Chapter XXIV

by Virginia Woolf

　　The first signs of spring, even such as make themselves felt towardsthe middle of February, not only produce little white and violetflowers in the more sheltered corners of woods and gardens, but bringto birth thoughts and desires comparable to those faintly colored andsweetly scented petals in the minds of men and women. Lives frozen byage, so far as the present is concerned, to a hard surface, whichneither reflects nor yields, at this season become soft and fluid,reflecting the shapes and colors of the present, as well as the shapesand colors of the past. In the case of Mrs. Hilbery, these earlyspring days were chiefly upsetting inasmuch as they caused a generalquickening of her emotional powers, which, as far as the past wasconcerned, had never suffered much diminution. But in the spring herdesire for expression invariably increased. She was haunted by theghosts of phrases. She gave herself up to a sensual delight in thecombinations of words. She sought them in the pages of her favoriteauthors. She made them for herself on scraps of paper, and rolled themon her tongue when there seemed no occasion for such eloquence. Shewas upheld in these excursions by the certainty that no language couldoutdo the splendor of her father's memory, and although her effortsdid not notably further the end of his biography, she was under theimpression of living more in his shade at such times than at others.No one can escape the power of language, let alone those of Englishbirth brought up from childhood, as Mrs. Hilbery had been, to disportthemselves now in the Saxon plainness, now in the Latin splendor ofthe tongue, and stored with memories, as she was, of old poetsexuberating in an infinity of vocables. Even Katharine was slightlyaffected against her better judgment by her mother's enthusiasm. Notthat her judgment could altogether acquiesce in the necessity for astudy of Shakespeare's sonnets as a preliminary to the fifth chapterof her grandfather's biography. Beginning with a perfectly frivolousjest, Mrs. Hilbery had evolved a theory that Anne Hathaway had a way,among other things, of writing Shakespeare's sonnets; the idea, struckout to enliven a party of professors, who forwarded a number ofprivately printed manuals within the next few days for herinstruction, had submerged her in a flood of Elizabethan literature;she had come half to believe in her joke, which was, she said, atleast as good as other people's facts, and all her fancy for the timebeing centered upon Stratford-on-Avon. She had a plan, she toldKatharine, when, rather later than usual, Katharine came into the roomthe morning after her walk by the river, for visiting Shakespeare'stomb. Any fact about the poet had become, for the moment, of fargreater interest to her than the immediate present, and the certaintythat there was existing in England a spot of ground where Shakespearehad undoubtedly stood, where his very bones lay directly beneath one'sfeet, was so absorbing to her on this particular occasion that shegreeted her daughter with the exclamation:"D'you think he ever passed this house?"The question, for the moment, seemed to Katharine to have reference toRalph Denham."On his way to Blackfriars, I mean," Mrs. Hilbery continued, "for youknow the latest discovery is that he owned a house there."Katharine still looked about her in perplexity, and Mrs. Hilberyadded:"Which is a proof that he wasn't as poor as they've sometimes said. Ishould like to think that he had enough, though I don't in the leastwant him to be rich."Then, perceiving her daughter's expression of perplexity, Mrs. Hilberyburst out laughing."My dear, I'm not talking about your William, though that's anotherreason for liking him. I'm talking, I'm thinking, I'm dreaming of myWilliam--William Shakespeare, of course. Isn't it odd," she mused,standing at the window and tapping gently upon the pane, "that for allone can see, that dear old thing in the blue bonnet, crossing the roadwith her basket on her arm, has never heard that there was such aperson? Yet it all goes on: lawyers hurrying to their work, cabmensquabbling for their fares, little boys rolling their hoops, littlegirls throwing bread to the gulls, as if there weren't a Shakespearein the world. I should like to stand at that crossing all day long andsay: 'People, read Shakespeare!'"Katharine sat down at her table and opened a long dusty envelope. AsShelley was mentioned in the course of the letter as if he were alive,it had, of course, considerable value. Her immediate task was todecide whether the whole letter should be printed, or only theparagraph which mentioned Shelley's name, and she reached out for apen and held it in readiness to do justice upon the sheet. Her pen,however, remained in the air. Almost surreptitiously she slipped aclean sheet in front of her, and her hand, descending, began drawingsquare boxes halved and quartered by straight lines, and then circleswhich underwent the same process of dissection."Katharine! I've hit upon a brilliant idea!" Mrs. Hilberyexclaimed--"to lay out, say, a hundred pounds or so on copies ofShakespeare, and give them to working men. Some of your clever friendswho get up meetings might help us, Katharine. And that might lead to aplayhouse, where we could all take parts. You'd be Rosalind--butyou've a dash of the old nurse in you. Your father's Hamlet, come toyears of discretion; and I'm--well, I'm a bit of them all; I'm quite alarge bit of the fool, but the fools in Shakespeare say all the cleverthings. 