to throw up his profession and live in a little cottage and write -books, though he hasn’t a penny of his own, and there are any number of -sisters and brothers dependent on him.” - -“Ah, he has a mother?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired. - -“Yes. Rather a fine-looking old lady, with white hair.” Katharine began -to describe her visit, and soon Mrs. Hilbery elicited the facts that -not only was the house of excruciating ugliness, which Ralph bore -without complaint, but that it was evident that every one depended on -him, and he had a room at the top of the house, with a wonderful view -over London, and a rook. - -“A wretched old bird in a corner, with half its feathers out,” she -said, with a tenderness in her voice that seemed to commiserate the -sufferings of humanity while resting assured in the capacity of Ralph -Denham to alleviate them, so that Mrs. Hilbery could not help -exclaiming: - -“But, Katharine, you _are_ in love!” at which Katharine flushed, looked -startled, as if she had said something that she ought not to have said, -and shook her head. - -Hastily Mrs. Hilbery asked for further details of this extraordinary -house, and interposed a few speculations about the meeting between -Keats and Coleridge in a lane, which tided over the discomfort of the -moment, and drew Katharine on to further descriptions and -indiscretions. In truth, she found an extraordinary pleasure in being -thus free to talk to some one who was equally wise and equally -benignant, the mother of her earliest childhood, whose silence seemed -to answer questions that were never asked. Mrs. Hilbery listened -without making any remark for a considerable time. She seemed to draw -her conclusions rather by looking at her daughter than by listening to -her, and, if cross-examined, she would probably have given a highly -inaccurate version of Ralph Denham’s life-history except that he was -penniless, fatherless, and lived at Highgate—all of which was much in -his favor. But by means of these furtive glances she had assured -herself that Katharine was in a state which gave her, alternately, the -most exquisite pleasure and the most profound alarm. - -She could not help ejaculating at last: - -“It’s all done in five minutes at a Registry Office nowadays, if you -think the Church service a little florid—which it is, though there are -noble things in it.” - -“But we don’t want to be married,” Katharine replied emphatically, and -added, “Why, after all, isn’t it perfectly possible to live together -without being married?” - -Again Mrs. Hilbery looked discomposed, and, in her trouble, took up the -sheets which were lying upon the table, and began turning them over -this way and that, and muttering to herself as she glanced: - -“A plus B minus C equals _x y z_. It’s so dreadfully ugly, Katharine. -That’s what I feel—so dreadfully ugly.” - -Katharine took the sheets from her mother’s hand and began shuffling -them absent-mindedly together, for her fixed gaze seemed to show that -her thoughts were intent upon some other matter. - -“Well, I don’t know about ugliness,” she said at length. - -“But he doesn’t ask it of you?” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. “Not that grave -young man with the steady brown eyes?” - -“He doesn’t ask anything—we neither of us ask anything.” - -“If I could help you, Katharine, by the memory of what I felt—” - -“Yes, tell me what you felt.” - -Mrs. Hilbery, her eyes growing blank, peered down the enormously long -corridor of days at the far end of which the little figures of herself -and her husband appeared fantastically attired, clasping hands upon a -moonlit beach, with roses swinging in the dusk. - -“We were in a little boat going out to a ship at night,” she began. -“The sun had set and the moon was rising over our heads. There were -lovely silver lights upon the waves and three green lights upon the -steamer in the middle of the bay. Your father’s head looked so grand -against the mast. It was life, it was death. The great sea was round -us. It was the voyage for ever and ever.” - -The ancient fairy-tale fell roundly and harmoniously upon Katharine’s -ears. Yes, there was the enormous space of the sea; there were the -three green lights upon the steamer; the cloaked figures climbed up on -deck. And so, voyaging over the green and purple waters, past the -cliffs and the sandy lagoons and through pools crowded with the masts -of ships and the steeples of churches—here they were. The river seemed -to have brought them and deposited them here at this precise point. She -looked admiringly at her mother, that ancient voyager. - -“Who knows,” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery, continuing her reveries, “where we -are bound for, or why, or who has sent us, or what we shall find—who -knows anything, except that love is our faith—love—” she crooned, and -the soft sound beating through the dim words was heard by her daughter -as the breaking of waves solemnly in order upon the vast shore that she -gazed upon. She would have been content for her mother to repeat that -word almost indefinitely—a soothing word when uttered by another, a -riveting together of the shattered fragments of the world. But Mrs. -Hilbery, instead of repeating the word love, said pleadingly: - -“And you won’t think those ugly thoughts again, will you, Katharine?” -at which words the ship which Katharine had been considering seemed to -put into harbor and have done with its seafaring. Yet she was in great -need, if not exactly of sympathy, of some form of advice, or, at least, -of the opportunity of setting forth her problems before a third person -so as to renew them in her own eyes. - -“But then,” she said, ignoring the difficult problem of ugliness, “you -knew you were in love; but we’re different. It seems,” she continued, -frowning a little as she tried to fix the difficult feeling, “as if -something came to an end suddenly—gave out—faded—an illusion—as if when -we think we’re in love we make it up—we imagine what doesn’t exist. -That’s why it’s impossible that we should ever marry. Always to be -finding the other an illusion, and going off and forgetting about them, -never to be certain that you cared, or that he wasn’t caring for some -one not you at all, the horror of changing from one state to the other, -being happy one moment and miserable the next—that’s the reason why we -can’t possibly marry. At the same time,” she continued, “we can’t live -without each other, because—” Mrs. Hilbery waited patiently for the -sentence to be completed, but Katharine fell silent and