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diff --git a/old/1245-h/1245-h.htm b/old/1245-h/1245-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 1d947b4..0000000 --- a/old/1245-h/1245-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,23813 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<head> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> -<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Night and Day, by Virginia Woolf</title> - -<style type="text/css"> - -body { margin-left: 20%; - margin-right: 20%; - text-align: justify; } - -h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: -normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} - -h1 {font-size: 300%; - margin-top: 0.6em; - margin-bottom: 0.6em; - letter-spacing: 0.12em; - word-spacing: 0.2em; - text-indent: 0em;} -h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} -h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} -h4 {font-size: 120%;} -h5 {font-size: 110%;} - -.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} - -hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} - -p {text-indent: 1em; - margin-top: 0.25em; - margin-bottom: 0.25em; } - -p.poem {text-indent: 0%; - margin-left: 10%; - font-size: 90%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; } - -p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } - -a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} -a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} -a:hover {color:red} - -</style> - -</head> - -<body> - -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Night and Day, by Virginia Woolf</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Night and Day</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Virginia Woolf</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March, 1998 [eBook #1245]<br /> -[Most recently updated: February 11, 2021]</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Judy Boss and David Widger</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND DAY ***</div> - -<h1>Night and Day</h1> - -<h2 class="no-break">by Virginia Woolf</h2> - -<h4> -TO<br /> <br /> VANESSA BELL<br /> <br /> BUT, LOOKING FOR A PHRASE,<br /> I -FOUND NONE TO STAND<br /> BESIDE YOUR NAME -</h4> - -<hr /> - -<h2>Contents</h2> - -<table summary="" style=""> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER I. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER II. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER III. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER IV. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER V. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER VI. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER VII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER VIII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER IX. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER X. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0011">CHAPTER XI. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0012">CHAPTER XII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0013">CHAPTER XIII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0014">CHAPTER XIV. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0015">CHAPTER XV. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0016">CHAPTER XVI. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0017">CHAPTER XVII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0018">CHAPTER XVIII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0019">CHAPTER XIX. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0020">CHAPTER XX. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0021">CHAPTER XXI. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0022">CHAPTER XXII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0023">CHAPTER XXIII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0024">CHAPTER XXIV. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0025">CHAPTER XXV. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0026">CHAPTER XXVI. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0027">CHAPTER XXVII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0028">CHAPTER XXVIII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0029">CHAPTER XXIX. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0030">CHAPTER XXX. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0031">CHAPTER XXXI. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0032">CHAPTER XXXII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0033">CHAPTER XXXIII. </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0034">CHAPTER XXXIV. </a></td> -</tr> - -</table> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2>NIGHT AND DAY</h2> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Now, what would you do if you were married to an engineer, and had to -live in Manchester, Mr. Denham?” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you ever been to Manchester?” he asked Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -“Never,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you object to it, then?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>all</i> -disappeared? I told her she would find the nice things of London without the -horrid streets that depress one so.” -</p> - -<p> -“There is the University,” said the thin gentleman, who had -previously insisted upon the existence of people knowing Persian. -</p> - -<p> -“I know there are moors there, because I read about them in a book the -other day,” said Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Would it be the Battle of Trafalgar or the Spanish Armada, -Katharine?” her mother demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“Trafalgar, mother.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>do</i> you read, I wonder?—for you can’t -spend all your time going up in aeroplanes and burrowing into the bowels of the -earth.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine waited as though for him to receive a full impression, and then she -said: -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“You must be very proud of your family, Miss Hilbery.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I am,” Katharine answered, and she added, “Do you think -there’s anything wrong in that?” -</p> - -<p> -“Wrong? How should it be wrong? It must be a bore, though, showing your -things to visitors,” he added reflectively. -</p> - -<p> -“Not if the visitors like them.” -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t it difficult to live up to your ancestors?” he -proceeded. -</p> - -<p> -“I dare say I shouldn’t try to write poetry,” Katharine -replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“The Otways are my cousins,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said Denham, in a final tone of voice, as if his argument -were proved. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said Katharine, “I don’t see that you’ve -proved anything.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“But aren’t you proud of your family?” Katharine demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” said Denham. “We’ve never done anything to be -proud of—unless you count paying one’s bills a matter for -pride.” -</p> - -<p> -“That sounds rather dull,” Katharine remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“You would think us horribly dull,” Denham agreed. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“No—because we’re not in the least ridiculous. We’re a -respectable middle-class family, living at Highgate.” -</p> - -<p> -“We don’t live at Highgate, but we’re middle class too, I -suppose.” -</p> - -<p> -Denham merely smiled, and replacing the malacca cane on the rack, he drew a -sword from its ornamental sheath. -</p> - -<p> -“That belonged to Clive, so we say,” said Katharine, taking up her -duties as hostess again automatically. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it a lie?” Denham inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a family tradition. I don’t know that we can prove -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“You see, we don’t have traditions in our family,” said -Denham. -</p> - -<p> -“You sound very dull,” Katharine remarked, for the second time. -</p> - -<p> -“Merely middle class,” Denham replied. -</p> - -<p> -“You pay your bills, and you speak the truth. I don’t see why you -should despise us.” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Denham carefully sheathed the sword which the Hilberys said belonged to -Clive. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“No, but one never would like to be any one else.” -</p> - -<p> -“I should. I should like to be lots of other people.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then why not us?” Katharine asked. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve got it very nearly right,” she said, “but I -only help my mother. I don’t write myself.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you do anything yourself?” he demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean?” she asked. “I don’t leave the house -at ten and come back at six.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t mean that.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” she said, “how do you like our things, Mr. -Denham?” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Denham rose, put his book down, opened his mouth, but said nothing, as -Katharine observed, with some amusement. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Hilbery handled the book he had laid down. -</p> - -<p> -“There are some books that <i>live</i>,” 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....” -</p> - -<p> -Here Mr. Denham held out his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -She stepped back and bade them contemplate the empty drawing-room, with its -rich, irregular lights, as the flames leapt and wavered. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>my</i> father in a broken glass.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“She’ll do.... Yes, Katharine Hilbery’ll do.... I’ll -take Katharine Hilbery.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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, -</p> - -<p> -“Mother says, aren’t you coming down, Ralph? Uncle -Joseph—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Ralph?” said a voice, inquiringly. -</p> - -<p> -“Joan?” -</p> - -<p> -“I was coming up, but I saw your notice.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, come along in, then.” He concealed his desire beneath a tone -as grudging as he could make it. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s simply not true,” said Ralph. -</p> - -<p> -“No. I thought not. But she won’t believe me when I say it.” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph, as if he could foresee the length of this familiar argument, drew up a -chair for his sister and sat down himself. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not interrupting?” she inquired. -</p> - -<p> -Ralph shook his head, and for a time they sat silent. The lines curved -themselves in semicircles above their eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“She doesn’t understand that one’s got to take risks,” -he observed, finally. -</p> - -<p> -“I believe mother would take risks if she knew that Charles was the sort -of boy to profit by it.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“It’s pretty hard lines to stick a boy into an office at -seventeen!” -</p> - -<p> -“Nobody <i>wants</i> to stick him into an office,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“A smaller house?” -</p> - -<p> -“Fewer servants, perhaps.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“It’s out of the question.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“If mother won’t run risks—” -</p> - -<p> -“You really can’t expect her to sell out again.” -</p> - -<p> -“She ought to look upon it as an investment; but if she won’t, we -must find some other way, that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Joan looked at him, opened her lips as if to speak, and closed them again. Then -she said, very tentatively: -</p> - -<p> -“Aren’t you happy, Ralph?” -</p> - -<p> -“No. Are you? Perhaps I’m as happy as most people, though. God -knows whether I’m happy or not. What is happiness?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph sighed impatiently. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose it doesn’t much matter either way,” he exclaimed. -“He’s doomed to misery in the long run.” -</p> - -<p> -A slight flush came into Joan’s cheek. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph was pleased that she should feel this, and wished her to continue, but he -went on, perversely enough. -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t that only because you’ve forgotten how to enjoy -yourself? You never have time for anything decent—” -</p> - -<p> -“As for instance?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I always think you could make this room much nicer, if you liked,” -she observed. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“You said two days ago that you found the law so interesting.” -</p> - -<p> -“So it is if one could afford to know anything about it.” -</p> - -<p> -(“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.”) -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“D’you ever pay calls now?” he asked abruptly. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t often have the time. Why do you ask?” -</p> - -<p> -“It might be a good thing, to get to know new people, that’s -all.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>him</i> in me!” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“And here we are,” she said, half aloud, half satirically, yet with -evident pride, “talking about art.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Alone?” he said, as if he were pleasantly surprised by that fact. -</p> - -<p> -“I am sometimes alone,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“William Rodney, upon the Elizabethan use of metaphor. I expect a good -solid paper, with plenty of quotations from the classics.” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph warmed his hands at the fire, which was flapping bravely in the grate, -while Mary took up her stocking again. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose you are the only woman in London who darns her own -stockings,” he observed. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“If that’s your standard, you’ve nothing to be proud -of,” said Ralph grimly. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I must reflect with Emerson that it’s being and not doing -that matters,” she continued. -</p> - -<p> -“Emerson?” Ralph exclaimed, with derision. “You don’t -mean to say you read Emerson?” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps it wasn’t Emerson; but why shouldn’t I read -Emerson?” she asked, with a tinge of anxiety. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -A knock was heard, and Ralph exclaimed: -</p> - -<p> -“Damn those people! I wish they weren’t coming!” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Will there be a crowd?” Ralph asked, after a pause. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine Hilbery!” Ralph exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“You know her?” Mary asked, with some surprise. -</p> - -<p> -“I went to a tea-party at her house.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.’” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t mean to abuse her. I only felt that she wasn’t very -sympathetic to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“They say she’s going to marry that queer creature Rodney.” -</p> - -<p> -“Marry Rodney? Then she must be more deluded than I thought her.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“In undertaking to speak of the Elizabethan use of metaphor in -poetry—” -</p> - -<p> -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!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Well, Katharine, I hope I’ve made a big enough fool of myself even -for you! It was terrible! terrible! terrible!” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Idiot!” he whispered. “He’s misunderstood every word I -said!” -</p> - -<p> -“Well then, answer him,” Katharine whispered back. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“That was what I call a first-rate paper.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -Rodney, who had opened his eyes on their approach, regarded her for a moment in -suspicious silence. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you say that merely to disguise the fact of my ridiculous -failure?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine looked up from her reading with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I asked her to pity me, and she teases me!” Rodney exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“D’you think that’s all about my paper?” Rodney -inquired, after a moment’s attention, with a distinct brightening of -expression. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course it is,” said Mary. “It was a very suggestive -paper.” -</p> - -<p> -She turned to Denham for confirmation, and he corroborated her. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Here he gathered himself together, and by means of a series of frog-like jerks, -succeeded in bringing himself close to Denham. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine turned and smiled. -</p> - -<p> -“I wonder what they’re making such a noise about?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“The Elizabethans, I suppose.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the -Elizabethans. There! Didn’t you hear them say, ‘Insurance -Bill’?” -</p> - -<p> -“I wonder why men always talk about politics?” Mary speculated. -“I suppose, if we had votes, we should, too.” -</p> - -<p> -“I dare say we should. And you spend your life in getting us votes, -don’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -“I do,” said Mary, stoutly. “From ten to six every day -I’m at it.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh dear no,” said Mary at once. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“One doesn’t necessarily trample upon people’s bodies because -one runs an office,” Mary remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, they’re very like sheep,” she repeated, foolishly. -</p> - -<p> -“And yet they are very clever—at least,” Katharine added, -“I suppose they have all read Webster.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I think you must be very clever,” Katharine observed. -</p> - -<p> -“Why? Because I run an office?” -</p> - -<p> -“I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking how you live alone in -this room, and have parties.” -</p> - -<p> -Mary reflected for a second. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, I haven’t any sisters.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are writing a life of your grandfather?” Mary pursued. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Heavens, what a mess there’ll be to-morrow morning!” -Katharine exclaimed. “I hope you don’t sleep in this room, Miss -Datchet?” -</p> - -<p> -Mary laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you laughing at?” Katharine demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t tell you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Let me guess. You were laughing because you thought I’d changed -the conversation?” -</p> - -<p> -“No.” -</p> - -<p> -“Because you think—” She paused. -</p> - -<p> -“If you want to know, I was laughing at the way you said Miss -Datchet.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mary, then. Mary, Mary, Mary.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Mary Datchet,” said Mary. “It’s not such an imposing -name as Katharine Hilbery, I’m afraid.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Ralph had been watching for this moment, and he instantly produced his -sentence. -</p> - -<p> -“I wonder, Miss Hilbery, whether you remembered to get that picture -glazed?” His voice showed that the question was one that had been -prepared. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -She kept her voice steady with some difficulty. -</p> - -<p> -“I know how to find the Pole star if I’m lost.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t suppose that often happens to you.” -</p> - -<p> -“No. Nothing interesting ever happens to me,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -On this occasion he began, while they waited for a minute on the edge of the -Strand: -</p> - -<p> -“I hear that Bennett has given up his theory of truth.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“I promise I won’t say another word about it, Katharine! But do -stop a minute and look at the moon upon the water.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine paused, looked up and down the river, and snuffed the air. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure one can smell the sea, with the wind blowing this -way,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke these disconnected sentences rather abruptly, with his eyes -alternately upon the moon and upon the stream. -</p> - -<p> -“But for me I suppose you would recommend marriage?” said -Katharine, with her eyes fixed on the moon. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p class="poem"> -“With how sad steps she climbs the sky,<br /> -How silently and with how wan a face,” -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Rodney quoted. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -William drew a deep sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“We may lecture you till we’re blue in the face—” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—but what’s he like?” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -She paused and, slackening her steps, looked at the lighted train drawing -itself smoothly over Hungerford Bridge. -</p> - -<p> -“It means, I should say, that he finds you chilly and -unsympathetic.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine laughed with round, separate notes of genuine amusement. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s time I jumped into a cab and hid myself in my own -house,” she exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“Would your mother object to my being seen with you? No one could -possibly recognize us, could they?” Rodney inquired, with some -solicitude. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine looked at him, and perceiving that his solicitude was genuine, she -laughed again, but with an ironical note in her laughter. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know. Because you’re such a queer mixture, I think. -You’re half poet and half old maid.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m ten years older than you are, Katharine, and I know more of -the world than you do.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. Leave me and go home.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t call that cab for me, William. I shall walk.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nonsense, Katharine; you’ll do nothing of the kind. It’s -nearly twelve o’clock, and we’ve walked too far as it is.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine laughed and walked on so quickly that both Rodney and the taxicab had -to increase their pace to keep up with her. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, William,” she said, “if people see me racing along the -Embankment like this they <i>will</i> talk. You had far better say good-night, -if you don’t want people to talk.” -</p> - -<p> -At this William beckoned, with a despotic gesture, to the cab with one hand, -and with the other he brought Katharine to a standstill. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t let the man see us struggling, for God’s sake!” -he murmured. Katharine stood for a moment quite still. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s more of the old maid in you than the poet,” she -observed briefly. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Ha!” Rodney exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I like Mary; I don’t see how one could help liking -her,” he remarked cautiously, with his eye on the lamp-post. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Who’s taken you in now?” he asked. “Katharine -Hilbery?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“And did you tell her all this to-night?” Denham asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re a slave like me, I suppose?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“A solicitor, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“I sometimes wonder why we don’t chuck it. Why don’t you -emigrate, Denham? I should have thought that would suit you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve a family.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Oh dear me, what a waste of time! But it’s over now, and so we may -think no more about it.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“The Baskerville Congreve,” said Rodney, offering it to his guest. -“I couldn’t read him in a cheap edition.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, Rodney,” said Denham, as he filled his pipe and looked about -him, “this is all very nice and comfortable.” -</p> - -<p> -Rodney turned his head half round and smiled, with the pride of a proprietor, -and then prevented himself from smiling. -</p> - -<p> -“Tolerable,” he muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“But I dare say it’s just as well that you have to earn your own -living.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I doubt that,” Denham replied. -</p> - -<p> -They sat silent, and the smoke from their pipes joined amicably in a blue vapor -above their heads. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’d be bored to death in a year’s time.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I grant you I should be bored if I did nothing. But I should write -plays.” -</p> - -<p> -“H’m!” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps,” Denham remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’ll lend it you,” Rodney announced, putting down the -poker. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“The bare branches against the sky do one so much <i>good</i>,” -Mrs. Seal asserted, looking out into the Square. -</p> - -<p> -“But one can’t lunch off trees, Sally,” said Mary. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -And she conjured up a scene of herself on a camel’s back, in the desert, -while Ralph commanded a whole tribe of natives. -</p> - -<p> -“That is what you can do,” she went on, moving on to the next -statue. “You always make people do what you want.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Always the way, always the way,” she muttered. “Kit Markham -is the only person who knows how to deal with the thing.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Here Mr. Clacton opened the door, and came in, holding a typewritten letter in -his hand, which he was reading aloud. -</p> - -<p> -“Salford’s affiliated,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Well done, Salford!” Mrs. Seal exclaimed enthusiastically, -thumping the teapot which she held upon the table, in token of applause. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -But Mary cut her short. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<i>good</i>. 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 <i>all</i> -squares should be open to <i>every one</i>. Is there any society with that -object, Mr. Clacton? If not, there should be, surely.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t belong to our society, then?” said Mrs. Seal. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“But surely,” she began. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -Mary laughed, and said “No.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“But surely, if you care about the welfare of your sex at all, you must -wish them to have the vote?” -</p> - -<p> -“I never said I didn’t wish them to have the vote,” Katharine -protested. -</p> - -<p> -“Then why aren’t you a member of our society?” Mrs. Seal -demanded. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you in any way related, I wonder, to the poet Alardyce? His -daughter, I believe, married a Mr. Hilbery.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; I’m the poet’s granddaughter,” said Katharine, -with a little sigh, after a pause; and for a moment they were all silent. -</p> - -<p> -“The poet’s granddaughter!” Mrs. Seal repeated, half to -herself, with a shake of her head, as if that explained what was otherwise -inexplicable. -</p> - -<p> -The light kindled in Mr. Clacton’s eye. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -A sharp rap at the door made Katharine’s answer inaudible. Mrs. Seal -looked up with renewed hope in her eyes, and exclaiming: -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine has come to see how one runs an office.” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph felt himself stiffen uncomfortably, as he said: -</p> - -<p> -“I hope Mary hasn’t persuaded you that she knows how to run an -office?” -</p> - -<p> -“What, doesn’t she?” said Katharine, looking from one to the -other. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t think that I tell lies, and I don’t think that Ralph -tells lies, do you, Ralph?” Mary continued. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Mary Datchet does that sort of work very well.... She’s -responsible for it, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. The others don’t help at all.... Has she made a convert of -you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh no. That is, I’m a convert already.” -</p> - -<p> -“But she hasn’t persuaded you to work for them?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh dear no—that wouldn’t do at all.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Suppose we get on to that omnibus?” he suggested. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine acquiesced, and they climbed up, and found themselves alone on top of -it. -</p> - -<p> -“But which way are you going?” Katharine asked, waking a little -from the trance into which movement among moving things had thrown her. -</p> - -<p> -“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! -</p> - -<p> -“This is like Venice,” she observed, raising her hand. “The -motor-cars, I mean, shooting about so quickly, with their lights.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve never seen Venice,” he replied. “I keep that and -some other things for my old age.” -</p> - -<p> -“What are the other things?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s Venice and India and, I think, Dante, too.” -</p> - -<p> -She laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“Think of providing for one’s old age! And would you refuse to see -Venice if you had the chance?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“And so am I!” Katharine exclaimed. “But, after all,” -she added, “why should you miss anything?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I have a message to give your father,” he remarked. “Perhaps -you would give it him, or I could come—” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, do come,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Let us congratulate ourselves that we shall be in the grave before that -work is published,” said Mr. Hilbery. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“The only excuse for you, Katharine, is that dinner is still later than -you are,” said Mr. Hilbery, putting down his spectacles. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>like</i> your being out so late, Katharine,” -she continued. “You took a cab, I hope?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -“Which ridiculous goose?” Katharine asked her father. -</p> - -<p> -“Only one of my geese, happily, makes epigrams—Augustus Pelham, of -course,” said Mrs. Hilbery. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not sorry that I was out,” said Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -“Poor Augustus!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. “But we’re all -too hard on him. Remember how devoted he is to his tiresome old mother.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s only because she is his mother. Any one connected with -himself—” -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Hilbery suggested “cynical.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“What is it you wish?” he asked, as she paused. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I wish mother wasn’t famous. I was out at tea, and they would talk -to me about poetry.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thinking you must be poetical, I see—and aren’t you?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, the office atmosphere is very bad for the soul,” said Mr. -Hilbery. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, because they don’t read it as we read it,” Katharine -insisted. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“At any rate, they haven’t made a convert of Katharine, which was -what I was afraid of,” Mr. Hilbery remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh no,” said Katharine very decidedly, “I wouldn’t -work with them for anything.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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....” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -The tears stood in Mrs. Hilbery’s eyes. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -The alteration of her name annoyed Katharine, and she observed, rather sharply, -that she didn’t want to marry any one. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Please, Katharine, read us something <i>real</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<i>not</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve had a letter from Aunt Celia about Cyril, father.... It seems -to be true—about his marriage. What are we to do?” -</p> - -<p> -“Cyril seems to have been behaving in a very foolish manner,” said -Mr. Hilbery, in his pleasant and deliberate tones. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -At length he said “Humph!” and gave the letters back to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother knows nothing about it,” Katharine remarked. “Will -you tell her?” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall tell your mother. But I shall tell her that there is nothing -whatever for us to do.” -</p> - -<p> -“But the marriage?” Katharine asked, with some diffidence. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Hilbery said nothing, and stared into the fire. -</p> - -<p> -“What in the name of conscience did he do it for?” he speculated at -last, rather to himself than to her. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, if the younger generation want to carry on its life on those -lines, it’s none of our affair,” he remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“But isn’t it our affair, perhaps, to make them get married?” -Katharine asked rather wearily. -</p> - -<p> -“Why the dickens should they apply to me?” her father demanded with -sudden irritation. -</p> - -<p> -“Only as the head of the family—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I think, perhaps, the best thing would be for me to go and see -them,” she observed. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve always been friends with Cyril,” Katharine observed. -</p> - -<p> -“But did he ever tell you anything about this?” Mr. Hilbery asked -rather sharply. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Hilbery sighed. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -When Katharine reached the study, Mrs. Hilbery had already dipped her pen in -the ink. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Hilbery had risen from her table, and was standing looking out of the -window at a string of barges swimming up the river. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine watched her. Suddenly Mrs. Hilbery turned abruptly, and exclaimed: -</p> - -<p> -“I really believe I’m bewitched! I only want three sentences, you -see, something quite straightforward and commonplace, and I can’t find -‘em.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s very beautiful,” she stated, “but, you see, -mother, we ought to go from point to point—” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Hilbery was rambling on, from story to story. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Turning the page, she came upon the picture of a very masculine, handsome lady, -whose head the photographer had adorned with an imperial crown. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine again tried to interrupt. But Mrs. Hilbery had been gathering impetus -from her recollections, and was now in high spirits. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, he is <i>not</i> married,” Mrs. Milvain interposed, in low -tones, addressing herself to Mrs. Hilbery. “He has two children, and -another on the way.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Hilbery looked from one to the other in bewilderment. -</p> - -<p> -“We thought it better to wait until it was proved before we told -you,” Katharine added. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t <i>wish</i> to believe it, Maggie,” said Mrs. -Milvain. “For a long time I <i>couldn’t</i> believe it. But now -I’ve seen, and I <i>have</i> to believe it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine,” Mrs. Hilbery demanded, “does your father know of -this?” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine nodded. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Hilbery fidgeted rather restlessly, and hummed fragments of her tune, as -if to interrupt. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what did she look like?” Mrs. Hilbery demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“One could see how the poor boy had been deluded,” was all that -Mrs. Milvain vouchsafed by way of description. -</p> - -<p> -“Poor thing!