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 thatWilliam talks to himself when he's alone. Ah, Katharine, you must sayvery beautiful things when you're together!" she added wistfully, witha glance at her daughter, who had told her nothing about the dinnerthe night before."Oh, we talk a lot of nonsense," said Katharine, hiding her slip ofpaper as her mother stood by her, and spreading the old letter aboutShelley in front of her."It won't seem to you nonsense in ten years' time," said Mrs. Hilbery."Believe me, Katharine, you'll look back on these days afterwards;you'll remember all the silly things you've said; and you'll find thatyour life has been built on them. The best of life is built on what wesay when we're in love. It isn't nonsense, Katharine," she urged,"it's the truth, it's the only truth."Katharine was on the point of interrupting her mother, and then shewas on the point of confiding in her. They came strangely closetogether sometimes. But, while she hesitated and sought for words nottoo direct, her mother had recourse to Shakespeare, and turned pageafter page, set upon finding some quotation which said all this aboutlove far, far better than she could. Accordingly, Katharine didnothing but scrub one of her circles an intense black with her pencil,in the midst of which process the telephone-bell rang, and she leftthe room to answer it.When she returned, Mrs. Hilbery had found not the passage she wanted,but another of exquisite beauty as she justly observed, looking up fora second to ask Katharine who that was?"Mary Datchet," Katharine replied briefly."Ah--I half wish I'd called you Mary, but it wouldn't have gone withHilbery, and it wouldn't have gone with Rodney. Now this isn't thepassage I wanted. (I never can find what I want.) But it's spring;it's the daffodils; it's the green fields; it's the birds."She was cut short in her quotation by another imperativetelephone-bell. Once more Katharine left the room."My dear child, how odious the triumphs of science are!" Mrs. Hilberyexclaimed on her return. "They'll be linking us with the moonnext--but who was that?""William," Katharine replied yet more briefly."I'll forgive William anything, for I'm certain that there aren't anyWilliams in the moon. I hope he's coming to luncheon?""He's coming to tea.""Well, that's better than nothing, and I promise to leave you alone.""There's no need for you to do that," said Katharine.She swept her hand over the faded sheet, and drew herself up squarelyto the table as if she refused to waste time any longer. The gesturewas not lost upon her mother. It hinted at the existence of somethingstern and unapproachable in her daughter's character, which struckchill upon her, as the sight of poverty, or drunkenness, or the logicwith which Mr. Hilbery sometimes thought good to demolish hercertainty of an approaching millennium struck chill upon her. She wentback to her own table, and putting on her spectacles with a curiousexpression of quiet humility, addressed herself for the first timethat morning to the task before her. The shock with an unsympatheticworld had a sobering effect on her. For once, her industry surpassedher daughter's. Katharine could not reduce the world to thatparticular perspective in which Harriet Martineau, for instance, was afigure of solid importance, and possessed of a genuine relationship tothis figure or to that date. Singularly enough, the sharp call of thetelephone-bell still echoed in her ear, and her body and mind were ina state of tension, as if, at any moment, she might hear anothersummons of greater interest to her than the whole of the nineteenthcentury. She did not clearly realize what this call was to be; butwhen the ears have got into the habit of listening, they go onlistening involuntarily, and thus Katharine spent the greater part ofthe morning in listening to a variety of sounds in the back streets ofChelsea. For the first time in her life, probably, she wished thatMrs. Hilbery would not keep so closely to her work. A quotation fromShakespeare would not have come amiss. Now and again she heard a sighfrom her mother's table, but that was the only proof she gave of herexistence, and Katharine did not think of connecting it with thesquare aspect of her own position at the table, or, perhaps, she wouldhave thrown her pen down and told her mother the reason of herrestlessness. The only writing she managed to accomplish in the courseof the morning was one letter, addressed to her cousin, CassandraOtway--a rambling letter, long, affectionate, playful and commandingall at once. She bade Cassandra put her creatures in the charge of agroom, and come to them for a week or so. They would go and hear somemusic together. Cassandra's dislike of rational society, she said, wasan affectation fast hardening into a prejudice, which would, in thelong run, isolate her from all interesting people and pursuits. Shewas finishing the sheet when the sound she was anticipating all thetime actually struck upon her ears. She jumped up hastily, and slammedthe door with a sharpness which made Mrs. Hilbery start. Where wasKatharine off to? In her preoccupied state she had not heard the bell.The alcove on the stairs, in which the telephone was placed, wasscreened for privacy by a curtain of purple velvet. It was a pocketfor superfluous possessions, such as exist in most houses which harborthe wreckage of three generations. Prints of great-uncles, famed fortheir prowess in the East, hung above Chinese teapots, whose sideswere riveted by little gold stitches, and the precious teapots, again,stood upon bookcases containing the complete works of William Cowperand Sir Walter Scott. The thread of sound, issuing from the telephone,was always colored by the surroundings which received it, so it seemedto Katharine. Whose voice was now going