fingered her -sheet of figures. - -“We have to have faith in our vision,” Mrs. Hilbery resumed, glancing -at the figures, which distressed her vaguely, and had some connection -in her mind with the household accounts, “otherwise, as you say—” She -cast a lightning glance into the depths of disillusionment which were, -perhaps, not altogether unknown to her. - -“Believe me, Katharine, it’s the same for every one—for me, too—for -your father,” she said earnestly, and sighed. They looked together into -the abyss and, as the elder of the two, she recovered herself first and -asked: - -“But where is Ralph? Why isn’t he here to see me?” - -Katharine’s expression changed instantly. - -“Because he’s not allowed to come here,” she replied bitterly. - -Mrs. Hilbery brushed this aside. - -“Would there be time to send for him before luncheon?” she asked. - -Katharine looked at her as if, indeed, she were some magician. Once -more she felt that instead of being a grown woman, used to advise and -command, she was only a foot or two raised above the long grass and the -little flowers and entirely dependent upon the figure of indefinite -size whose head went up into the sky, whose hand was in hers, for -guidance. - -“I’m not happy without him,” she said simply. - -Mrs. Hilbery nodded her head in a manner which indicated complete -understanding, and the immediate conception of certain plans for the -future. She swept up her flowers, breathed in their sweetness, and, -humming a little song about a miller’s daughter, left the room. - -The case upon which Ralph Denham was engaged that afternoon was not -apparently receiving his full attention, and yet the affairs of the -late John Leake of Dublin were sufficiently confused to need all the -care that a solicitor could bestow upon them, if the widow Leake and -the five Leake children of tender age were to receive any pittance at -all. But the appeal to Ralph’s humanity had little chance of being -heard to-day; he was no longer a model of concentration. The partition -so carefully erected between the different sections of his life had -been broken down, with the result that though his eyes were fixed upon -the last Will and Testament, he saw through the page a certain -drawing-room in Cheyne Walk. - -He tried every device that had proved effective in the past for keeping -up the partitions of the mind, until he could decently go home; but a -little to his alarm he found himself assailed so persistently, as if -from outside, by Katharine, that he launched forth desperately into an -imaginary interview with her. She obliterated a bookcase full of law -reports, and the corners and lines of the room underwent a curious -softening of outline like that which sometimes makes a room unfamiliar -at the moment of waking from sleep. By degrees, a pulse or stress began -to beat at regular intervals in his mind, heaping his thoughts into -waves to which words fitted themselves, and without much consciousness -of what he was doing, he began to write on a sheet of draft paper what -had the appearance of a poem lacking several words in each line. Not -many lines had been set down, however, before he threw away his pen as -violently as if that were responsible for his misdeeds, and tore the -paper into many separate pieces. This was a sign that Katharine had -asserted herself and put to him a remark that could not be met -poetically. Her remark was entirely destructive of poetry, since it was -to the effect that poetry had nothing whatever to do with her; all her -friends spent their lives in making up phrases, she said; all his -feeling was an illusion, and next moment, as if to taunt him with his -impotence, she had sunk into one of those dreamy states which took no -account whatever of his existence. Ralph was roused by his passionate -attempts to attract her attention to the fact that he was standing in -the middle of his little private room in Lincoln’s Inn Fields at a -considerable distance from Chelsea. The physical distance increased his -desperation. He began pacing in circles until the process sickened him, -and then took a sheet of paper for the composition of a letter which, -he vowed before he began it, should be sent that same evening. - -It was a difficult matter to put into words; poetry would have done it -better justice, but he must abstain from poetry. In an infinite number -of half-obliterated scratches he tried to convey to her the possibility -that although human beings are woefully ill-adapted for communication, -still, such communion is the best we know; moreover, they make it -possible for each to have access to another world independent of -personal affairs, a world of law, of philosophy, or more strangely a -world such as he had had a glimpse of the other evening when together -they seemed to be sharing something, creating something, an ideal—a -vision flung out in advance of our actual circumstances. If this golden -rim were quenched, if life were no longer circled by an illusion (but -was it an illusion after all?), then it would be too dismal an affair -to carry to an end; so he wrote with a sudden spurt of conviction which -made clear way for a space and left at least one sentence standing -whole. Making every allowance for other desires, on the whole this -conclusion appeared to him to justify their relationship. But the -conclusion was mystical; it plunged him into thought. The difficulty -with which even this amount was written, the inadequacy of the words, -and the need of writing under them and over them others which, after -all, did no better, led him to leave off before he was at all satisfied -with his production, and unable to resist the conviction that such -rambling would never be fit for Katharine’s eye. He felt himself more -cut off from her than ever. In idleness, and because he could do -nothing further with words, he began to draw little figures in the -blank spaces, heads meant to resemble her head, blots fringed with -flames meant to represent—perhaps the entire universe. From this -occupation he was roused by the message that a lady wished to speak to -him. He had scarcely time to run his hands through his hair in order to -look as much like a solicitor as possible, and to cram his papers into -his pocket, already overcome with shame that another eye should behold -them, when he realized that his preparations were needless. The lady -was Mrs. Hilbery. - -“I hope you’re not disposing of somebody’s fortune in a hurry,” she -remarked, gazing at the documents on his table, “or cutting off an -entail at one blow, because I want to ask you to do