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“Poor Cyril!” Mrs. Milvain said, laying a slight emphasis upon -Cyril. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“She is <i>not</i> his wife,” Aunt Celia interrupted. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“But does he refuse to marry her?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired, with a -return of her bewilderment. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“But let us hope it will be a girl,” said Mrs. Hilbery. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid I take a very different view of principle,” -Cousin Caroline remarked tartly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, Mary,” he said at length, “why don’t you say -something amusing?” -</p> - -<p> -His tone was certainly provoking, but, as a general rule, Mary was not easily -provoked. This evening, however, she replied rather sharply: -</p> - -<p> -“Because I’ve got nothing amusing to say, I suppose.” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph thought for a moment, and then remarked: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“And is that a bad thing?” she asked, shading her eyes with her -hand. -</p> - -<p> -“I think it is,” he returned abruptly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t read enough, Mary,” he was saying. “You -ought to read more poetry.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me what I ought to read, then.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -For a moment they were both silent. Ralph then said: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You won’t go away, will you?” he asked. And as she said -nothing, he added, “Oh no, don’t go away.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, William,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m -late.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I should have thought that you never forgot anything,” William -remarked, as they settled down again. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s part of the myth about me, I know,” Katharine -replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“No; it doesn’t interest me very much,” she replied candidly. -</p> - -<p> -“What shall we talk about then?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -She looked rather whimsically round the walls of the room. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve kept it up for ten years very beautifully, as far as -I’m concerned,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Ten years? So long as that?” -</p> - -<p> -“And I don’t think it’s always bored you,” he added. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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!—” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, then, why don’t you read me something before I go?” -said Katharine, looking at her watch. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t generally ask things out of kindness,” Katharine -observed; “however, if you don’t want to read, you -needn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“That seems to me extremely well written, William; although, of course, I -don’t know enough to criticize in detail.” -</p> - -<p> -“But it’s the skill that strikes you—not the emotion?” -</p> - -<p> -“In a fragment like that, of course, the skill strikes one most.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve read it to Ralph Denham?” Katharine inquired, with -surprise. “He’s a better judge than I am. What did he say?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -This was so genuine a tribute to his trust in her that Katharine was touched. -</p> - -<p> -“You think too much of me altogether, William,” she said, -forgetting that she had not meant to speak in this way. -</p> - -<p> -“No, Katharine, I don’t,” he replied, replacing his -manuscript in the drawer. “It does me good to think of you.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Extract from a letter sent a few days later by Mrs. Hilbery to her -sister-in-law, Mrs. Milvain: -</p> - -<p> -“... 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 <i>everything</i>. 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 <i>her?</i>’ 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? -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> - -<p> -“Is Mr. Hilbery at home, or Mrs. Hilbery?” Denham asked, of the -parlor-maid in Chelsea, a week later. -</p> - -<p> -“No, sir. But Miss Hilbery is at home,” the girl answered. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Ralph said something about hoping to find her father. -</p> - -<p> -“My father is out,” she replied. “But if you can wait, I -expect him soon.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Is that one of the moderns whom you despise?” he asked, smiling at -the carelessness of her gesture. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she replied. “I think even you would despise -him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Even I?” he repeated. “Why even I?” -</p> - -<p> -“You said you liked modern things; I said I hated them.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Or did I confess that I hated all books?” she went on, seeing him -look up with an air of inquiry. “I forget—” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you hate all books?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t encourage me to write a poem,” said Ralph. -</p> - -<p> -“But you’re not a poet, too, are you?” she inquired, turning -upon him with a laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Should I tell you if I were?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you say that?” she asked, almost with impatience, tapping -her spoon two or three times against the side of her cup. -</p> - -<p> -“Why?” Ralph laid hands on the first words that came to mind. -“Because, I suppose, it keeps an ideal alive which might die -otherwise.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know that there’s much sense in having -ideals,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“But you have them,” he replied energetically. “Why do we -call them ideals? It’s a stupid word. Dreams, I mean—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Where are the sunsets now?” she repeated. “Do you find -sunsets now, Mr. Popham?” -</p> - -<p> -“I live at Highgate,” he replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“But I do read De Quincey,” Ralph protested, “more than -Belloc and Chesterton, anyhow.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Here she hollowed her hand into a screen, and, leaning towards Katharine, -inquired, in a very audible whisper, “Does your friend -<i>write?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“Mr. Denham,” said Katharine, with more than her usual clearness -and firmness, “writes for the Review. He is a lawyer.” -</p> - -<p> -“The clean-shaven lips, showing the expression of the mouth! I recognize -them at once. I always feel at home with lawyers, Mr. Denham—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph shook his head, and she sighed. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“A sprig of May in her bonnet,” Mrs. Cosham ejaculated, -reminiscently. -</p> - -<p> -“And next Sunday he had violets in his buttonhole. And that was how we -guessed.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not a poet,” said Ralph good-humoredly. “I’m -only a solicitor.” -</p> - -<p> -“But you write, too?” Mrs. Cosham demanded, afraid lest she should -be balked of her priceless discovery, a young man truly devoted to literature. -</p> - -<p> -“In my spare time,” Denham reassured her. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -Thus called upon to sum up the worth of human nature in a few words, Ralph -answered unhesitatingly: -</p> - -<p> -“Worse, Mrs. Cosham, a good deal worse. I’m afraid the ordinary man -is a bit of a rascal—” -</p> - -<p> -“And the ordinary woman?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, I don’t like the ordinary woman either—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“She is right. There <i>was</i> a pond with tadpoles,” Mrs. Cosham -corroborated. “Millais made studies of it for ‘Ophelia.’ Some -say that is the best picture he ever painted—” -</p> - -<p> -“And I remember the dog chained up in the yard, and the dead snakes -hanging in the toolhouse.” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -“I think the bull was only a cow, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said Mrs. Milvain, “I’m glad you have some one -to protect you from bulls now.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t imagine William protecting any one from bulls,” said -Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I like rubies,” he heard Katharine say. -</p> - -<p class="poem"> -“To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,<br /> -And blown with restless violence round about<br /> -The pendant world....” -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“And have you settled upon a house yet, Katharine?” -</p> - -<p> -This convinced him of the truth of the monstrous idea. He looked up at once and -said: -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, it’s a difficult passage.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -But Ralph made no attempt to seat himself. -</p> - -<p> -“I must congratulate you,” he said. “It was news to -me.” He saw her face change, but only to become graver than before. -</p> - -<p> -“My engagement?” she asked. “Yes, I am going to marry William -Rodney.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I must go,” he said at length. -</p> - -<p> -She seemed about to say something, then changed her mind and said merely: -</p> - -<p> -“You will come again, I hope. We always seem”—she -hesitated—“to be interrupted.” -</p> - -<p> -He bowed and left the room. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Gracious, Mary!” he exclaimed. “How you startled me!” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve never seen sparrows so tame,” Mary observed, by way of -saying something. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“Oughtn’t to be allowed to bowl hoops! My dear Ralph, what -nonsense!” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Mary made no answer to this remark, but frowned. -</p> - -<p> -She leant back on the seat and looked about her at the great houses breaking -the soft gray-blue sky with their chimneys. -</p> - -<p> -“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....” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph sighed impatiently. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I think so, when you come to know them,” she added, as if his -disagreement had been spoken. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -As he merely shook his head, and filled his pipe, she went on: -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a bit of a pose, isn’t it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not more than most things,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“What d’you want to sit on a committee for?” he asked. -“It’s waste of your time, Mary.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Come to you at Disham?” Ralph repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<i>would</i> come?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Miss Markham has already arrived,” Mrs. Seal remarked, with due -solemnity, “and this is her dog.” -</p> - -<p> -“A very fine dog, too,” said Mary, patting him on the head. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>her</i> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“I fancy, ladies and gentlemen, that we are ready to commence.” -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“My friends think all this kind of thing useless.” She felt that -she was really saying that to Ralph himself. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, they’re that sort, are they?” said Miss Markham, with a -little laugh; and with renewed vigor their legions charged the foe. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, did you enjoy yourself?” Mary asked, with a little laugh. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>must</i> see the truth some -day.... If only one could <i>make</i> them see it....” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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? -</p> - -<p> -“But we go at such a snail’s pace,” said Sally, shaking her -head impatiently. -</p> - -<p> -At this Mary burst out laughing, and all her arrogance was dissipated. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no, you won’t be in your grave,” said Mary, kindly. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Mary, accordingly, retired to make preparations in the pantry. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“William,” she said, “thinks that perhaps you don’t -know. We are going to be married.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Your tea, William,” said Katharine gently. -</p> - -<p> -He paused, gulped it down, obediently, and continued. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I wonder how you find the time to know all about pictures as well as -books?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Leave you something?” said Katharine, apparently waking from a -brown study. “I was thinking we must be going—” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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!’” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure I’m sorry,” Katharine apologized. “I -know it’s a bad habit, but then, you see, at home—” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Mary was walking in the garden with Elizabeth, and inspecting the roses, when -the letter arrived. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“A flower for your buttonhole, father,” she said, presenting a -rose. -</p> - -<p> -“Eh, dear?” said Mr. Datchet, taking the flower, and holding it at -an angle which suited his bad eyesight, without pausing in his walk. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“The garden’s looking very nice, father.” -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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 -<i>her?</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Stogdon House, Lampsher, Lincoln,” he read out. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“Look here, you must explain,” said Ralph. “Who are these -young men? Where am I staying?” -</p> - -<p> -“You are staying with us, of course,” she said boldly. “Of -course, you’re staying with us—you don’t mind coming, do -you?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -He snuffed the air, and felt more keenly than he had done for many weeks the -pleasure of owning a body. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Could you?” said Ralph. “I don’t believe you -could,” he added. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“But you’d get tired of it,” he urged. -</p> - -<p> -“I sometimes think it’s the only thing one would never get tired -of,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“The cottage I’m thinking of stands by itself in a little -orchard.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what about the Suffrage?” he asked, attempting sarcasm. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, there are other things in the world besides the Suffrage,” she -replied, in an off-hand manner which was slightly mysterious. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“D’you know the points of the compass?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s my native land, this,” she said. “I could smell -my way about it blindfold.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s Christopher, come in already, and gone to feed his -chickens,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -After dinner, parish business took the Rector to his study, and Mary proposed -that they should sit in the kitchen. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not the kitchen really,” Elizabeth hastened to explain -to her guest, “but we call it so—” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s the nicest room in the house,” said Edward. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t shoot, but I’ll come with you,” said Ralph. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you care about shooting?” asked Edward, whose -suspicions were not yet laid to rest. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You wouldn’t have much chance in London, I suppose,” said -Christopher. “But won’t you find it rather dull—just watching -us?” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall watch birds,” Ralph replied, with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Piper!—oh, damn!—I shall have to get up,” murmured -Christopher. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not Piper, it’s Pitch,” Edward grunted. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Do come in and shut the door!” Mary cried, half turning in her -chair. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Well, but what do you want to do?” -</p> - -<p> -Even in this purely imaginary dialogue, Katharine found it difficult to confide -her ambition to an imaginary companion. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine thereupon went on with the statement of her case. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“You have fled, too, then?” he said, looking at her cloak. -Katharine had forgotten to remove this token of her star-gazing. -</p> - -<p> -“Fled?” she asked. “From whom d’you mean? Oh, the -family party. Yes, it was hot down there, so I went into the garden.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you, Henry,” she said. “I’m not disturbing -you?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“How I wish—” Katharine began, and stopped short. “I -think these parties are a great mistake,” she added briefly, and sighed. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, horrible!” he agreed; and they both fell silent. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, what’s the date of the wedding?” said Henry, the -malicious mood now predominating. -</p> - -<p> -“I think some time in March,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“And afterwards?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“We take a house, I suppose, somewhere in Chelsea.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s very interesting,” he observed, stealing another look -at her. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps marriage will make you more human.” -</p> - -<p> -At this she lowered the newspaper an inch or two, but said nothing. Indeed, she -sat quite silent for over a minute. -</p> - -<p> -“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to -matter very much, do they?” she said suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I doubt whether there is an explanation,” she replied rather -hurriedly, not clearly understanding what he meant. -</p> - -<p> -“What? No explanation of anything?” he inquired, with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, things happen. That’s about all,” she let drop in her -casual, decided way. -</p> - -<p> -“That certainly seems to explain some of your actions,” Henry -thought to himself. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Well, if you believe that your life must be simple, Henry.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I don’t believe it,” he said shortly. -</p> - -<p> -“No more do I,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“What about the stars?” he asked a moment later. “I -understand that you rule your life by the stars?” -</p> - -<p> -She let this pass, either because she did not attend to it, or because the tone -was not to her liking. -</p> - -<p> -Once more she paused, and then she inquired: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“What could be happening?” Henry protested. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“And then there’s William,” she added, as if by an -afterthought. -</p> - -<p> -Henry very nearly laughed, but restrained himself. -</p> - -<p> -“Do they know what coals are made of, Henry?” she asked, a moment -later. -</p> - -<p> -“Mares’ tails, I believe,” he hazarded. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you ever been down a coal-mine?” she went on. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t let’s talk about coal-mines, Katharine,” he -protested. “We shall probably never see each other again. When -you’re married—” -</p> - -<p> -Tremendously to his surprise, he saw the tears stand in her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you all tease me?” she said. “It isn’t -kind.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Things aren’t easy, anyhow,” she stated. -</p> - -<p> -Obeying an impulse of genuine affection, Henry spoke. -</p> - -<p> -“Promise me, Katharine, that if I can ever help you, you will let -me.” -</p> - -<p> -She seemed to consider, looking once more into the red of the fire, and decided -to refrain from any explanation. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s where you’ve been all the time,” he repeated, -looking at Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve only been here about ten minutes,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“My dear Katharine, you left the drawing-room over an hour ago.” -</p> - -<p> -She said nothing. -</p> - -<p> -“Does it very much matter?” Henry asked. -</p> - -<p> -Rodney found it hard to be unreasonable in the presence of another man, and did -not answer him. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“We were discussing coal-mines,” said Henry urbanely. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. But we were talking about much more interesting things before -that,” said Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Was it very dull, William?” Katharine suddenly asked, with a -complete change of tone and a little gesture of her hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course it was dull,” William said sulkily. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you stay and talk to Henry, and I’ll go down,” she -replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall come down with you,” said William, as she drew back her -hand, and made as if to pass him. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh no,” she said hastily. “You stay here and talk to -Henry.” -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“No. I want to come with you.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked back, and said in a very commanding tone, and with an expression of -authority upon her face: -</p> - -<p> -“It’s useless for you to come. I shall go to bed in ten minutes. -Good night.” -</p> - -<p> -She nodded to them both, but Henry could not help noticing that her last nod -was in his direction. Rodney sat down rather heavily. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Sir William Budge, the sugar king, has the biggest estate. He bought out -poor Stanham, who went bankrupt.” -</p> - -<p> -“Which Stanham would that be? Verney or Alfred?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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? -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“But, as a family, you’re given to moods, eh?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not Katharine,” said Henry, with decision. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine has had a difficult life, in some ways,” he continued. -“I expect that marriage will be good for her. She has great -powers.” -</p> - -<p> -“Great,” said Henry, with decision. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—but now what direction d’you think they take?” -</p> - -<p> -Rodney had completely dropped his pose as a man of the world, and seemed to be -asking Henry to help him in a difficulty. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know,” Henry hesitated cautiously. -</p> - -<p> -“D’you think children—a household—that sort of -thing—d’you think that’ll satisfy her? Mind, I’m out -all day.” -</p> - -<p> -“She would certainly be very competent,” Henry stated. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s so very pleasant,” said Lady Otway, “to knit -while one’s talking. And now, my dear Katharine, tell me about your -plans.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I never <i>shall</i> 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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>are</i>. 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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>all</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I should say yes, certainly,” said Lady Otway, with a decision -most unusual for her. -</p> - -<p> -“Then one ought to make up one’s mind to that before one is -married,” Katharine mused, seeming to address herself. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s the most <i>interesting</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Let me look at your engagement-ring, Aunt Charlotte,” she said, -noticing her own. -</p> - -<p> -She took the cluster of green stones and turned it round and round, but she did -not know what to say next. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Why didn’t Andrews tell me himself?” said Lady Otway, -peevishly, blaming her servants for not living up to her ideals. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know, Mary,” Ralph suddenly interrupted her, -“I’ve made up my mind.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -She still waited, as if for him to continue; she was convinced that in some -roundabout way he approached the subject of their marriage. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Live down here by yourself?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -By this time Mary had recovered her self-control. -</p> - -<p> -“No. I thought you weren’t happy,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Why did you think that?” he asked, with some surprise. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you remember that morning in Lincoln’s Inn -Fields?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re right, Mary,” he said, with something of an effort, -“though I don’t know how you guessed it.” -</p> - -<p> -She was silent, hoping that he might tell her the reason of his unhappiness, -for his excuses had not deceived her. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Unhappiness is a state of mind,” he said, “by which I mean -that it is not necessarily the result of any particular cause.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t go away, Mary!” he exclaimed, and stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Mary,” he cried, stung by the remembrance of his exacting and -dictatorial ways with her, “what a brute I’ve been to you!” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Now, Mary, what’s all this about America?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -In a practical way she asked for particulars of his cottage, which hardly -existed in his mind, and corrected his vagueness. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Well, Mary—?” inviting her to take up the thread of thought -where he had dropped it. -</p> - -<p> -And at that very moment he turned just so, and said: -</p> - -<p> -“Well, Mary?” with the curious touch of diffidence which she loved -in him. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Well, Mary—?” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“How damnable this all is!” he exclaimed abruptly. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you talking about?” she replied, rather vaguely, still -looking out of the window. -</p> - -<p> -He resented this divided attention more than, perhaps, he knew, and he thought -how Mary would soon be on her way to America. -</p> - -<p> -“Mary,” he said, “I want to talk to you. Haven’t we -nearly done? Why don’t they take away these plates?” -</p> - -<p> -Mary felt his agitation without looking at him; she felt convinced that she -knew what it was that he wished to say to her. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“I think I do,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -At this point the waiter changed their plates. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve told you I’m a liar,” Ralph repeated obstinately. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“That was Katharine Hilbery.” -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine Hilbery? What do you mean?” she asked, hardly -understanding from his manner whether he had seen her or not. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine Hilbery,” he repeated. “But she’s gone -now.” -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine Hilbery!” Mary thought, in an instant of blinding -revelation; “I’ve always known it was Katharine Hilbery!” She -knew it all now. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -It was Mrs. Hilbery; her entrance created some stir in the shop; many people -looked at her. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>are</i> 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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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? -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I thought I saw you—but it wasn’t you,” he -replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“The solicitor’s office? Yes. I’m giving that up.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -She could not answer because they were immediately surrounded by other members -of the party—by Mrs. Hilbery, and Mary, Henry Otway, and William. -</p> - -<p> -Rodney went up to Katharine immediately and said to her: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine nodded her head. She glanced at him with an oddly furtive expression. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve not enjoyed my holiday.” -</p> - -<p> -“No?” -</p> - -<p> -“No. I shall be glad to get back to work again.” -</p> - -<p> -“Saturday, Sunday, Monday—there are only three days more,” -she counted. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“That refers to me, I suppose,” she said calmly. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“None of these things seem to me to matter,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well, then. I may as well hold my tongue,” he replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“And we might be so happy, Katharine!” he exclaimed impulsively, -and drew her arm through his. She withdrew it directly. -</p> - -<p> -“As long as you let yourself feel like this we shall never be -happy,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“If you have no feeling for me, wouldn’t it be kinder to say so to -me in private?” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“And if I say that I care for you, don’t you believe me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Say it, Katharine! Say it as if you meant it! Make me feel that you care -for me!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“I was wrong to get engaged to you. I shall never make you happy. I have -never loved you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine!” he protested. -</p> - -<p> -“No, never,” she repeated obstinately. “Not rightly. -Don’t you see, I didn’t know what I was doing?” -</p> - -<p> -“You love some one else?” he cut her short. -</p> - -<p> -“Absolutely no one.” -</p> - -<p> -“Henry?” he demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“Henry? I should have thought, William, even you—” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“If I could, I would,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“Why did you tell me you would marry me, then?” he demanded. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no, of course not,” she said, stirring the leaves with her -hand. “But you don’t understand me, William—” -</p> - -<p> -“Help me to understand you—” -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“How a farce?” he asked. “But this kind of analysis is -disastrous!” he exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“I should have done it before,” she said gloomily. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“William,” she said, “I will marry you. I will try to make -you happy.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> - -<p> -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; -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -She said nothing, but this did not seem to strike him. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You couldn’t do it?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“No, I couldn’t marry you,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t care for me?” -</p> - -<p> -She made no answer. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Keep apart? I don’t know—I must think about it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me one thing, Mary,” he resumed; “have I done anything -to make you change your mind about me?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, we can still be friends,” she said, with what firmness she -could muster. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I never said I loved you,” he said at last. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“And to me marriage without love doesn’t seem worth while,” -she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not angry with you,” she said slowly. “I will go -on seeing you, as I said I would.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>them</i>,” 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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“When you ought to have been taking a rest, Mr. Clacton,” said Mary -dutifully, but her tone was flat and tired. -</p> - -<p> -“We learn to do without holidays, Miss Datchet,” said Mr. Clacton, -with a spark of satisfaction in his eye. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” she said to herself, rising from her seat, “I’ll -think of Ralph.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m frightfully lazy this afternoon,” she added, with a -glance at her table. “You must really get another secretary, -Sally.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t mean that you’re going to leave us?” she -said. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve not made up my mind about anything,” said Mary—a -remark which could be taken as a generalization. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Seal got the teacups out of the cupboard and set them on the table. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re not going to be married, are you?” she asked, -pronouncing the words with nervous speed. -</p> - -<p> -“Why are you asking such absurd questions this afternoon, Sally?” -Mary asked, not very steadily. “Must we all get married?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—enough work to last a lifetime,” said Mary, as if -concluding some passage of thought. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<i>simple</i>.” 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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you want?” she said, not recognizing the face in the -fitful light of the staircase. -</p> - -<p> -“Mary? I’m Katharine Hilbery!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re working?” said Katharine, with hesitation, perceiving -that she was not welcome. -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing that matters,” Mary replied, drawing forward the best of -the chairs and poking the fire. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“No. But how <i>are</i> things?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Mary’s lips parted slightly. She could not conceive in what respects -Katharine, who spoke sincerely, could envy her. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t think you’ve got any reason to envy me,” she -said. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps one always envies other people,” Katharine observed -vaguely. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, but you’ve got everything that any one can want.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m the opposite way of thinking, you see,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; I know you are,” Katharine replied, looking at her as if now -she were about, perhaps, to explain something very important. -</p> - -<p> -Mary could not help feeling the simplicity and good faith that lay behind -Katharine’s words. -</p> - -<p> -“I think affection is the only reality,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“He thinks of it,” said Mary briefly. The color at once came to her -face. -</p> - -<p> -“It would be a very good plan,” said Katharine in her decided way. -</p> - -<p> -“You think so?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“And now—” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t mind my telling you that?” said Mary, raising -herself. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” said Mary; “I’ve got that. One wouldn’t -<i>not</i> 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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -She hesitated, and groped in her endeavor to make her feelings clear to -herself. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -He rapped the words out with a certain degree of briskness. Katharine started a -little, as if the announcement disturbed her thoughts. -</p> - -<p> -“That won’t make any difference, will it? I mean the lease -isn’t signed,” she replied. “But why? What has -happened?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a good thing we didn’t take the house then,” she -repeated thoughtfully. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s at home, I think,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -She veered round upon him a moment later, as if, when her train of thought was -ended, she became aware of his presence. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you finished your letter?” she asked. He thought he heard -faint amusement in her tone, but not a trace of jealousy. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Cassandra won’t know if it’s well written or badly -written,” Katharine remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not so sure about that. I should say she has a good deal of -literary feeling.