to combine with them, or tostrike a discord?"Whose voice?" she asked herself, hearing a man inquire, with greatdetermination, for her number. The unfamiliar voice now asked for MissHilbery. Out of all the welter of voices which crowd round the far endof the telephone, out of the enormous range of possibilities, whosevoice, what possibility, was this? A pause gave her time to askherself this question. It was solved next moment."I've looked out the train. . . . Early on Saturday afternoonwould suit me best. . . . I'm Ralph Denham. . . . But I'll writeit down. . . ."With more than the usual sense of being impinged upon the point of abayonet, Katharine replied:"I think I could come. I'll look at my engagements. . . . Hold on."She dropped the machine, and looked fixedly at the print of thegreat-uncle who had not ceased to gaze, with an air of amiableauthority, into a world which, as yet, beheld no symptoms of theIndian Mutiny. And yet, gently swinging against the wall, within theblack tube, was a voice which recked nothing of Uncle James, of Chinateapots, or of red velvet curtains. She watched the oscillation of thetube, and at the same moment became conscious of the individuality ofthe house in which she stood; she heard the soft domestic sounds ofregular existence upon staircases and floors above her head, andmovements through the wall in the house next door. She had no veryclear vision of Denham himself, when she lifted the telephone to herlips and replied that she thought Saturday would suit her. She hopedthat he would not say good-bye at once, although she felt noparticular anxiety to attend to what he was saying, and began, evenwhile he spoke, to think of her own upper room, with its books, itspapers pressed between the leaves of dictionaries, and the table thatcould be cleared for work. She replaced the instrument, thoughtfully;her restlessness was assuaged; she finished her letter to Cassandrawithout difficulty, addressed the envelope, and fixed the stamp withher usual quick decision.A bunch of anemones caught Mrs. Hilbery's eye when they had finishedluncheon. The blue and purple and white of the bowl, standing in apool of variegated light on a polished Chippendale table in thedrawing-room window, made her stop dead with an exclamation ofpleasure."Who is lying ill in bed, Katharine?" she demanded. "Which of ourfriends wants cheering up? Who feels that they've been forgotten andpassed over, and that nobody wants them? Whose water rates areoverdue, and the cook leaving in a temper without waiting for herwages? There was somebody I know--" she concluded, but for the momentthe name of this desirable acquaintance escaped her. The bestrepresentative of the forlorn company whose day would be brightened bya bunch of anemones was, in Katharine's opinion, the widow of ageneral living in the Cromwell Road. In default of the actuallydestitute and starving, whom she would much have preferred, Mrs.Hilbery was forced to acknowledge her claims, for though incomfortable circumstances, she was extremely dull, unattractive,connected in some oblique fashion with literature, and had beentouched to the verge of tears, on one occasion, by an afternoon call.It happened that Mrs. Hilbery had an engagement elsewhere, so that thetask of taking the flowers to the Cromwell Road fell upon Katharine.She took her letter to Cassandra with her, meaning to post it in thefirst pillar-box she came to. When, however, she was fairly out ofdoors, and constantly invited by pillar-boxes and post-offices to slipher envelope down their scarlet throats, she forbore. She made absurdexcuses, as that she did not wish to cross the road, or that she wascertain to pass another post-office in a more central position alittle farther on. The longer she held the letter in her hand,however, the more persistently certain questions pressed upon her, asif from a collection of voices in the air. These invisible peoplewished to be informed whether she was engaged to William Rodney, orwas the engagement broken off? Was it right, they asked, to inviteCassandra for a visit, and was William Rodney in love with her, orlikely to fall in love? Then the questioners paused for a moment, andresumed as if another side of the problem had just come to theirnotice. 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 toa solitary walk with him, and what advice are you going to give himabout his future? Has William Rodney cause to be jealous of yourconduct, and what do you propose to do about Mary Datchet? What areyou going to do? What does honor require you to do? they repeated."Good Heavens!" Katharine exclaimed, after listening to all theseremarks, "I suppose I ought to make up my mind."But the debate was a formal skirmishing, a pastime to gain breathing-space. Like all people brought up in a tradition, Katharine was able,within ten minutes or so, to reduce any moral difficulty to itstraditional shape and solve it by the traditional answers. The book ofwisdom lay open, if not upon her mother's knee, upon the knees of manyuncles and aunts. She had only to consult them, and they would at onceturn to the right page and read out an answer exactly suited to one inher position. The rules which should govern the behavior of anunmarried woman are written in red ink, graved upon marble, if, bysome freak of nature, it should fall out that the unmarried woman hasnot the same writing scored upon her heart. She was ready to believethat some people are fortunate enough to reject, accept, resign, orlay down their lives at the bidding of traditional authority; shecould envy them; but in her case the questions became phantomsdirectly she tried seriously to find an answer, which