me a favor. And -Anderson won’t keep his horse waiting. (Anderson is a perfect tyrant, -but he drove my dear father to the Abbey the day they buried him.) I -made bold to come to you, Mr. Denham, not exactly in search of legal -assistance (though I don’t know who I’d rather come to, if I were in -trouble), but in order to ask your help in settling some tiresome -little domestic affairs that have arisen in my absence. I’ve been to -Stratford-on-Avon (I must tell you all about that one of these days), -and there I got a letter from my sister-in-law, a dear kind goose who -likes interfering with other people’s children because she’s got none -of her own. (We’re dreadfully afraid that she’s going to lose the sight -of one of her eyes, and I always feel that our physical ailments are so -apt to turn into mental ailments. I think Matthew Arnold says something -of the same kind about Lord Byron.) But that’s neither here nor there.” - -The effect of these parentheses, whether they were introduced for that -purpose or represented a natural instinct on Mrs. Hilbery’s part to -embellish the bareness of her discourse, gave Ralph time to perceive -that she possessed all the facts of their situation and was come, -somehow, in the capacity of ambassador. - -“I didn’t come here to talk about Lord Byron,” Mrs. Hilbery continued, -with a little laugh, “though I know that both you and Katharine, unlike -other young people of your generation, still find him worth reading.” -She paused. “I’m so glad you’ve made Katharine read poetry, Mr. -Denham!” she exclaimed, “and feel poetry, and look poetry! She can’t -talk it yet, but she will—oh, she will!” - -Ralph, whose hand was grasped and whose tongue almost refused to -articulate, somehow contrived to say that there were moments when he -felt hopeless, utterly hopeless, though he gave no reason for this -statement on his part. - -“But you care for her?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired. - -“Good God!” he exclaimed, with a vehemence which admitted of no -question. - -“It’s the Church of England service you both object to?” Mrs. Hilbery -inquired innocently. - -“I don’t care a damn what service it is,” Ralph replied. - -“You would marry her in Westminster Abbey if the worst came to the -worst?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired. - -“I would marry her in St. Paul’s Cathedral,” Ralph replied. His doubts -upon this point, which were always roused by Katharine’s presence, had -vanished completely, and his strongest wish in the world was to be with -her immediately, since every second he was away from her he imagined -her slipping farther and farther from him into one of those states of -mind in which he was unrepresented. He wished to dominate her, to -possess her. - -“Thank God!” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery. She thanked Him for a variety of -blessings: for the conviction with which the young man spoke; and not -least for the prospect that on her daughter’s wedding-day the noble -cadences, the stately periods, the ancient eloquence of the marriage -service would resound over the heads of a distinguished congregation -gathered together near the very spot where her father lay quiescent -with the other poets of England. The tears filled her eyes; but she -remembered simultaneously that her carriage was waiting, and with dim -eyes she walked to the door. Denham followed her downstairs. - -It was a strange drive. For Denham it was without exception the most -unpleasant he had ever taken. His only wish was to go as straightly and -quickly as possible to Cheyne Walk; but it soon appeared that Mrs. -Hilbery either ignored or thought fit to baffle this desire by -interposing various errands of her own. She stopped the carriage at -post-offices, and coffee-shops, and shops of inscrutable dignity where -the aged attendants had to be greeted as old friends; and, catching -sight of the dome of St. Paul’s above the irregular spires of Ludgate -Hill, she pulled the cord impulsively, and gave directions that -Anderson should drive them there. But Anderson had reasons of his own -for discouraging afternoon worship, and kept his horse’s nose -obstinately towards the west. After some minutes, Mrs. Hilbery realized -the situation, and accepted it good-humoredly, apologizing to Ralph for -his disappointment. - -“Never mind,” she said, “we’ll go to St. Paul’s another day, and it may -turn out, though I can’t promise that it _will_, that he’ll take us -past Westminster Abbey, which would be even better.” - -Ralph was scarcely aware of what she went on to say. Her mind and body -both seemed to have floated into another region of quick-sailing clouds -rapidly passing across each other and enveloping everything in a -vaporous indistinctness. Meanwhile he remained conscious of his own -concentrated desire, his impotence to bring about anything he wished, -and his increasing agony of impatience. - -Suddenly Mrs. Hilbery pulled the cord with such decision that even -Anderson had to listen to the order which she leant out of the window -to give him. The carriage pulled up abruptly in the middle of Whitehall -before a large building dedicated to one of our Government offices. In -a second Mrs. Hilbery was mounting the steps, and Ralph was left in too -acute an irritation by this further delay even to speculate what errand -took her now to the Board of Education. He was about to jump from the -carriage and take a cab, when Mrs. Hilbery reappeared talking genially -to a figure who remained hidden behind her. - -“There’s plenty of room for us all,” she was saying. “Plenty of room. -We could find space for FOUR of you, William,” she added, opening the -door, and Ralph found that Rodney had now joined their company. The two -men glanced at each other. If distress, shame, discomfort in its most -acute form were ever visible upon a human face, Ralph could read them -all expressed beyond the eloquence of words upon the face of his -unfortunate companion. But Mrs. Hilbery was either completely unseeing -or determined to appear so. She went on talking; she talked, it seemed -to both the young men, to some one outside, up in the air. She talked -about Shakespeare, she apostrophized the human race, she proclaimed the -virtues of divine poetry, she began to recite verses which broke down -in the middle. The great advantage of her discourse was that it was -self-supporting. It nourished itself until Cheyne Walk was reached upon -half a dozen grunts and murmurs. - -“Now,” she said, alighting briskly at her door, “here we are!” - -There was something airy