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Swift,” she said, at last, taking out a volume at haphazard to -settle this question at least. “Let us have some Swift.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -At last William spoke. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at him and observed his judicial attitude as of one holding far -aloof from emotion. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve kept the letters, and I’ll go through them to-morrow; -but I’m certain we’re on the safe side.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“What is this romance?” she mused. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not altogether knowing the other person, -perhaps—it’s ignorance,” she hazarded. -</p> - -<p> -“Some authorities say it’s a question of distance—romance in -literature, that is—” -</p> - -<p> -“Possibly, in the case of art. But in the case of people it may -be—” she hesitated. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you no personal experience of it?” he asked, letting his eyes -rest upon her swiftly for a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>that</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -“But isn’t it curious,” William resumed, “that you -should neither feel it for me, nor I for you?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I think you might be very happy with some one you loved in that -way,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“You assume that romance survives a closer knowledge of the person one -loves?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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— -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Those dreadful insects!” burst from William, with a nervous laugh, -and a little spasm went through him as Katharine noticed. It <i>was</i> -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—” -</p> - -<p> -She ceased, as if defining to herself this peculiar charm. After a -moment’s silence William jerked out: -</p> - -<p> -“I thought her affectionate?” -</p> - -<p> -“Extremely affectionate. She worships Henry. When you think what a house -that is—Uncle Francis always in one mood or another—” -</p> - -<p> -“Dear, dear, dear,” William muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“And you have so much in common.” -</p> - -<p> -“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....” -</p> - -<p> -He was covered with an extreme confusion. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve stirred up all these odious and violent emotions, and now -you must do the best you can with them.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I wish to do whatever you tell me to do,” he said. “I put -myself entirely in your hands, Katharine.” -</p> - -<p> -“You must try to tell me what you feel,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t it the truth that you are, or might be, in love with -Cassandra?” she said gently. -</p> - -<p> -William bowed his head. After a moment’s silence he murmured: -</p> - -<p> -“I believe you’re right, Katharine.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine, I worship you,” he urged, half in a whisper. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she replied, withdrawing with a little shiver, “but -you must open the door.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’d rather live here than anywhere in the whole of London,” -said Denham. -</p> - -<p> -(“And I’ve got nowhere to live”) Katharine thought, as she -agreed aloud. -</p> - -<p> -“You could get rooms here, no doubt, if you wanted to,” Rodney -replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Indeed?—that’s sad.... You must give me your address. But -you won’t cut yourself off altogether, surely—” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll be moving, too, I suppose,” Denham remarked. -</p> - -<p> -William showed such visible signs of floundering that Katharine collected -herself and asked: -</p> - -<p> -“Where is the cottage you’ve taken?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“I’m going, too. Shall we go together?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“There seem to be no cabs. Shall we walk on a little?” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” she agreed, paying no attention to him. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Should you mind if we walked a little farther?” he asked. -“There’s something I want to say to you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” she replied, guessing that his request had something -to do with Mary Datchet. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re saying -things that you don’t mean.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I saw Mary Datchet this afternoon,” she exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -He made a movement as if he were surprised or taken aback, but answered in a -moment: -</p> - -<p> -“She told you that I had asked her to marry me, I suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“No!” Katharine exclaimed, in surprise. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -After a short pause, he said: -</p> - -<p> -“I am not telling you that I am in love with you. I am not in love with -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t think that,” she replied, conscious of some -bewilderment. -</p> - -<p> -“I have not spoken a word to you that I do not mean,” he added. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me then what it is that you mean,” she said at length. -</p> - -<p> -As if obeying a common instinct, they both stopped and, bending slightly over -the balustrade of the river, looked into the flowing water. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Simultaneously, they both walked on very slowly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -He bowed his head. -</p> - -<p> -“The day you told me of your engagement,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -She thought, with a start, that she was no longer engaged. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean?” she inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“I told you. I’m taking a cottage. I’m giving up my -profession.” -</p> - -<p> -“On my account?” she asked, in amazement. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, on your account,” he replied. He explained his meaning no -further. -</p> - -<p> -“But I don’t know you or your circumstances,” she said at -last, as he remained silent. -</p> - -<p> -“You have no opinion about me one way or the other?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I suppose I have an opinion—” she hesitated. -</p> - -<p> -He controlled his wish to ask her to explain herself, and much to his pleasure -she went on, appearing to search her mind. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought that you criticized me—perhaps disliked me. I thought of -you as a person who judges—” -</p> - -<p> -“No; I’m a person who feels,” he said, in a low voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me, then, what has made you do this?” she asked, after a -break. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Then you will let me know your decision as soon as you can?” he -asked, with his hand on the door. -</p> - -<p> -She hesitated for a moment. She could not immediately recall what the question -was that she had to decide. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s only one place to discuss things satisfactorily that I -know of,” he said quickly; “that’s Kew.” -</p> - -<p> -“Kew?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“D’you think he ever passed this house?” -</p> - -<p> -The question, for the moment, seemed to Katharine to have reference to Ralph -Denham. -</p> - -<p> -“On his way to Blackfriars, I mean,” Mrs. Hilbery continued, -“for you know the latest discovery is that he owned a house there.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine still looked about her in perplexity, and Mrs. Hilbery added: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Then, perceiving her daughter’s expression of perplexity, Mrs. Hilbery -burst out laughing. -</p> - -<p> -“My dear, I’m not talking about <i>your</i> William, though -that’s another reason for liking him. I’m talking, I’m -thinking, I’m dreaming of <i>my</i> 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!’” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -“Mary Datchet,” Katharine replied briefly. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -She was cut short in her quotation by another imperative telephone-bell. Once -more Katharine left the room. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“William,” Katharine replied yet more briefly. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s coming to tea.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, that’s better than nothing, and I promise to leave you -alone.” -</p> - -<p> -“There’s no need for you to do that,” said Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve looked out the train.... Early on Saturday afternoon would -suit me best.... I’m Ralph Denham.... But I’ll write it -down....” -</p> - -<p> -With more than the usual sense of being impinged upon the point of a bayonet, -Katharine replied: -</p> - -<p> -“I think I could come. I’ll look at my engagements.... Hold -on.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Good Heavens!” Katharine exclaimed, after listening to all these -remarks, “I suppose I ought to make up my mind.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine accordingly rose, and led the way to the little inner room with the -pictures and the books. Mrs. Bankes and Rodney followed her. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Come and sit down, William. How glad I was you were here! I felt myself -getting ruder and ruder.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are not good at hiding your feelings,” he returned dryly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -He handed her the envelope in silence. She took it, extracted the sheets, and -read the letter through. -</p> - -<p> -The reading seemed to Rodney to take an intolerably long time. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she observed at length, “a very charming -letter.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I see no harm,” William blurted out, “in helping -her—with Greek, for example—if she really cares for that sort of -thing.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>fascinating</i>.’ -Obviously she does care.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“No. Certainly not.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -She paused. Rodney guessed the reason. He was amazed. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“The best of all my treasures, Mr. Pelham!” she exclaimed. -“Don’t move, Katharine. Sit still, William. Mr. Pelham will come -another day.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -But her mother had settled the question somehow. Katharine doubted no longer. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is entirely in your hands, of course,” said Rodney, with an -immediate return to the manner of a formal man of honor. -</p> - -<p> -“Very well,” said Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; but I’ve not posted the letter.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -She took his hand and held it. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t trust me?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“I do, absolutely,” he replied. -</p> - -<p> -“No. You don’t trust me to help you.... I could help you?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Sit beside me. Let’s consider sensibly—” -</p> - -<p> -“Your sense has been our undoing—” he groaned. -</p> - -<p> -“I accept the responsibility.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“And yours too.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why not? It would be over London in ten minutes, besides, she would -never even remotely understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Your father, then? This secrecy is detestable—it’s -dishonorable.” -</p> - -<p> -“My father would understand even less than my mother.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine, you mind? You’ll mind too much.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“It sounds more like Paganism to me,” Rodney groaned, as he -reviewed the situation into which her Christian doctrine was plunging them. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“We will help each other,” he said, repeating her words, seeking -her eyes in an enthusiasm of friendship. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve never been to Kew?” Denham remarked. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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? -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -He cut her short. “Don’t let’s discuss that dreary -business.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I thought—” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a dreary business. I ought never to have bothered -you—” -</p> - -<p> -“Have you decided, then?” -</p> - -<p> -He made an impatient sound. “It’s not a thing that matters.” -</p> - -<p> -She could only say rather flatly, “Oh!” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -She supposed that she had let him see too clearly her weariness of this side of -life. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid I’ve been absent-minded,” she began, -remembering how often William had brought this charge against her. -</p> - -<p> -“You have a good deal to make you absent-minded,” he replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, it’s all settled,” he replied. “I’m going to -this infernal cottage to write a worthless book.” -</p> - -<p> -“How I envy you,” she replied, with the utmost sincerity. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, cottages are to be had for fifteen shillings a week.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“My notion of perfect happiness,” he began, not replying to her -question, “is to live as you’ve said.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“How far can one live alone?” he asked. “Have you tried -ever?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Nonsense,” Denham replied abruptly. -</p> - -<p> -“Why ‘nonsense’?” she inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“Because you don’t mean what you say,” he expostulated. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t mean what I say,” she repeated good-humoredly. -“Well—?” -</p> - -<p> -“I doubt whether you make absolute sincerity your standard in -life,” he answered significantly. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Absolute sincerity is rather difficult, don’t you think?” -she inquired, with a touch of irony. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -She, thus challenged, tried meanwhile to define her points. She wished to make -Denham understand. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -He turned to a problem which was of greater interest to him. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -But he went on, without waiting for her invitation. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“And they gain something worth having?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a risk—of course it’s a risk,” he replied. -The word -</p> - -<p> -was one that she had been using frequently in her arguments with herself of -late. -</p> - -<p> -“But it’s the only way—if you think friendship worth -having,” he concluded. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps under those conditions it might be,” she said -reflectively. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I should like it,” she began, “but—” -</p> - -<p> -“Would Rodney mind?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh no,” she replied quickly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” she said, “let’s go and have tea.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“May I sit and watch you?” Cassandra asked, shutting up her book. -“I got ready on purpose.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Who’s coming to dinner?” Cassandra asked, anticipating -further possibilities of rapture. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s William, and, I believe, Aunt Eleanor and Uncle -Aubrey.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“You shall sit next to him and tell him what you think of him.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shan’t dare do that,” Cassandra asserted. -</p> - -<p> -“Why? You’re not afraid of him, are you?” -</p> - -<p> -“A little—because he’s connected with you.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine smiled. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s no doubt what <i>you</i> do in a railway carriage, -William,” she said, making use in her pleasure of his first name. -“You never <i>once</i> look out of the window; you read <i>all</i> the -time.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what facts do you deduce from that?” Mr. Peyton asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“First of all,” she proceeded, “I want to know why you chose -to write a play?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! You mean it’s not dramatic?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Cassandra’s voice rose high in its excitement. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve not read ‘The Idiot’!” she exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve read ‘War and Peace’,” William replied, a -little testily. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>War and Peace</i>!” she echoed, in a tone of derision. -</p> - -<p> -“I confess I don’t understand the Russians.” -</p> - -<p> -“Shake hands! Shake hands!” boomed Uncle Aubrey from across the -table. “Neither do I. And I hazard the opinion that they don’t -themselves.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Insanity is not a fit subject for fiction,” she announced -positively. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s the well-known case of Hamlet,” Mr. Hilbery -interposed, in his leisurely, half-humorous tones. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Has the cook cut her finger badly?” Aunt Eleanor demanded, -addressing herself naturally to Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you laughing at?” Katharine asked. -</p> - -<p> -A joke so foolish and unfilial wasn’t worth explaining. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” she replied, “I think he’s speaking the truth. He -doesn’t care much for politics.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“I detest politics.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t think any man has the right to say that,” said -Cassandra, almost severely. -</p> - -<p> -“I agree. I mean that I detest politicians,” he corrected himself -quickly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine, you make one feel so horribly small!” Cassandra -exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“And poetry,” Cassandra added. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -For a moment they stood silent, after what seemed a deliberate introduction to -each other, and Cassandra watched her crossing the room. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“‘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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you—happy?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, but it’s only ten o’clock,” said Katharine darkly. -</p> - -<p> -“As late as that! Well—?” She did not understand. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“At this time of night?” Cassandra exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“Whom have you got to see?” William demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine has a great many friends,” said William rather lamely, -sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you been dining out?” Mary asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you working?” Katharine inquired simultaneously. -</p> - -<p> -The young man shook his head, as if he disowned his share in the question with -some irritation. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve been dining out?” she asked again, looking, with a -little smile, at the blue silk and the pearl-sewn shoes. -</p> - -<p> -“No, at home. Are you starting something new?” Katharine hazarded, -rather hesitatingly, looking at the papers. -</p> - -<p> -“We are,” Mr. Basnett replied. He said no more. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m thinking of leaving our friends in Russell Square,” Mary -explained. -</p> - -<p> -“I see. And then you will do something else.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’m afraid I like working,” said Mary. -</p> - -<p> -“Afraid,” said Mr. Basnett, conveying the impression that, in his -opinion, no sensible person could be afraid of liking to work. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, that’s the fun,” said Mr. Basnett, looking at her for -the first time rather keenly, and refilling his pipe. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“When will the public know?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“What d’you mean—about us?” Mr. Basnett asked, with a -little smile. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s the difficulty,” said Mary thoughtfully. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Marriage is her job at present,” Mary replied for her. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you’ll ask me to join when the time comes, I hope.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Go back,” Katharine urged her, thinking of Mr. Basnett with his -papers in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you seen Ralph?” she asked suddenly, without preface. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I believe I’m jealous,” said Mary. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you really think it’s worth it?” said Mary, after a -pause. -</p> - -<p> -“How can one tell?” Katharine asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you ever cared for any one?” Mary demanded rashly and -foolishly. -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t wander about London discussing my -feelings—Here’s a cab—no, there’s some one in -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“We don’t want to quarrel,” said Mary. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course you can’t tell him that,” said Mary, controlling -herself. -</p> - -<p> -“I believe I shall, though,” said Katharine suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -“I lost my temper, Katharine; I shouldn’t have said what I -did.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Basnett raised his eyes as she opened the door. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll go on where I left off,” he said. “Stop me if you -want anything explained.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been out?” he -asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.... Are they still up?” -</p> - -<p> -He did not answer, and walked into the ground-floor room through the door which -stood open. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s been more wonderful than I can tell you,” he said, -“I’m incredibly happy—” -</p> - -<p> -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!” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Good night, Katharine. Go to bed now. I shall see you soon. I hope I -shall be able to come to-morrow.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you read in bed, Katharine?” she asked, as they walked -upstairs side by side. -</p> - -<p> -“Sometimes one thing—sometimes another,” said Katharine -vaguely. Cassandra looked at her. -</p> - -<p> -“D’you know, you’re extraordinarily queer,” she said. -“Every one seems to me a little queer. Perhaps it’s the effect of -London.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is William queer, too?” Katharine asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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? -</p> - -<p> -There was still unbroken silence between Katharine and Ralph Denham, but the -occupants of the different cages served instead of speech. -</p> - -<p> -“What have you been doing since we met?” Ralph asked at length. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid Rodney didn’t like my coming,” Ralph -remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Here you are! Do prevent William from torturing this unfortunate -aye-aye.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“William isn’t kind to animals,” she remarked. “He -doesn’t know what they like and what they don’t like.” -</p> - -<p> -“I take it you’re well versed in these matters, Denham,” said -Rodney, withdrawing his hand with the apple. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s mainly a question of knowing how to stroke them,” -Denham replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I hope you’ve had a pleasant afternoon,” William remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“I like Ralph Denham,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“Ça se voit,” William returned, with superficial urbanity. -</p> - -<p> -Many retorts were obvious, but wishing, on the whole, for peace, Katharine -merely inquired: -</p> - -<p> -“Are you coming back to tea?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“If you come, I hope you won’t do your best to make me -ridiculous.” -</p> - -<p> -“If that’s what you’re afraid of I certainly shan’t -come,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Because it’s true. You never see what any one feels,” she -said. “You think of no one but yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“We’d better be independent of them. The best plan will be for you -to come back to tea with me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why shouldn’t you come with me?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Because we’re next door to Highgate here,” he replied -promptly. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I must warn you to expect a family party,” said Ralph. -“They’re mostly in on Sundays. We can go to my room -afterwards.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have you many brothers and sisters?” she asked, without concealing -her dismay. -</p> - -<p> -“Six or seven,” he replied grimly, as the door opened. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Mother, this is Miss Hilbery,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -A large elderly lady, bent over an unsatisfactory spirit-lamp, looked up with a -little frown, and observed: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -At length Mrs. Denham looked up from her teacups and remarked: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“The ceiling’s fallen down in the pantry again,” said Hester, -a girl of eighteen, abruptly. -</p> - -<p> -“The whole house will be down one of these days,” James muttered. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, just let me hear you decline ‘amo’—I love,” -Johnnie demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Joan, you don’t really think that ‘amo’ is -Greek?” Ralph -</p> - -<p> -asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Did I say Greek? Well, never mind. No dead languages at tea-time. My -dear boy, don’t trouble to make me any toast—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Because Sundays are my one chance in the week of having my sleep out. -Johnnie messes with stinking chemicals in the pantry—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“The question is, then, at what point is it right for the individual to -assert his will against the will of the State.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Your brothers are very clever,” she said. “I suppose -you’re in the habit of arguing?” -</p> - -<p> -“James and Johnnie will go on like that for hours,” Ralph replied. -“So will Hester, if you start her upon Elizabethan dramatists.” -</p> - -<p> -“And the little girl with the pigtail?” -</p> - -<p> -“Molly? She’s only ten. But they’re always arguing among -themselves.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -A little dry chirp from the corner of the room now roused her attention. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve won again,” he said at last, without moving. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve won?” she repeated, thinking of the argument. -</p> - -<p> -“I wish to God I hadn’t asked you here,” he burst out. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You thought how ordinary I was.” -</p> - -<p> -“I tried to think so. But I thought you more wonderful than ever.” -</p> - -<p> -An immense relief, and a reluctance to enjoy that relief, conflicted in her -heart. -</p> - -<p> -She slid down into the chair. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought you disliked me,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -He spoke with such vehemence that her relief disappeared; she frowned; and her -tone changed to one almost of severity. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“You forget—” he began, but she would not let him speak. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can’t help it,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“I warn you it’s the source of all evil.” -</p> - -<p> -“And of all good,” he added. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll find out that I’m not what you think me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps. But I shall gain more than I lose.” -</p> - -<p> -“If such gain’s worth having.” -</p> - -<p> -They were silent for a space. -</p> - -<p> -“That may be what we have to face,” he said. “There may be -nothing else. Nothing but what we imagine.” -</p> - -<p> -“The reason of our loneliness,” she mused, and they were silent for -a time. -</p> - -<p> -“When are you to be married?” he asked abruptly, with a change of -tone. -</p> - -<p> -“Not till September, I think. It’s been put off.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s rather hard on him, isn’t it?” Ralph asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not going to take it.” -</p> - -<p> -“How you change your mind!” she smiled. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not that,” he said impatiently. “It’s that -I want to be where I can see you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Our compact is going to hold in spite of all I’ve said?” she -asked. -</p> - -<p> -“For ever, so far as I’m concerned,” he replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“No. I shall think of you ordering dinner, paying bills, doing the -accounts, showing old ladies the relics—” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s better,” she said. “You can think of me -to-morrow morning looking up dates in the ‘Dictionary of National -Biography.’” -</p> - -<p> -“And forgetting your purse,” Ralph added. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -The voice in which she gave this information was so constrained as to sound -almost harsh. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Mary returned with the quinine. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll stay and dine?” she said casually, returning to her -seat. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s a clever young man,” Ralph observed, referring to Mr. -Basnett. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I may be out of town,” Ralph replied, with equal distance of -manner. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -She went on sewing in silence. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve not taken your quinine,” she said, looking up and -seeing the tabloids upon the mantelpiece. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want it,” said Ralph shortly. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you know best,” she replied tranquilly. -</p> - -<p> -“Mary, I’m a brute!” he exclaimed. “Here I come and -waste your time, and do nothing but make myself disagreeable.” -</p> - -<p> -“A cold coming on does make one feel wretched,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“In love, are you?” she said quietly. “I’m glad, -Ralph.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You haven’t told me her name—you’d rather not, I -suppose?” -</p> - -<p> -“Her name? Katharine Hilbery.” -</p> - -<p> -“But she’s engaged—” -</p> - -<p> -“To Rodney. They’re to be married in September.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Is there anything that I could do for you?” she asked gently, and -even with courtesy, at length. -</p> - -<p> -“You could see her—no, that’s not what I want; you -mustn’t bother about me, Mary.” He, too, spoke very gently. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid no third person can do anything to help,” she -added. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s always work,” she said, a little aggressively. -</p> - -<p> -Ralph moved directly. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you want to be working now?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“There are other things, aren’t there?” he hesitated. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Goodness, Denham, what are you doing here?” he exclaimed, -recognizing him. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Did you stay long after we’d left?” he asked abruptly. -</p> - -<p> -“No. We went back to my house.” -</p> - -<p> -This seemed to confirm Rodney’s belief that he had been discussed. He -turned over the unpalatable idea for a while, in silence. -</p> - -<p> -“Women are incomprehensible creatures, Denham!” he then exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You couldn’t laugh at some one you cared for.” -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -“You love her.” Was that his own voice, which seemed to sound in -the air several yards in front of him? -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve suffered tortures, Denham, tortures!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes, I know that.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s laughed at me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Never—to me.” -</p> - -<p> -The wind blew a space between the words—blew them so far away that they -seemed unspoken. -</p> - -<p> -“How I’ve loved her!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I am in love with Katharine myself. That is why I am here -to-night.” -</p> - -<p> -Ralph spoke distinctly and deliberately, as if Rodney’s confession had -made this statement necessary. -</p> - -<p> -Rodney exclaimed something inarticulate. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, I’ve always known it,” he cried, “I’ve known -it from the first. You’ll marry her!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you awake, Katharine?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I’m awake. What is it?” -</p> - -<p> -She roused herself, sat up, and asked what in Heaven’s name Cassandra was -doing? -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Home? Why, what has happened?” -</p> - -<p> -“Something happened to-day which makes it impossible for me to stay -here.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine seemed to waken completely, and at once to be in control of herself. -</p> - -<p> -“At the Zoo?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“No, on the way home. When we had tea.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -She was careful to abstain from looking in Katharine’s direction. There -was a slight pause. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“But you like him, don’t you?” Katharine inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Cassandra exclaimed -indignantly. “I consider his conduct, under the circumstances, most -disgraceful.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“I should say it had everything to do with it,” Cassandra’s -self-possession deserted her. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve enjoyed yourself, haven’t you?” Katharine -asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I have,” Cassandra admitted. -</p> - -<p> -“Anyhow, my behavior hasn’t spoiled your visit.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think I’ve been very foolish about it?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Looking at her at length, Katharine asked slowly, as if she found the question -very difficult to ask. -</p> - -<p> -“But do you care for William?” -</p> - -<p> -She marked the agitation and bewilderment of the girl’s expression, and -how she looked away from her. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean, am I in love with him?” Cassandra asked, breathing -quickly, and nervously moving her hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, in love with him,” Katharine repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“How can I love the man you’re engaged to marry?” Cassandra -burst out. -</p> - -<p> -“He may be in love with you.” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -“We’re not engaged,” said Katharine, after a pause. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine!” Cassandra cried. -</p> - -<p> -“No, we’re not engaged,” Katharine repeated. “But no -one knows it but ourselves.” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -“We aren’t in love with each other any longer,” said -Katharine, as if disposing of something for ever and ever. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re not in love with him?” -</p> - -<p> -“But I love him,” said Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“D’you know what time it is?” she said at length, and shook -her pillow, as if making ready for sleep. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s no reason why I should go home, then?” Cassandra -said, pausing. “Unless you want me to go, Katharine? What <i>do</i> you -want me to do?” -</p> - -<p> -For the first time their eyes met. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Please, miss,” said the maid, about eleven o’clock on the -following morning, “Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said emphatically and -even tragically: -</p> - -<p> -“You know what that means.” -</p> - -<p> -Cassandra had understood nothing. -</p> - -<p> -“Aunt Celia is in the kitchen,” Katharine repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“Why in the kitchen?” Cassandra asked, not unnaturally. -</p> - -<p> -“Probably because she’s discovered something,” Katharine -replied. Cassandra’s thoughts flew to the subject of her preoccupation. -</p> - -<p> -“About us?” she inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“Heaven knows,” Katharine replied. “I shan’t let her -stay in the kitchen, though. I shall bring her up here.” -</p> - -<p> -The sternness with which this was said suggested that to bring Aunt Celia -upstairs was, for some reason, a disciplinary measure. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve something that I want to say to you in <i>private</i>,” -she said, hesitating reluctantly upon the threshold of her ambush. -</p> - -<p> -“The drawing-room is empty—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, Cassandra is still with you,” she remarked. “And did -William send you those lovely flowers?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“They’re from Stogdon House,” said Katharine abruptly, with a -little jerk of her head. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“There’s nothing to forgive yet, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine, -with apparent good humor. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well?” she said at length. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Milvain made a gesture as if to bring her closer, but it was not returned. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t understand, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine. “What -has Cassandra done?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t understand,” Katharine persisted. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Cassandra has stolen William’s love.” -</p> - -<p> -Still the words seemed to have curiously little effect. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean,” said Katharine, “that he has fallen in love -with her?” -</p> - -<p> -“There are ways of <i>making</i> men fall in love with one, -Katharine.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine remained silent. The silence alarmed Mrs. Milvain, and she began -hurriedly: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Again she stretched forth her arms, but they remained empty. -</p> - -<p> -“You are not going to say these things to Cassandra,” said -Katharine suddenly. “You’ve said them to me; that’s -enough.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine seemed to judge this defence upon its merits, and then to convict it -of falsity. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t see that there is any excuse for your behavior,” she -said. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“These are for you, Katharine.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I must go,” she said, and she was conscious of an extreme flatness -of spirit. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -William came back to Katharine; he found her standing where he had left her. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s been spying upon us,” she said, “following us -about London, overhearing what people are saying—” -</p> - -<p> -“Mrs. Milvain?” Rodney exclaimed. “What has she told -you?” -</p> - -<p> -His air of open confidence entirely vanished. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, people are saying that you’re in love with Cassandra, and that -you don’t care for me.” -</p> - -<p> -“They have seen us?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Everything we’ve done for a fortnight has been seen.” -</p> - -<p> -“I told you that would happen!” he exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Rodney turned away from the window. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -At length Katharine realized some part of what he meant. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t mean that this influences you, William?” she asked -in amazement. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes, yes,” he murmured, “you accept me, Katharine. You -love me.” -</p> - -<p> -For a moment she remained silent. He then heard her murmur: -</p> - -<p> -“Cassandra loves you more than I do.” -</p> - -<p> -“Cassandra?” he whispered. -</p> - -<p> -“She loves you,” Katharine repeated. She raised herself and -repeated the sentence yet a third time. “She loves you.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes,” she said, interpreting his wish for assurance, -“it’s true. I know what she feels for you.” -</p> - -<p> -“She loves me?” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine nodded. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -He clenched his hands and turned away. He suddenly faced her and demanded: -“Tell me what you feel for Denham.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -As he said this, the curtains hanging at the door of the little room parted, -and Cassandra herself stepped forth. -</p> - -<p> -“I have overheard every word!” she exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -A pause succeeded this announcement. Rodney made a step forward and said: -</p> - -<p> -“Then you know what I wish to ask you. Give me your answer—” -</p> - -<p> -She put her hands before her face; she turned away and seemed to shrink from -both of them. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t, William,” Katharine interposed; “Cassandra has -heard us; she can judge what we are; she knows better than we could tell -her.” -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -“I must be first with him, Katharine!” she exclaimed. “I -can’t share him even with you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall never ask that,” said Katharine. She moved a little away -from where they sat and began half-consciously sorting her flowers. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve never admired anybody more,” William interposed. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not that”—Cassandra tried to enlighten -him—“it’s understanding.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have I never understood you, Katharine? Have I been very selfish?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s quite true,” she said. “It was nobody’s -fault.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -They were silent. At length William broke the silence. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I’m happy,” she assured him. “And I agree. We -will never talk about it again.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Katharine, Katharine!” Cassandra cried, holding out her arms -while the tears ran down her cheeks. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> - -<p> -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 -<i>beautiful?</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -“What is it?” she asked, as soon as the door was shut. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“There he is again,” he said. “Look, there—under the -lamp-post.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“If he chooses to come—” she said defiantly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Wait!” she cried. “I don’t allow you.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at him, wondering, in spite of all her perplexity, at the spirit -that possessed him. -</p> - -<p> -“I forbid you to draw the curtain,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -He reflected, and then took his hand away. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve no right to interfere,” he concluded. “I’ll -leave you. Or, if you like, we’ll go back to the drawing-room.” -</p> - -<p> -“No. I can’t go back,” she said, shaking her head. She bent -her head in thought. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s not there!” she exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Denham!” William cried. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Rodney!” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re the first to hear the news, Denham,” he said. -“Katharine isn’t going to marry me, after all.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“William is engaged to Cassandra,” said Katharine briefly. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I congratulate you,” said Denham. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Why were you waiting out there?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“For the chance of seeing you,” he replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“It was worth it. I heard you call me.” -</p> - -<p> -“I called you?” She had called unconsciously. -</p> - -<p> -“They were engaged this morning,” she told him, after a pause. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re glad?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I can wait,” Denham replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“No, you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know you. -I’ve never known you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yet perhaps you know me better than any one else,” she mused. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I say I do know you, Katharine,” he affirmed, shutting the book. -“It’s only for moments that I go mad.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you call two whole nights a moment?” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me what you see,” he urged. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Impossible,” she sighed, laughing at the ridiculous notion of -putting any part of this into words. -</p> - -<p> -“Try, Katharine,” Ralph urged her. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“We were there together?” he pressed her. -</p> - -<p> -“No. I was alone.” She seemed to be disappointing the desire of a -child. His face fell. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re always alone there?” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re with me in mine. You’re the thing I make up, you -see.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t believe me?” he said. His tone was humble, and -made her smile at him. -</p> - -<p> -“As far as I understand you—but what should you advise me to do -with this ring?” she asked, holding it out. -</p> - -<p> -“I should advise you to let me keep it for you,” he replied, in the -same tone of half-humorous gravity. -</p> - -<p> -“After what you’ve said, I can hardly trust you—unless -you’ll unsay what you’ve said?” -</p> - -<p> -“Very well. I’m not in love with you.” -</p> - -<p> -“But I think you <i>are</i> 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?” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at him gravely and inquiringly, as if in search of help. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s when I’m with you that I doubt it, not when I’m -alone,” he stated. -</p> - -<p> -“So I thought,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“Like lights in a storm—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure I should like your poetry better than I like Lord -Byron’s,” said Mrs. Hilbery, addressing Ralph Denham. -</p> - -<p> -“Mr. Denham doesn’t write poetry; he has written articles for -father, for the Review,” Katharine said, as if prompting her memory. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh dear! How dull!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed, with a sudden laugh -that rather puzzled her daughter. -</p> - -<p> -Ralph found that she had turned upon him a gaze that was at once very vague and -very penetrating. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I wonder what he was like?” It was a question that Katharine had -often asked herself lately. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Must you read Macaulay’s History, Cassandra?” Katharine -asked, with a stretch of her arms. -</p> - -<p> -“I must,” Cassandra replied briefly. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’m going to leave you to look for it by yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“When does William come?” Katharine asked, turning to the shelves -again. -</p> - -<p> -“To tea, if that suits you?” -</p> - -<p> -“If it suits me to be out, I suppose you mean.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you’re horrid.... Why shouldn’t you—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes?” -</p> - -<p> -“Why shouldn’t you be happy too?” -</p> - -<p> -“I am quite happy,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -“I mean as I am. Katharine,” she said impulsively, “do -let’s be married on the same day.” -</p> - -<p> -“To the same man?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no, no. But why shouldn’t you marry—some one -else?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Damn Lord Macaulay!” cried Cassandra, slapping the book upon the -table. “Would you rather not talk?” -</p> - -<p> -“We’ve talked enough already,” Katharine replied evasively. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Have <i>you</i> read Macaulay?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“We weren’t serious,” she said quickly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Was that him?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“It was Ralph Denham,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -“I meant Ralph Denham.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“... 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—” -</p> - -<p> -“Very like William,” Katharine exclaimed, having gathered the drift -of these remarks with a speed that, by itself, disconcerted Cassandra. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“But, then, if I don’t marry him for months—or, perhaps, not -at all?” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“I’m Ralph Denham speaking. I’m in my right senses -now.” -</p> - -<p> -“How long did you wait outside the house?” -</p> - -<p> -“I went home and wrote you a letter. I tore it up.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall tear up everything too.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall come.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. Come to-day.” -</p> - -<p> -“I must explain to you—” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. We must explain—” -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, you’re right,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she said, “he loves beauty.” -</p> - -<p> -“I hope we shall have a great many children,” said Cassandra. -“He loves children.” -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“How like Aunt Maggie you look!” -</p> - -<p> -“Nonsense,” said Katharine, with more irritation than the remark -seemed to call for. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Has Katharine spoken to you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. But she says she’s not engaged. She doesn’t seem to -think she’s ever going to be engaged.” -</p> - -<p> -William frowned, and looked annoyed. -</p> - -<p> -“They telephoned this morning, and she behaves very oddly. She forgets to -help the pudding,” Cassandra added by way of cheering him. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you think everything looks quite different?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve moved the sofa?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Then I’m afraid I must go.” -</p> - -<p> -She left the room, holding her unfinished bread and butter in her hand. William -glanced at Cassandra. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, she IS queer!” Cassandra exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“If I’m late, don’t wait for me,” she said. “I -shall have dined,” and so saying, she left them. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“She must have gone to meet Mr. Denham,” Cassandra exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“Goodness knows!” William interjected. -</p> - -<p> -The incident impressed them both as having something queer and ominous about it -out of all proportion to its surface strangeness. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s the sort of way Aunt Maggie behaves,” said Cassandra, -as if in explanation. -</p> - -<p> -William shook his head, and paced up and down the room looking extremely -perturbed. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“But Uncle Trevor won’t be back for hours, William!” -Cassandra implored. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Cassandra was equally stricken by the sight of William’s agitation, and -appalled by the prospect of his desertion. -</p> - -<p> -“We might hide,” she exclaimed wildly, glancing at the curtain -which separated the room with the relics. -</p> - -<p> -“I refuse entirely to get under the table,” said William -sarcastically. -</p> - -<p> -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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Mary exclaimed in surprise. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes,” Katharine said, brushing these remarks aside, as if -they were in the way. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you had tea?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes,” she said, thinking that she had had tea hundreds of years -ago, somewhere or other. -</p> - -<p> -Mary paused, took off her gloves, and, finding matches, proceeded to light the -fire. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine checked her with an impatient movement, and said: -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t light the fire for me.... I want to know Ralph -Denham’s address.” -</p> - -<p> -She was holding a pencil and preparing to write on the envelope. She waited -with an imperious expression. -</p> - -<p> -“The Apple Orchard, Mount Ararat Road, Highgate,” Mary said, -speaking slowly and rather strangely. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Why? Where is he?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“He won’t have left his office.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Mary took in the situation at her leisure. -</p> - -<p> -“But why not telephone?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Has Mr. Denham called?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, miss.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did he ask for me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. We said you were out, miss.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did he leave any message?” -</p> - -<p> -“No. He went away. About twenty minutes ago, miss.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Mary.” -</p> - -<p> -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?” -</p> - -<p> -“He has left Chelsea already,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -“Still, he won’t be home yet,” said Mary. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine was once more irresistibly drawn to gaze upon an imaginary map of -London, to follow the twists and turns of unnamed streets. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“No. His sister says he hasn’t come back yet.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” She applied her ear to the telephone once more. -“They’ve had a message. He won’t be back to dinner.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then what is he going to do?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -After waiting a little time Mary remarked indifferently: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine looked at her indignantly and rose. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine reflected. “I’ll wait half an hour,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“What would be the time now?” said Katharine at last. The half-hour -was not quite spent. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m going to get dinner ready,” said Mary, rising from her -table. -</p> - -<p> -“Then I’ll go,” said Katharine. -</p> - -<p> -“Why don’t you stay? Where are you going?” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine looked round the room, conveying her uncertainty in her glance. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps I might find him,” she mused. -</p> - -<p> -“But why should it matter? You’ll see him another day.” -</p> - -<p> -Mary spoke, and intended to speak, cruelly enough. -</p> - -<p> -“I was wrong to come here,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -Their eyes met with antagonism, and neither flinched. -</p> - -<p> -“You had a perfect right to come here,” Mary answered. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course you had a right to come,” Mary repeated, laying the note -upon the table. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -She spoke with a self-abandonment that Mary had never seen in her. -</p> - -<p> -“You know you exaggerate; you’re talking nonsense,” she said -roughly. -</p> - -<p> -“Mary, I must talk—I must tell you—” -</p> - -<p> -“You needn’t tell me anything,” Mary interrupted her. -“Can’t I see for myself?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no,” Katharine exclaimed. “It’s not -that—” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“You forget that I loved him too. I thought I knew him. I <i>did</i> know -him.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“There are different ways of loving,” she murmured, half to -herself, at length. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine made no reply and seemed unaware of her words. She seemed absorbed in -her own thoughts. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps he’s waiting in the street again to-night,” she -exclaimed. “I’ll go now. I might find him.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s far more likely that he’ll come here,” said Mary, -and Katharine, after considering for a moment, said: -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll wait another half-hour.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“But where are you going to?” Mary asked, desiring vaguely to -hinder her. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’m going home—no, to Highgate perhaps.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Katharine submitted. “Very well,” she said. “We may as well -go there as anywhere else.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure we shall find him,” she said more gently than she -had yet spoken. -</p> - -<p> -“It may be too late,” Katharine replied. Without understanding her, -Mary began to pity her for what she was suffering. -</p> - -<p> -“Nonsense,” she said, taking her hand and rubbing it. “If we -don’t find him there we shall find him somewhere else.” -</p> - -<p> -“But suppose he’s walking about the streets—for hours and -hours?” -</p> - -<p> -She leant forward and looked out of the window. -</p> - -<p> -“He may refuse ever to speak to me again,” she said in a low voice, -almost to herself. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Upon this, Mary ostentatiously withdrew her hand. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“But if he’s not there, what shall I do? Where could I find him? -The streets are so crowded.” -</p> - -<p> -“We shall find him,” Mary repeated. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Mr. Denham called again, miss. He has been waiting for you for some -time.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine vanished from Mary’s sight. The door shut between them, and -Mary walked slowly and thoughtfully up the street alone. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -From motives of her own Cassandra dissuaded him. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you think they must be—?” she began, but William -hastily took her up. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I know nothing about that. I only thought we might amuse ourselves, -as your uncle’s out.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine is out this afternoon,” he remarked. “Why not come -round later and discuss it with her—with us both, eh?” -</p> - -<p> -“My dear Trevor, I have particular reasons for wishing to talk to you -alone.... Where is Katharine?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“With Cassandra,” Mrs. Milvain repeated significantly. “With -Cassandra.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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! -</p> - -<p> -“Who is this Mr. Denham?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“He is not well off, then?” Mrs. Milvain interposed. -</p> - -<p> -“Hasn’t a penny, I’m afraid, and a family more or less -dependent on him.” -</p> - -<p> -“A mother and sisters?—His father is dead?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“His father has been dead some time, and this young man had to take his -place—” -</p> - -<p> -“A legal family?” Mrs. Milvain inquired. “I fancy I’ve -seen the name somewhere.” -</p> - -<p> -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?” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Milvain had given her cup a little push, which seemed to indicate some -momentary displeasure. But she did not want any more tea. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Hilbery looked taken aback, and was silent for a second. -</p> - -<p> -“It all sounds very black,” he remarked urbanely, continuing his -examination of his finger-nails. “But I own I am completely in the -dark.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Milvain became rigid, and emitted her message in little short sentences of -extreme intensity. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -There was another slight pause. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Milvain rose at once. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>not</i> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine did not reply at once, and Mr. Hilbery tapped the coal encouragingly -with the poker. Then she said, without embarrassment or apology: -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t see why I should answer Aunt Celia’s questions. -I’ve told her already that I won’t.” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Hilbery was relieved and secretly amused at the thought of the interview, -although he could not license such irreverence outwardly. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -“Have you a guilty conscience?” he inquired lightly. “Tell -me, Katharine,” he said more seriously, struck by something in the -expression of her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time,” she said, -“I’m not going to marry William.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re not going—!” he exclaimed, dropping the poker -in his immense surprise. “Why? When? Explain yourself, Katharine.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, some time ago—a week, perhaps more.” Katharine spoke -hurriedly and indifferently, as if the matter could no longer concern any one. -</p> - -<p> -“But may I ask—why have I not been told of this—what do you -mean by it?” -</p> - -<p> -“We don’t wish to be married—that’s all.” -</p> - -<p> -“This is William’s wish as well as yours?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes. We agree perfectly.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I should like your account of this affair, Rodney—if Katharine no -longer prevents you from speaking.” -</p> - -<p> -William waited two seconds at least. -</p> - -<p> -“Our engagement is at an end,” he said, with the utmost stiffness. -</p> - -<p> -“Has this been arrived at by your joint desire?” -</p> - -<p> -After a perceptible pause William bent his head, and Katharine said, as if by -an afterthought: -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes.” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Hilbery swayed to and fro, and moved his lips as if to utter remarks which -remained unspoken. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“I love Cassandra.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You have the impudence to tell me this in Katharine’s -presence?” Mr. Hilbery continued, speaking with complete disregard of -Cassandra’s interruption. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I could express my views on the subject more fully if we were -alone,” Mr. Hilbery returned. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -He paused, and his pause seemed to signify that he was extremely thankful for -his daughter’s deliverance. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Wait,” Mr. Hilbery commanded. “I wish to speak to -you—alone,” he added. -</p> - -<p> -She paused, holding the door ajar. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Uncle Trevor,” Cassandra exclaimed impulsively, “don’t -be angry, please. I couldn’t help it; I do beg you to forgive me.” -</p> - -<p> -Her uncle still refused to acknowledge her identity, and still talked over her -head as if she did not exist. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose you have communicated with the Otways,” he said to -Rodney grimly. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes? What were you waiting for?” her uncle asked sharply, looking -at her at last. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Anyhow, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t see each -other.” -</p> - -<p> -“Or stay together. It’s only marriage that’s out of the -question,” Katharine replied. -</p> - -<p> -“But if I find myself coming to want you more and more?” -</p> - -<p> -“If our lapses come more and more often?” -</p> - -<p> -He sighed impatiently, and said nothing for a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll speak to Denham,” he said, on the impulse of his -suspicion, moving as if to go. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall come with you,” Katharine said instantly, starting -forward. -</p> - -<p> -“You will stay here,” said her father. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you going to say to him?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose I may say what I like in my own house?” he returned. -</p> - -<p> -“Then I go, too,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I understood you to say that you were not engaged to him,” he said -at length, fixing his eyes upon his daughter. -</p> - -<p> -“We are not engaged,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing that I can explain to a third person,” she said -obstinately. -</p> - -<p> -“I will have no more of these equivocations,” he replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“For God’s sake, Katharine, control yourself!” he cried. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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’?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Thank God, Katharine!” she exclaimed. “Thank God!” she -repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve come back?” said Katharine, very vaguely, standing up -to receive the embrace. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine seemed to consider each of these proofs separately. Then she said -gravely: -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not going to marry William. And then there’s -Cassandra—” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine recollected with difficulty. -</p> - -<p> -“To Mary Datchet’s,” she remembered. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not in love with Ralph Denham,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“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—?” -</p> - -<p> -“We want to meet as often as we like, but to be free,” Katharine -continued. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. Or to stay away in the country,” Katharine concluded. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Hilbery paused, looked unhappy, and sought inspiration from the window. -</p> - -<p> -“What a comfort he was in that shop—how he took me and found the -ruins at once—how <i>safe</i> I felt with him—” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, he has a mother?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“But, Katharine, you <i>are</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -She could not help ejaculating at last: -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“A plus B minus C equals <i>x y z</i>. It’s so dreadfully ugly, -Katharine. That’s what I feel—so dreadfully ugly.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I don’t know about ugliness,” she said at length. -</p> - -<p> -“But he doesn’t ask it of you?” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. -“Not that grave young man with the steady brown eyes?” -</p> - -<p> -“He doesn’t ask anything—we neither of us ask -anything.” -</p> - -<p> -“If I could help you, Katharine, by the memory of what I -felt—” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, tell me what you felt.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“But where is Ralph? Why isn’t he here to see me?” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine’s expression changed instantly. -</p> - -<p> -“Because he’s not allowed to come here,” she replied -bitterly. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Hilbery brushed this aside. -</p> - -<p> -“Would there be time to send for him before luncheon?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not happy without him,” she said simply. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“But you care for her?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“Good God!” he exclaimed, with a vehemence which admitted of no -question. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s the Church of England service you both object to?” Mrs. -Hilbery inquired innocently. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t care a damn what service it is,” Ralph replied. -</p> - -<p> -“You would marry her in Westminster Abbey if the worst came to the -worst?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<i>will</i>, that he’ll take us past Westminster Abbey, which would be -even better.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Now,” she said, alighting briskly at her door, “here we -are!” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“May I come in?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -A voice from within answered “Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I like your little dot with the flames round it,” she said -meditatively. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, the world looks something like that to me too.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -Katharine pushed forward a chair; Ralph hastily found wine and poured it out -for her. If not actually fainting, she was very near it. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t take that unless William gives it me himself,” she -said. “Keep it for me, Katharine.” -</p> - -<p> -“I assure you everything’s perfectly all right,” said Ralph. -“Let me tell William—” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I find Cassandra,” she repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“She missed her train,” Katharine interposed, seeing that Cassandra -was unable to speak. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Katharine and Ralph,” she said, as if to try the sound. -“William and Cassandra.” -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“I feel the same too,” Cassandra interrupted. “After what -Uncle Trevor said to me last night—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“Well, that’s my last attempt at the dramatic.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s astonishing what a distance they roll,” said Ralph, -stooping to turn up the corner of the hearthrug. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Trevor, please tell me, what was the date of the first performance -of ‘Hamlet’?” -</p> - -<p> -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: -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t stay if you want to go, Katharine. There’s the little -room over there. Perhaps you and Ralph—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you cold?” he asked, as they stopped by Temple Bar. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -She looked at his face isolated in the little circle of light. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, that cottage,” she said. “We must take it and go -there.” -</p> - -<p> -“And leave all this?” he inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“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? -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Did you treat her badly?” she asked rather mechanically, walking -on. -</p> - -<p> -“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—” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Go on,” she said. “You regret nothing—” -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing—nothing,” he repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you thinking of, Katharine?” he asked suspiciously, -noticing her tone of dreaminess and the inapt words. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“But it was foolish to stand outside and look at the windows. Suppose -William hadn’t seen you. Would you have gone to bed?” -</p> - -<p> -He capped her reproof with wonderment that a woman of her age could have stood -in Kingsway looking at the traffic until she forgot. -</p> - -<p> -“But it was then I first knew I loved you!” she exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell me from the beginning,” he begged her. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t want me to go to her?” Ralph asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Go, if you like; tell her what you like,” she replied. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you remember Sally Seal?” he asked. Katharine bent her head. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND DAY ***</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 1245-h.htm or 1245-h.zip</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/4/1245/</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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. 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