proved that thetraditional answer would be of no use to her individually. Yet it hadserved so many people, she thought, glancing at the rows of houses oneither side of her, where families, whose incomes must be between athousand and fifteen-hundred a year lived, and kept, perhaps, threeservants, and draped their windows with curtains which were alwaysthick and generally dirty, and must, she thought, since you could onlysee a looking-glass gleaming above a sideboard on which a dish ofapples was set, keep the room inside very dark. But she turned herhead away, observing that this was not a method of thinking the matterout.The only truth which she could discover was the truth of what sheherself felt--a frail beam when compared with the broad illuminationshed by the eyes of all the people who are in agreement to seetogether; but having rejected the visionary voices, she had no choicebut to make this her guide through the dark masses which confrontedher. She tried to follow her beam, with an expression upon her facewhich would have made any passer-by think her reprehensibly and almostridiculously detached from the surrounding scene. One would have feltalarmed lest this young and striking woman were about to do somethingeccentric. But her beauty saved her from the worst fate that canbefall a pedestrian; people looked at her, but they did not laugh. Toseek a true feeling among the chaos of the unfeelings or half-feelingsof life, to recognize it when found, and to accept the consequences ofthe discovery, draws lines upon the smoothest brow, while it quickensthe light of the eyes; it is a pursuit which is alternatelybewildering, debasing, and exalting, and, as Katharine speedily found,her discoveries gave her equal cause for surprise, shame, and intenseanxiety. Much depended, as usual, upon the interpretation of the wordlove; which word came up again and again, whether she consideredRodney, Denham, Mary Datchet, or herself; and in each case it seemedto stand for something different, and yet for something unmistakableand something not to be passed by. For the more she looked into theconfusion of lives which, instead of running parallel, had suddenlyintersected each other, the more distinctly she seemed to convinceherself that there was no other light on them than was shed by thisstrange illumination, and no other path save the one upon which itthrew its beams. Her blindness in the case of Rodney, her attempt tomatch his true feeling with her false feeling, was a failure never tobe sufficiently condemned; indeed, she could only pay it the tributeof leaving it a black and naked landmark unburied by attempt atoblivion or excuse.With this to humiliate there was much to exalt. She thought of threedifferent scenes; she thought of Mary sitting upright and saying, "I'min love--I'm in love"; she thought of Rodney losing his self-consciousness among the dead leaves, and speaking with the abandonmentof a child; she thought of Denham leaning upon the stone parapet andtalking to the distant sky, so that she thought him mad. Her mind,passing from Mary to Denham, from William to Cassandra, and fromDenham to herself--if, as she rather doubted, Denham's state of mindwas connected with herself--seemed to be tracing out the lines of somesymmetrical pattern, some arrangement of life, which invested, if notherself, at least the others, not only with interest, but with a kindof tragic beauty. She had a fantastic picture of them upholdingsplendid 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 conceptionsas these in her rapid walk along the dreary streets of SouthKensington, she determined that, whatever else might be obscure, shemust further the objects of Mary, Denham, William, and Cassandra. Theway was not apparent. No course of action seemed to her indubitablyright. All she achieved by her thinking was the conviction that, insuch a cause, no risk was too great; and that, far from making anyrules for herself or others, she would let difficulties accumulateunsolved, situations widen their jaws unsatiated, while she maintaineda position of absolute and fearless independence. So she could bestserve the people who loved.Read in the light of this exaltation, there was a new meaning in thewords which her mother had penciled upon the card attached to thebunch of anemones. The door of the house in the Cromwell Road opened;gloomy vistas of passage and staircase were revealed; such light asthere was seemed to be concentrated upon a silver salver ofvisiting-cards, whose black borders suggested that the widow's friendshad all suffered the same bereavement. The parlor-maid could hardly beexpected to fathom the meaning of the grave tone in which the younglady proffered the flowers, with Mrs. Hilbery's love; and the doorshut upon the offering.The sight of a face, the slam of a door, are both rather destructiveof 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 fastto figures, and in some way or other her thought about such problemsas she was wont to consider worked in happily with her mood as to herfriends' lives. She reached home rather late for tea.On the ancient Dutch chest in the hall she perceived one or two hats,coats, and walking-sticks, and the sound of voices reached her as shestood outside the drawing-room door. Her mother gave a little cry asshe came in; a cry which conveyed to Katharine the fact that she waslate, that the teacups and milk-jugs were in a conspiracy ofdisobedience, and that she must immediately take her place at the headof the table and pour out tea for the guests. Augustus Pelham, thediarist, liked a calm atmosphere in which to tell his stories; heliked attention; he liked to elicit little