and ironical in her voice and expression as -she turned upon the doorstep and looked at them, which filled both -Rodney and Denham with the same misgivings at having trusted their -fortunes to such an ambassador; and Rodney actually hesitated upon the -threshold and murmured to Denham: - -“You go in, Denham. I...” He was turning tail, but the door opening and -the familiar look of the house asserting its charm, he bolted in on the -wake of the others, and the door shut upon his escape. Mrs. Hilbery led -the way upstairs. She took them to the drawing-room. The fire burnt as -usual, the little tables were laid with china and silver. There was -nobody there. - -“Ah,” she said, “Katharine’s not here. She must be upstairs in her -room. You have something to say to her, I know, Mr. Denham. You can -find your way?” she vaguely indicated the ceiling with a gesture of her -hand. She had become suddenly serious and composed, mistress in her own -house. The gesture with which she dismissed him had a dignity that -Ralph never forgot. She seemed to make him free with a wave of her hand -to all that she possessed. He left the room. - -The Hilberys’ house was tall, possessing many stories and passages with -closed doors, all, once he had passed the drawing-room floor, unknown -to Ralph. He mounted as high as he could and knocked at the first door -he came to. - -“May I come in?” he asked. - -A voice from within answered “Yes.” - -He was conscious of a large window, full of light, of a bare table, and -of a long looking-glass. Katharine had risen, and was standing with -some white papers in her hand, which slowly fluttered to the ground as -she saw her visitor. The explanation was a short one. The sounds were -inarticulate; no one could have understood the meaning save themselves. -As if the forces of the world were all at work to tear them asunder -they sat, clasping hands, near enough to be taken even by the malicious -eye of Time himself for a united couple, an indivisible unit. - -“Don’t move, don’t go,” she begged of him, when he stooped to gather -the papers she had let fall. But he took them in his hands and, giving -her by a sudden impulse his own unfinished dissertation, with its -mystical conclusion, they read each other’s compositions in silence. - -Katharine read his sheets to an end; Ralph followed her figures as far -as his mathematics would let him. They came to the end of their tasks -at about the same moment, and sat for a time in silence. - -“Those were the papers you left on the seat at Kew,” said Ralph at -length. “You folded them so quickly that I couldn’t see what they -were.” - -She blushed very deeply; but as she did not move or attempt to hide her -face she had the appearance of some one disarmed of all defences, or -Ralph likened her to a wild bird just settling with wings trembling to -fold themselves within reach of his hand. The moment of exposure had -been exquisitely painful—the light shed startlingly vivid. She had now -to get used to the fact that some one shared her loneliness. The -bewilderment was half shame and half the prelude to profound rejoicing. -Nor was she unconscious that on the surface the whole thing must appear -of the utmost absurdity. She looked to see whether Ralph smiled, but -found his gaze fixed on her with such gravity that she turned to the -belief that she had committed no sacrilege but enriched herself, -perhaps immeasurably, perhaps eternally. She hardly dared steep herself -in the infinite bliss. But his glance seemed to ask for some assurance -upon another point of vital interest to him. It beseeched her mutely to -tell him whether what she had read upon his confused sheet had any -meaning or truth to her. She bent her head once more to the papers she -held. - -“I like your little dot with the flames round it,” she said -meditatively. - -Ralph nearly tore the page from her hand in shame and despair when he -saw her actually contemplating the idiotic symbol of his most confused -and emotional moments. - -He was convinced that it could mean nothing to another, although -somehow to him it conveyed not only Katharine herself but all those -states of mind which had clustered round her since he first saw her -pouring out tea on a Sunday afternoon. It represented by its -circumference of smudges surrounding a central blot all that encircling -glow which for him surrounded, inexplicably, so many of the objects of -life, softening their sharp outline, so that he could see certain -streets, books, and situations wearing a halo almost perceptible to the -physical eye. Did she smile? Did she put the paper down wearily, -condemning it not only for its inadequacy but for its falsity? Was she -going to protest once more that he only loved the vision of her? But it -did not occur to her that this diagram had anything to do with her. She -said simply, and in the same tone of reflection: - -“Yes, the world looks something like that to me too.” - -He received her assurance with profound joy. Quietly and steadily there -rose up behind the whole aspect of life that soft edge of fire which -gave its red tint to the atmosphere and crowded the scene with shadows -so deep and dark that one could fancy pushing farther into their -density and still farther, exploring indefinitely. Whether there was -any correspondence between the two prospects now opening before them -they shared the same sense of the impending future, vast, mysterious, -infinitely stored with undeveloped shapes which each would unwrap for -the other to behold; but for the present the prospect of the future was -enough to fill them with silent adoration. At any rate, their further -attempts to communicate articulately were interrupted by a knock on the -door, and the entrance of a maid who, with a due sense of mystery, -announced that a lady wished to see Miss Hilbery, but refused to allow -her name to be given. - -When Katharine rose, with a profound sigh, to resume her duties, Ralph -went with her, and neither of them formulated any guess, on their way -downstairs, as to who this anonymous lady might prove to be. Perhaps -the fantastic notion that she was a little black hunchback provided -with a steel knife, which she would plunge into Katharine’s heart, -appeared to Ralph more probable than another, and he pushed first into -the dining-room to avert the blow. Then he exclaimed “Cassandra!” with -such heartiness at the sight of Cassandra Otway standing by the -dining-room table that she put her finger to her lips and begged him to -be quiet. - -“Nobody must know I’m here,” she explained in a sepulchral whisper. “I -missed my train. I have been wandering about London all day. I can bear -it no longer. Katharine, what am I to do?” - -Katharine pushed forward a chair; Ralph hastily found wine and poured -it out for her. If not actually fainting, she was very near it. - -“William’s upstairs,” said Ralph, as soon as she appeared to be -recovered. “I’ll go and ask him to come down to you.” His own happiness -had given him a confidence that every one else was bound to be happy -too. But Cassandra had her uncle’s commands and anger too vividly in -her mind to dare any such defiance. She became agitated and said that -she must leave the house at once. She was not in a condition to go, had -they known where to send her. Katharine’s common sense, which had been -in abeyance for the past week or two, still failed her, and she could -only ask, “But where’s your luggage?” in the vague belief that to take -lodgings depended entirely upon a sufficiency of luggage. Cassandra’s -reply, “I’ve lost my luggage,” in no way helped her to a conclusion. - -“You’ve lost your luggage,” she repeated. Her eyes rested upon Ralph, -with an expression which seemed better fitted to accompany a profound -thanksgiving for his existence or some vow of eternal devotion than a -question about luggage. Cassandra perceived the look, and saw that it -was returned; her eyes filled with tears. She faltered in what she was -saying. She began bravely again to discuss the question of lodging when -Katharine, who seemed to have communicated silently with Ralph, and -obtained his permission, took her ruby ring from her finger and giving -it to Cassandra, said: “I believe it will fit you without any -alteration.” - -These words would not have been enough to convince Cassandra of what -she very much wished to believe had not Ralph taken the bare hand in -his and demanded: - -“Why don’t you tell us you’re glad?” Cassandra was so glad that the -tears ran down her cheeks. The certainty of Katharine’s engagement not -only relieved her of a thousand vague fears and self-reproaches, but -entirely quenched that spirit of criticism which had lately impaired -her belief in Katharine. Her old faith came back to her. She seemed to -behold her with that curious intensity which she had lost; as a being -who walks just beyond our sphere, so that life in their presence is a -heightened process, illuminating not only ourselves but a considerable -stretch of the surrounding world. Next moment she contrasted her own -lot with theirs and gave back the ring. - -“I won’t take that unless William gives it me himself,” she said. “Keep -it for me, Katharine.” - -“I assure you everything’s perfectly all right,” said Ralph. “Let me -tell William—” - -He was about, in spite of Cassandra’s protest, to reach the door, when -Mrs. Hilbery, either warned by the parlor-maid or conscious with her -usual prescience of the need for her intervention, opened the door and -smilingly surveyed them. - -“My dear Cassandra!” she exclaimed. “How delightful to see you back -again! What a coincidence!” she observed, in a general way. “William is -upstairs. The kettle boils over. Where’s Katharine, I say? I go to -look, and I find Cassandra!” She seemed to have proved something to her -own satisfaction, although nobody felt certain what thing precisely it -was. - -“I find Cassandra,” she repeated. - -“She missed her train,” Katharine interposed, seeing that Cassandra was -unable to speak. - -“Life,” began Mrs. Hilbery, drawing inspiration from the portraits on -the wall apparently, “consists in missing trains and in finding—” But -she pulled herself up and remarked that the kettle must have boiled -completely over everything. - -To Katharine’s agitated mind it appeared that this kettle was an -enormous kettle, capable of deluging the house in its incessant showers -of steam, the enraged representative of all those household duties -which she had neglected. She ran hastily up to the drawing-room, and -the rest followed her, for Mrs. Hilbery put her arm round Cassandra and -drew her upstairs. They found Rodney observing the kettle with -uneasiness but with such absence of mind that Katharine’s catastrophe -was in a fair way to be fulfilled. In putting the matter straight no -greetings were exchanged, but Rodney and Cassandra chose seats as far -apart as possible, and sat down with an air of people making a very -temporary lodgment. Either Mrs. Hilbery was impervious to their -discomfort, or chose to ignore it, or thought it high time that the -subject was changed, for she did nothing but talk about Shakespeare’s -tomb. - -“So much earth and so much water and that sublime spirit brooding over -it all,” she mused, and went on to sing her strange, half-earthly song -of dawns and sunsets, of great poets, and the unchanged spirit of noble -loving which they had taught, so that nothing changes, and one age is -linked with another, and no one dies, and we all meet in spirit, until -she appeared oblivious of any one in the room. But suddenly her remarks -seemed to contract the enormously wide circle in which they were -soaring and to alight, airily and temporarily, upon matters of more -immediate moment. - -“Katharine and Ralph,” she said, as if to try the sound. “William and -Cassandra.” - -“I feel myself in an entirely false position,” said William -desperately, thrusting himself into this breach in her reflections. -“I’ve no right to be sitting here. Mr. Hilbery told me yesterday to -leave the house. I’d no intention of coming back again. I shall now—” - -“I feel the same too,” Cassandra interrupted. “After what Uncle Trevor -said to me last night—” - -“I have put you into a most odious position,” Rodney went on, rising -from his seat, in which movement he was imitated simultaneously by -Cassandra. “Until I have your father’s consent I have no right to speak -to you—let alone in this house, where my conduct”—he looked at -Katharine, stammered, and fell silent—“where my conduct has been -reprehensible and inexcusable in the extreme,” he forced himself to -continue. “I have explained everything to your mother. She is so -generous as to try and make me believe that I have done no harm—you -have convinced her that my behavior, selfish and weak as it was—selfish -and weak—” he repeated, like a speaker who has lost his notes. - -Two emotions seemed to be struggling in Katharine; one the desire to -laugh at the ridiculous spectacle of William making her a formal speech -across the tea-table, the other a desire to weep at the sight of -something childlike and honest in him which touched her inexpressibly. -To every