facts, little stories,about the past and the great dead, from such distinguished charactersas Mrs. Hilbery for the nourishment of his diary, for whose sake hefrequented tea-tables and ate yearly an enormous quantity of butteredtoast. He, therefore, welcomed Katharine with relief, and she hadmerely to shake hands with Rodney and to greet the American lady whohad come to be shown the relics, before the talk started again on thebroad lines of reminiscence and discussion which were familiar to her.Yet, even with this thick veil between them, she could not helplooking at Rodney, as if she could detect what had happened to himsince they met. It was in vain. His clothes, even the white slip, thepearl in his tie, seemed to intercept her quick glance, and toproclaim the futility of such inquiries of a discreet, urbanegentleman, who balanced his cup of tea and poised a slice of bread andbutter on the edge of the saucer. He would not meet her eye, but thatcould be accounted for by his activity in serving and helping, and thepolite alacrity with which he was answering the questions of theAmerican visitor.It was certainly a sight to daunt any one coming in with a head fullof theories about love. The voices of the invisible questioners werereinforced by the scene round the table, and sounded with a tremendousself-confidence, as if they had behind them the common sense of twentygenerations, together with the immediate approval of Mr. AugustusPelham, Mrs. Vermont Bankes, William Rodney, and, possibly, Mrs.Hilbery herself. Katharine set her teeth, not entirely in themetaphorical sense, for her hand, obeying the impulse towards definiteaction, laid firmly upon the table beside her an envelope which shehad been grasping all this time in complete forgetfulness. The addresswas uppermost, and a moment later she saw William's eye rest upon itas he rose to fulfil some duty with a plate. His expression instantlychanged. He did what he was on the point of doing, and then looked atKatharine with a look which revealed enough of his confusion to showher that he was not entirely represented by his appearance. In aminute 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 beshown "our things."Katharine accordingly rose, and led the way to the little inner roomwith the pictures and the books. Mrs. Bankes and Rodney followed her.She turned on the lights, and began directly in her low, pleasantvoice: "This table is my grandfather's writing-table. Most of thelater poems were written at it. And this is his pen--the last pen heever used." She took it in her hand and paused for the right number ofseconds. "Here," she continued, "is the original manuscript of the'Ode to Winter.' The early manuscripts are far less corrected than thelater ones, as you will see directly. . . . Oh, do take it yourself,"she added, as Mrs. Bankes asked, in an awestruck tone of voice, forthat privilege, and began a preliminary unbuttoning of her white kidgloves."You are wonderfully like your grandfather, Miss Hilbery," theAmerican lady observed, gazing from Katharine to the portrait,"especially about the eyes. Come, now, I expect she writes poetryherself, doesn't she?" she asked in a jocular tone, turning toWilliam. "Quite one's ideal of a poet, is it not, Mr. Rodney? I cannottell you what a privilege I feel it to be standing just here with thepoet's granddaughter. You must know we think a great deal of yourgrandfather in America, Miss Hilbery. We have societies for readinghim aloud. What! His very own slippers!" Laying aside the manuscript,she hastily grasped the old shoes, and remained for a moment dumb incontemplation of them.While Katharine went on steadily with her duties as show-woman, Rodneyexamined intently a row of little drawings which he knew by heartalready. His disordered state of mind made it necessary for him totake advantage of these little respites, as if he had been out in ahigh wind and must straighten his dress in the first shelter hereached. His calm was only superficial, as he knew too well; it didnot exist much below the surface of tie, waistcoat, and white slip.On getting out of bed that morning he had fully made up his mind toignore what had been said the night before; he had been convinced, bythe sight of Denham, that his love for Katharine was passionate, andwhen he addressed her early that morning on the telephone, he hadmeant his cheerful but authoritative tones to convey to her the factthat, after a night of madness, they were as indissolubly engaged asever. But when he reached his office his torments began. He found aletter from Cassandra waiting for him. She had read his play, and hadtaken the very first opportunity to write and tell him what shethought of it. She knew, she wrote, that her praise meant absolutelynothing; but still, she had sat up all night; she thought this, that,and the other; she was full of enthusiasm most elaborately scratchedout in places, but enough was written plain to gratify William'svanity exceedingly. She was quite intelligent enough to say the rightthings, 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 abouta 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 drewthat line? Was she ever serious? Didn't the letter show the mostengaging compound of enthusiasm and spirit and whimsicality, alltapering into a flame of girlish freakishness, which flitted, for therest 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. Hefound it particularly delightful to shape a style which should expressthe bowing and curtsying, advancing and retreating, which arecharacteristic of one of the many million partnerships of men andwomen. Katharine never trod that particular measure, he could not helpreflecting; Katharine--Cassandra; Cassandra--Katharine--theyalternated in his consciousness all day long. It was all very well todress oneself carefully, compose one's face, and start off punctuallyat half-past four to a tea-party in Cheyne Walk, but Heaven only knewwhat would come of it all, and when Katharine, after sitting silentwith her usual immobility, wantonly drew from her pocket and slappeddown on the table beneath his eyes a letter addressed to Cassandraherself, his composure deserted him. What did she mean by herbehavior?He looked up sharply from his row of little pictures. Katharine wasdisposing of the American lady in far too arbitrary a fashion. Surelythe victim herself must see how foolish her enthusiasms appeared inthe eyes of the poet's granddaughter. Katharine never made any attemptto spare people's feelings, he reflected; and, being himself verysensitive to all shades of comfort and discomfort, he cut short theauctioneer's catalog, which Katharine was reeling off more and moreabsent-mindedly, and took Mrs. Vermont Bankes, with a queer sense offellowship in suffering, under his own protection.But within a few minutes the American lady had completed herinspection, and inclining her head in a little nod of reverentialfarewell to the poet and his shoes, she was escorted downstairs byRodney. Katharine stayed by herself in the little room. The ceremonyof 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 froma collector in Australia, which recorded a change of the poet's mindabout a very famous phrase, and, therefore, had claims to the honor ofglazing and framing. But was there room for it? Must it be hung on thestaircase, or should some other relic give place to do it honor?Feeling unable to decide the question, Katharine glanced at theportrait of her grandfather, as if to ask his opinion. The artist whohad painted it was now out of fashion, and by dint of showing it tovisitors, Katharine had almost ceased to see anything but a glow offaintly pleasing pink and brown tints, enclosed within a circularscroll of gilt laurel-leaves. The young man who was her grandfatherlooked vaguely over her head. The sensual lips were slightly parted,and gave the face an expression of beholding something lovely ormiraculous vanishing or just rising upon the rim of the distance. Theexpression repeated itself curiously upon Katharine's face as shegazed up into his. They were the same age, or very nearly so. Shewondered what he was looking for; were there waves beating upon ashore for him, too, she wondered, and heroes riding through theleaf-hung forests? For perhaps the first time in her life she thoughtof him as a man, young, unhappy, tempestuous, full of desires andfaults; for the first time she realized him for herself, and not fromher mother's memory. He might have been her brother, she thought. Itseemed to her that they were akin, with the mysterious kinship ofblood which makes it seem possible to interpret the sights which theeyes of the dead behold so intently, or even to believe that they lookwith us upon our present joys and sorrows. He would have understood,she thought, suddenly; and instead of laying her withered flowers uponhis shrine, she brought him her own perplexities--perhaps a gift ofgreater value, should the dead be conscious of gifts, than flowers andincense and adoration. Doubts, questionings, and despondencies shefelt, as she looked up, would be more welcome to him than homage, andhe would hold them but a very small burden if she gave him, also, someshare in what she suffered and achieved. The depth of her own prideand love were not more apparent to her than the sense that the deadasked neither flowers nor regrets, but a share in the life which theyhad given her, the life which they had lived.Rodney found her a moment later sitting beneath her grandfather'sportrait. She laid her hand on the seat next her in a friendly way,and said:"Come and sit down, William. How glad I was you were here! I feltmyself getting ruder and ruder.""You are not good at hiding your feelings," he returned dryly."Oh, don't scold me--I've had a horrid afternoon." She told him howshe had taken the flowers to Mrs. McCormick, and how South Kensingtonimpressed her as the preserve of officers' widows. She described howthe door had opened, and what gloomy avenues of busts and palm-treesand umbrellas had been revealed to her. She spoke lightly, andsucceeded in putting him at his ease. Indeed, he rapidly became toomuch at his ease to persist in a condition of cheerful neutrality. Hefelt his composure slipping from him. Katharine made it seem sonatural to ask her to help him, or advise him, to say straight outwhat he had in his mind. The letter from Cassandra was heavy in hispocket. There was also the letter to Cassandra lying on the table inthe next room. The atmosphere seemed charged with Cassandra. But,unless Katharine began the subject of her own accord, he could noteven hint--he must ignore the whole affair; it was the part of agentleman to preserve a bearing that was, as far as he could make it,the bearing of an undoubting lover. At intervals he sighed deeply. Hetalked rather more quickly than usual about the possibility that someof the operas of Mozart would be played in the summer. He had receiveda notice, he said, and at once produced a pocket-book stuffed withpapers, and began shuffling them in search. He held a thick envelopebetween his finger and thumb, as if the notice from the opera companyhad become in some way inseparably attached to it."A letter from Cassandra?" said Katharine, in the easiest voice in theworld, looking over his shoulder. "I've just written to ask her tocome here, only I forgot to post it."He handed her the envelope in silence. She took it, extracted thesheets, and read the letter through.The reading seemed to Rodney to take an intolerably long time."Yes," she observed at length, "a very charming letter."Rodney's face was half turned away, as if in bashfulness. Her view ofhis profile almost moved her to laughter. She glanced through thepages once more."I see no harm," William blurted out, "in helping her--with Greek, forexample--if she really cares for that sort of thing.""There's no reason why she shouldn't care," said Katharine, consultingthe pages once more. "In fact--ah, here it is--'The Greek alphabet isabsolutely fascinating.' Obviously she does care.""Well, Greek may be rather a large order. I was thinking chiefly ofEnglish. 