one’s surprise she rose, stretched out her hand, and said: - -“You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with—you’ve been always—” but here -her voice died away, and the tears forced themselves into her eyes, and -ran down her cheeks, while William, equally moved, seized her hand and -pressed it to his lips. No one perceived that the drawing-room door had -opened itself sufficiently to admit at least half the person of Mr. -Hilbery, or saw him gaze at the scene round the tea-table with an -expression of the utmost disgust and expostulation. He withdrew unseen. -He paused outside on the landing trying to recover his self-control and -to decide what course he might with most dignity pursue. It was obvious -to him that his wife had entirely confused the meaning of his -instructions. She had plunged them all into the most odious confusion. -He waited a moment, and then, with much preliminary rattling of the -handle, opened the door a second time. They had all regained their -places; some incident of an absurd nature had now set them laughing and -looking under the table, so that his entrance passed momentarily -unperceived. Katharine, with flushed cheeks, raised her head and said: - -“Well, that’s my last attempt at the dramatic.” - -“It’s astonishing what a distance they roll,” said Ralph, stooping to -turn up the corner of the hearthrug. - -“Don’t trouble—don’t bother. We shall find it—” Mrs. Hilbery began, and -then saw her husband and exclaimed: “Oh, Trevor, we’re looking for -Cassandra’s engagement-ring!” - -Mr. Hilbery looked instinctively at the carpet. Remarkably enough, the -ring had rolled to the very point where he stood. He saw the rubies -touching the tip of his boot. Such is the force of habit that he could -not refrain from stooping, with an absurd little thrill of pleasure at -being the one to find what others were looking for, and, picking the -ring up, he presented it, with a bow that was courtly in the extreme, -to Cassandra. Whether the making of a bow released automatically -feelings of complaisance and urbanity, Mr. Hilbery found his resentment -completely washed away during the second in which he bent and -straightened himself. Cassandra dared to offer her cheek and received -his embrace. He nodded with some degree of stiffness to Rodney and -Denham, who had both risen upon seeing him, and now altogether sat -down. Mrs. Hilbery seemed to have been waiting for the entrance of her -husband, and for this precise moment in order to put to him a question -which, from the ardor with which she announced it, had evidently been -pressing for utterance for some time past. - -“Oh, Trevor, please tell me, what was the date of the first performance -of ‘Hamlet’?” - -In order to answer her Mr. Hilbery had to have recourse to the exact -scholarship of William Rodney, and before he had given his excellent -authorities for believing as he believed, Rodney felt himself admitted -once more to the society of the civilized and sanctioned by the -authority of no less a person than Shakespeare himself. The power of -literature, which had temporarily deserted Mr. Hilbery, now came back -to him, pouring over the raw ugliness of human affairs its soothing -balm, and providing a form into which such passions as he had felt so -painfully the night before could be molded so that they fell roundly -from the tongue in shapely phrases, hurting nobody. He was sufficiently -sure of his command of language at length to look at Katharine and -again at Denham. All this talk about Shakespeare had acted as a -soporific, or rather as an incantation upon Katharine. She leaned back -in her chair at the head of the tea-table, perfectly silent, looking -vaguely past them all, receiving the most generalized ideas of human -heads against pictures, against yellow-tinted walls, against curtains -of deep crimson velvet. Denham, to whom he turned next, shared her -immobility under his gaze. But beneath his restraint and calm it was -possible to detect a resolution, a will, set now with unalterable -tenacity, which made such turns of speech as Mr. Hilbery had at command -appear oddly irrelevant. At any rate, he said nothing. He respected the -young man; he was a very able young man; he was likely to get his own -way. He could, he thought, looking at his still and very dignified -head, understand Katharine’s preference, and, as he thought this, he -was surprised by a pang of acute jealousy. She might have married -Rodney without causing him a twinge. This man she loved. Or what was -the state of affairs between them? An extraordinary confusion of -emotion was beginning to get the better of him, when Mrs. Hilbery, who -had been conscious of a sudden pause in the conversation, and had -looked wistfully at her daughter once or twice, remarked: - -“Don’t stay if you want to go, Katharine. There’s the little room over -there. Perhaps you and Ralph—” - -“We’re engaged,” said Katharine, waking with a start, and looking -straight at her father. He was taken aback by the directness of the -statement; he exclaimed as if an unexpected blow had struck him. Had he -loved her to see her swept away by this torrent, to have her taken from -him by this uncontrollable force, to stand by helpless, ignored? Oh, -how he loved her! How he loved her! He nodded very curtly to Denham. - -“I gathered something of the kind last night,” he said. “I hope you’ll -deserve her.” But he never looked at his daughter, and strode out of -the room, leaving in the minds of the women a sense, half of awe, half -of amusement, at the extravagant, inconsiderate, uncivilized male, -outraged somehow and gone bellowing to his lair with a roar which still -sometimes reverberates in the most polished of drawing-rooms. Then -Katharine, looking at the shut door, looked down again, to hide her -tears. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV - - -The lamps were lit; their luster reflected itself in the polished wood; -good wine was passed round the dinner-table; before the meal was far -advanced civilization had triumphed, and Mr. Hilbery presided over a -feast which came to wear more and more surely an aspect, cheerful, -dignified, promising well for the future. To judge from the expression -in Katharine’s eyes it promised something—but he checked the approach -sentimentality. He poured out wine; he bade Denham help himself. - -They went upstairs and he saw Katharine and Denham abstract themselves -directly Cassandra had asked whether she might not play him -something—some Mozart? some Beethoven? She sat down to the piano; the -door closed softly behind them. His eyes rested on the closed door for -some seconds unwaveringly, but, by degrees, the look of expectation -died out of them, and, with a sigh, he listened to the music. - -Katharine and Ralph were agreed with scarcely a word of discussion as -to what they wished to do, and in a moment she joined him in the hall -dressed for walking. The night was still and moonlit, fit for walking, -though any night would have seemed so to them, desiring more than -anything movement, freedom from scrutiny, silence, and the open air. - -“At last!” she breathed, as the front door shut. She told him how she -had waited, fidgeted, thought he was never coming, listened for the -sound of doors, half expected to see him again under the lamp-post, -looking at the house. They turned and looked at the serene front with -its gold-rimmed windows, to him the shrine of so much adoration. In -spite of her laugh and the little pressure of mockery on his arm, he -would not resign his belief, but with her hand resting there, her voice -quickened and mysteriously moving in his ears, he had not time—they had -not the same inclination—other objects drew his attention. - -How they came to find themselves walking down a street with many lamps, -corners radiant with light, and a steady succession of motor-omnibuses -plying both ways along it, they could neither of them tell; nor account -for the impulse which led them suddenly to select one of these -wayfarers and mount to the very front seat. After curving through -streets of comparative darkness, so narrow that shadows on the blinds -were pressed within a few feet of their faces, they came to one of -those great knots of activity where the lights, having drawn close -together, thin out again and take their separate ways. They were borne -on until they saw the spires of the city churches pale and flat against -the sky. - -“Are you cold?” he asked, as they stopped by Temple Bar. - -“Yes, I am rather,” she replied, becoming conscious that the splendid -race of lights drawn past her eyes by the superb curving and swerving -of the monster on which she sat was at an end. They had followed some -such course in their thoughts too; they had been borne on, victors in -the forefront of some triumphal car, spectators of a pageant enacted -for them, masters of life. But standing on the pavement alone, this -exaltation left them; they were glad to be alone together. Ralph stood -still for a moment to light his pipe beneath a lamp. - -She looked at his face isolated in the little circle of light. - -“Oh, that cottage,” she said. “We must take it and go there.” - -“And leave all this?” he inquired. - -“As you like,” she replied. She thought, looking at the sky above -Chancery Lane, how the roof was the same everywhere; how she was now -secure of all that this lofty blue and its steadfast lights meant to -her; reality, was it, figures, love, truth? - -“I’ve something on my mind,” said Ralph abruptly. “I mean I’ve been -thinking of Mary Datchet. We’re very near her rooms now. Would you mind -if we went there?” - -She had turned before she answered him. She had no wish to see any one -to-night; it seemed to her that the immense riddle was answered; the -problem had been solved; she held in her hands for one brief moment the -globe which we spend our lives in trying to shape, round, whole, and -entire from the confusion of chaos. To see Mary was to risk the -destruction of this globe. - -“Did you treat her badly?” she asked rather mechanically, walking on. - -“I could defend myself,” he said, almost defiantly. “But what’s the -use, if one feels a thing? I won’t be with her a minute,” he said. -“I’ll just tell her—” - -“Of course, you must tell her,” said Katharine, and now felt anxious -for him to do what appeared to be necessary if he, too, were to hold -his globe for a moment round, whole, and entire. - -“I wish—I wish—” she sighed, for melancholy came over her and obscured -at least a section of her clear vision. The globe swam before her as if -obscured by tears. - -“I regret nothing,” said Ralph firmly. She leant towards him almost as -if she could thus see what he saw. She thought how obscure he still was -to her, save only that more and more constantly he appeared to her a -fire burning through its smoke, a source of life. - -“Go on,” she said. “You regret nothing—” - -“Nothing—nothing,” he repeated. - -“What a fire!” she thought to herself. She thought of him blazing -splendidly in the night, yet so obscure that to hold his arm, as she -held it, was only to touch the opaque substance surrounding the flame -that roared upwards. - -“Why nothing?” she asked hurriedly, in order that he might say more and -so make more splendid, more red, more darkly intertwined with smoke -this flame rushing upwards. - -“What are you thinking of, Katharine?” he asked suspiciously, noticing -her tone of dreaminess and the inapt words. - -“I was thinking of you—yes, I swear it. Always of you, but you take -such strange shapes in my mind. You’ve destroyed my loneliness. Am I to -tell you how I see you? No, tell me—tell me from the beginning.” - -Beginning with spasmodic words, he went on to speak more and more -fluently, more and more passionately, feeling her leaning towards him, -listening with wonder like a child, with gratitude like a woman. She -interrupted him gravely now and then. - -“But it was foolish to stand outside and look at the windows. Suppose -William hadn’t seen you. Would you have gone to bed?” - -He capped her reproof with wonderment that a woman of her age could -have stood in Kingsway looking at the traffic until she forgot. - -“But it was then I first knew I loved you!” she exclaimed. - -“Tell me from the beginning,” he begged her. - -“No, I’m a person who can’t tell things,” she pleaded. “I shall say -something ridiculous—something about flames—fires. No, I can’t tell -you.” - -But he persuaded her into a broken statement, beautiful to him, charged -with extreme excitement as she spoke of the dark red fire, and the -smoke twined round it, making him feel that he had stepped over the -threshold into the faintly lit vastness of another mind, stirring with -shapes, so large, so dim, unveiling themselves only in flashes, and -moving away again into the darkness, engulfed by it. They had walked by -this time to the street in which Mary lived, and being engrossed by -what they said and partly saw, passed her staircase without looking up. -At this time of night there was no traffic and scarcely any -foot-passengers, so that they could pace slowly without interruption, -arm-in-arm, raising their hands