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 forpoetry, understanding, not formed, of course, but it's at the root ofeverything after all. There'd be no harm in lending her books?""No. Certainly not.""But if it--hum--led to a correspondence? I mean, Katharine, I takeit, without going into matters which seem to me a little morbid, Imean," he floundered, "you, from your point of view, feel that there'snothing disagreeable to you in the notion? If so, you've only tospeak, and I never think of it again."She was surprised by the violence of her desire that he never shouldthink of it again. For an instant it seemed to her impossible tosurrender an intimacy, which might not be the intimacy of love, butwas certainly the intimacy of true friendship, to any woman in theworld. Cassandra would never understand him--she was not good enoughfor him. The letter seemed to her a letter of flattery--a letteraddressed to his weakness, which it made her angry to think was knownto another. For he was not weak; he had the rare strength of doingwhat he promised--she had only to speak, and he would never think ofCassandra again.She paused. Rodney guessed the reason. He was amazed."She loves me," he thought. The woman he admired more than any one inthe world, loved him, as he had given up hope that she would ever lovehim. And now that for the first time he was sure of her love, heresented it. He felt it as a fetter, an encumbrance, something whichmade them both, but him in particular, ridiculous. He was in her powercompletely, but his eyes were open and he was no longer her slave orher dupe. He would be her master in future. The instant prolongeditself as Katharine realized the strength of her desire to speak thewords that should keep William for ever, and the baseness of thetemptation which assailed her to make the movement, or speak the word,which he had often begged her for, which she was now near enough tofeeling. She held the letter in her hand. She sat silent.At this moment there was a stir in the other room; the voice of Mrs.Hilbery was heard talking of proof-sheets rescued by miraculousprovidence from butcher's ledgers in Australia; the curtain separatingone room from the other was drawn apart, and Mrs. Hilbery and AugustusPelham stood in the doorway. Mrs. Hilbery stopped short. She looked ather daughter, and at the man her daughter was to marry, with herpeculiar smile that always seemed to tremble on the brink of satire."The best of all my treasures, Mr. Pelham!" she exclaimed. "Don'tmove, Katharine. Sit still, William. Mr. Pelham will come anotherday."Mr. Pelham looked, smiled, bowed, and, as his hostess had moved on,followed her without a word. The curtain was drawn again either by himor by Mrs. Hilbery.But her mother had settled the question somehow. Katharine doubted nolonger."As I told you last night," she said, "I think it's your duty, ifthere's a chance that you care for Cassandra, to discover what yourfeeling is for her now. It's your duty to her, as well as to me. Butwe must tell my mother. We can't go on pretending.""That is entirely in your hands, of course," said Rodney, with animmediate return to the manner of a formal man of honor."Very well," said Katharine.Directly he left her she would go to her mother, and explain that theengagement was at an end--or it might be better that they should gotogether?"But, Katharine," Rodney began, nervously attempting to stuffCassandra's sheets back into their envelope; "if Cassandra--shouldCassandra--you've asked Cassandra to stay with you.""Yes; but I've not posted the letter."He crossed his knees in a discomfited silence. By all his codes it wasimpossible to ask a woman with whom he had just broken off hisengagement to help him to become acquainted with another woman with aview to his falling in love with her. If it was announced that theirengagement was over, a long and complete separation would inevitablyfollow; in those circumstances, letters and gifts were returned; afteryears of distance the severed couple met, perhaps at an evening party,and touched hands uncomfortably with an indifferent word or two. Hewould be cast off completely; he would have to trust to his ownresources. He could never mention Cassandra to Katharine again; formonths, and doubtless years, he would never see Katharine again;anything might happen to her in his absence.Katharine was almost as well aware of his perplexities as he was. Sheknew in what direction complete generosity pointed the way; but pride--for to remain engaged to Rodney and to cover his experiments hurtwhat was nobler in her than mere vanity--fought for its life."I'm to give up my freedom for an indefinite time," she thought, "inorder that William may see Cassandra here at his ease. He's not thecourage to manage it without my help--he's too much of a coward totell me openly what he wants. He hates the notion of a public breach.He wants to keep us both."When she