now and then to draw something upon the -vast blue curtain of the sky. - -They brought themselves by these means, acting on a mood of profound -happiness, to a state of clear-sightedness where the lifting of a -finger had effect, and one word spoke more than a sentence. They lapsed -gently into silence, traveling the dark paths of thought side by side -towards something discerned in the distance which gradually possessed -them both. They were victors, masters of life, but at the same time -absorbed in the flame, giving their life to increase its brightness, to -testify to their faith. Thus they had walked, perhaps, twice or three -times up and down Mary Datchet’s street before the recurrence of a -light burning behind a thin, yellow blind caused them to stop without -exactly knowing why they did so. It burned itself into their minds. - -“That is the light in Mary’s room,” said Ralph. “She must be at home.” -He pointed across the street. Katharine’s eyes rested there too. - -“Is she alone, working at this time of night? What is she working at?” -she wondered. “Why should we interrupt her?” she asked passionately. -“What have we got to give her? She’s happy too,” she added. “She has -her work.” Her voice shook slightly, and the light swam like an ocean -of gold behind her tears. - -“You don’t want me to go to her?” Ralph asked. - -“Go, if you like; tell her what you like,” she replied. - -He crossed the road immediately, and went up the steps into Mary’s -house. Katharine stood where he left her, looking at the window and -expecting soon to see a shadow move across it; but she saw nothing; the -blinds conveyed nothing; the light was not moved. It signaled to her -across the dark street; it was a sign of triumph shining there for -ever, not to be extinguished this side of the grave. She brandished her -happiness as if in salute; she dipped it as if in reverence. “How they -burn!” she thought, and all the darkness of London seemed set with -fires, roaring upwards; but her eyes came back to Mary’s window and -rested there satisfied. She had waited some time before a figure -detached itself from the doorway and came across the road, slowly and -reluctantly, to where she stood. - -“I didn’t go in—I couldn’t bring myself,” he broke off. He had stood -outside Mary’s door unable to bring himself to knock; if she had come -out she would have found him there, the tears running down his cheeks, -unable to speak. - -They stood for some moments, looking at the illuminated blinds, an -expression to them both of something impersonal and serene in the -spirit of the woman within, working out her plans far into the -night—her plans for the good of a world that none of them were ever to -know. Then their minds jumped on and other little figures came by in -procession, headed, in Ralph’s view, by the figure of Sally Seal. - -“Do you remember Sally Seal?” he asked. Katharine bent her head. - -“Your mother and Mary?” he went on. “Rodney and Cassandra? Old Joan up -at Highgate?” He stopped in his enumeration, not finding it possible to -link them together in any way that should explain the queer combination -which he could perceive in them, as he thought of them. They appeared -to him to be more than individuals; to be made up of many different -things in cohesion; he had a vision of an orderly world. - -“It’s all so easy—it’s all so simple,” Katherine quoted, remembering -some words of Sally Seal’s, and wishing Ralph to understand that she -followed the track of his thought. She felt him trying to piece -together in a laborious and elementary fashion fragments of belief, -unsoldered and separate, lacking the unity of phrases fashioned by the -old believers. Together they groped in this difficult region, where the -unfinished, the unfulfilled, the unwritten, the unreturned, came -together in their ghostly way and wore the semblance of the complete -and the satisfactory. The future emerged more splendid than ever from -this construction of the present. Books were to be written, and since -books must be written in rooms, and rooms must have hangings, and -outside the windows there must be land, and an horizon to that land, -and trees perhaps, and a hill, they sketched a habitation for -themselves upon the outline of great offices in the Strand and -continued to make an account of the future upon the omnibus which took -them towards Chelsea; and still, for both of them, it swam miraculously -in the golden light of a large steady lamp. - -As the night was far advanced they had the whole of the seats on the -top of the omnibus to choose from, and the roads, save for an -occasional couple, wearing even at midnight, an air of sheltering their -words from the public, were deserted. No longer did the shadow of a man -sing to the shadow of a piano. A few lights in bedroom windows burnt -but were extinguished one by one as the omnibus passed them. - -They dismounted and walked down to the river. She felt his arm stiffen -beneath her hand, and knew by this token that they had entered the -enchanted region. She might speak to him, but with that strange tremor -in his voice, those eyes blindly adoring, whom did he answer? What -woman did he see? And where was she walking, and who was her companion? -Moments, fragments, a second of vision, and then the flying waters, the -winds dissipating and dissolving; then, too, the recollection from -chaos, the return of security, the earth firm, superb and brilliant in -the sun. From the heart of his darkness he spoke his thanksgiving; from -a region as far, as hidden, she answered him. On a June night the -nightingales sing, they answer each other across the plain; they are -heard under the window among the trees in the garden. Pausing, they -looked down into the river which bore its dark tide of waters, -endlessly moving, beneath them. They turned and found themselves -opposite the house. Quietly they surveyed the friendly place, burning -its lamps either in expectation of them or because Rodney was still -there talking to Cassandra. Katharine pushed the door half open and -stood upon the threshold. The light lay in soft golden grains upon the -deep obscurity of the hushed and sleeping household. For a moment they -waited, and then loosed their hands. “Good night,” he breathed. “Good -night,” she murmured back to him. - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND DAY *** - -***** This file should be named 1245-0.txt or 1245-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/4/1245/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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