reached this point, Rodney pocketed the letter andelaborately looked at his watch. Although the action meant that heresigned Cassandra, for he knew his own incompetence and distrustedhimself entirely, and lost Katharine, for whom his feeling wasprofound though unsatisfactory, still it appeared to him that therewas nothing else left for him to do. He was forced to go, leavingKatharine free, as he had said, to tell her mother that the engagementwas 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 beeninconceivable to him. That a relationship such as he had glanced atwith desire could be possible between him and Katharine, he would havebeen the first, two days ago, to deny with indignation. But now hislife had changed; his attitude had changed; his feelings weredifferent; new aims and possibilities had been shown him, and they hadan almost irresistible fascination and force. The training of a lifeof thirty-five years had not left him defenceless; he was still masterof his dignity; he rose, with a mind made up to an irrevocablefarewell."I leave you, then," he said, standing up and holding out his handwith an effort that left him pale, but lent him dignity, "to tell yourmother that our engagement is ended by your desire."She took his hand and held it."You don't trust me?" she said."I do, absolutely," he replied."No. You don't trust me to help you. . . . I could help you?""I'm hopeless without your help!" he exclaimed passionately, butwithdrew his hand and turned his back. When he faced her, she thoughtthat she saw him for the first time without disguise."It's useless to pretend that I don't understand what you're offering,Katharine. I admit what you say. Speaking to you perfectly frankly, Ibelieve at this moment that I do love your cousin; there is a chancethat, with your help, I might--but no," he broke off, "it'simpossible, it's wrong--I'm infinitely to blame for having allowedthis situation to arise.""Sit beside me. Let's consider sensibly--""Your sense has been our undoing--" he groaned."I accept the responsibility.""Ah, but can I allow that?" he exclaimed. "It would mean--for we mustface it, Katharine--that we let our engagement stand for the timenominally; in fact, of course, your freedom would be absolute.""And yours too.""Yes, we should both be free. Let us say that I saw Cassandra once,twice, perhaps, under these conditions; and then if, as I thinkcertain, the whole thing proves a dream, we tell your motherinstantly. Why not tell her now, indeed, under pledge of secrecy?""Why not? It would be over London in ten minutes, besides, she wouldnever even remotely understand.""Your father, then? This secrecy is detestable--it's dishonorable.""My father would understand even less than my mother.""Ah, who could be expected to understand?" Rodney groaned; "but it'sfrom your point of view that we must look at it. It's not only askingtoo much, it's putting you into a position--a position in which Icould not endure to see my own sister.""We're not brothers and sisters," she said impatiently, "and if wecan't decide, who can? I'm not talking nonsense," she proceeded. "I'vedone my best to think this out from every point of view, and I've cometo the conclusion that there are risks which have to be taken,--thoughI don't deny that they hurt horribly.""Katharine, you mind? You'll mind too much.""No I shan't," she said stoutly. "I shall mind a good deal, but I'mprepared 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 aChristian doctrine, isn't it?""It sounds more like Paganism to me," Rodney groaned, as he reviewedthe situation into which her Christian doctrine was plunging them.And yet he could not deny that a divine relief possessed him, and thatthe future, instead of wearing a lead-colored mask, now blossomed witha thousand varied gaieties and excitements. He was actually to seeCassandra within a week or perhaps less, and he was more anxious toknow the date of her arrival than he could own even to himself. Itseemed base to be so anxious to pluck this fruit of Katharine'sunexampled generosity and of his own contemptible baseness. And yet,though he used these words automatically, they had now no meaning. Hewas not debased in his own eyes by what he had done, and as forpraising Katharine, were they not partners, conspirators, people bentupon the same quest together, so that to praise the pursuit of acommon end as an act of generosity was meaningless. He took her handand pressed it, not in thanks so much as in an ecstasy of comradeship."We will help each other," he said, repeating her words, seeking hereyes in an enthusiasm of friendship.Her eyes were grave but dark with sadness as they rested on him. "He'salready gone," she thought, "far away--he thinks of me no more." Andthe 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 betweenthem, so that, as they sat, they were separated second by second by animpenetrable wall. The process, which affected her as that of beingsealed away and for ever from all companionship with the person shecared for most, came to an end at last, and by common consent theyunclasped their fingers, Rodney touching hers with his lips, as thecurtain parted, and Mrs. Hilbery peered through the opening with herbenevolent and sarcastic expression to ask whether Katharine couldremember was it Tuesday or Wednesday, and did she dine in Westminster?"Dearest William," she said, pausing, as if she could not resist thepleasure of encroaching for a second upon this wonderful world of loveand confidence and romance. "Dearest children," she added,disappearing with an impulsive gesture, as if she forced herself todraw the curtain upon a scene which she refused all temptation tointerrupt.