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  CHAPTER XXIV

  The first signs of spring, even such as make themselves felt towards themiddle of February, not only produce little white and violet flowersin the more sheltered corners of woods and gardens, but bring to birththoughts and desires comparable to those faintly colored and sweetlyscented petals in the minds of men and women. Lives frozen by age,so far as the present is concerned, to a hard surface, which neitherreflects nor yields, at this season become soft and fluid, reflectingthe shapes and colors of the present, as well as the shapes and colorsof the past. In the case of Mrs. Hilbery, these early spring days werechiefly upsetting inasmuch as they caused a general quickening of heremotional powers, which, as far as the past was concerned, had neversuffered much diminution. But in the spring her desire for expressioninvariably increased. She was haunted by the ghosts of phrases. She gaveherself up to a sensual delight in the combinations of words. She soughtthem in the pages of her favorite authors. She made them for herselfon scraps of paper, and rolled them on her tongue when there seemed nooccasion for such eloquence. She was upheld in these excursions by thecertainty that no language could outdo the splendor of her father'smemory, and although her efforts did not notably further the end of hisbiography, she was under the impression of living more in his shade atsuch times than at others. No one can escape the power of language, letalone those of English birth brought up from childhood, as Mrs. Hilberyhad been, to disport themselves now in the Saxon plainness, now in theLatin splendor of the tongue, and stored with memories, as she was, ofold poets exuberating in an infinity of vocables. Even Katharinewas slightly affected against her better judgment by her mother'senthusiasm. Not that her judgment could altogether acquiesce in thenecessity for a study of Shakespeare's sonnets as a preliminary to thefifth chapter of her grandfather's biography. Beginning with a perfectlyfrivolous jest, Mrs. Hilbery had evolved a theory that Anne Hathaway hada way, among other things, of writing Shakespeare's sonnets; the idea,struck out to enliven a party of professors, who forwarded a number ofprivately printed manuals within the next few days for her instruction,had submerged her in a flood of Elizabethan literature; she had comehalf to believe in her joke, which was, she said, at least as good asother people's facts, and all her fancy for the time being centeredupon Stratford-on-Avon. She had a plan, she told Katharine, when, ratherlater than usual, Katharine came into the room the morning after herwalk by the river, for visiting Shakespeare's tomb. Any fact about thepoet had become, for the moment, of far greater interest to her than theimmediate present, and the certainty that there was existing in Englanda spot of ground where Shakespeare had undoubtedly stood, where his verybones lay directly beneath one's feet, was so absorbing to her on thisparticular occasion that she greeted her daughter with the exclamation:

  "D'you think he ever passed this house?"

  The question, for the moment, seemed to Katharine to have reference 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. Hilbery added:

  "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 theroad with her basket on her arm, has never heard that there was sucha person? 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 Shakespeare inthe world. I should like to stand at that crossing all day long and say:'People, read Shakespeare!'"

  Katharine sat down at her table and opened a long dusty envelope. AsShelley was mentioned in the course of the letter as if he were alive,it had, of course, considerable value. Her immediate task was to decidewhether the whole letter should be printed, or only the paragraph whichmentioned Shelley's name, and she reached out for a pen and held it inreadiness to do justice upon the sheet. Her pen, however, remained inthe air. Almost surreptitiously she slipped a clean sheet in front ofher, and her hand, descending, began drawing square boxes halved andquartered by straight lines, and then circles which underwent the sameprocess of dissection.

  "Katharine! I've hit upon a brilliant idea!" Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed--"tolay out, say, a hundred pounds or so on copies of Shakespeare, and givethem to working men. Some of your clever friends who get up meetingsmight help us, Katharine. And that might lead to a playhouse, where wecould all take parts. You'd be Rosalind--but you've a dash of the oldnurse in you. Your father's Hamlet, come to years of discretion andI'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 shallWilliam be? A hero? Hotspur? Henry the Fifth? No, William's got a touchof Hamlet in him, too. I can fancy that William talks to himself whenhe's alone. Ah, Katharine, you must say very beautiful things whenyou're together!" she added wistfully, with a glance at her daughter,who had told her nothing about the dinner the night before.

  "Oh, we talk a lot of nonsense," said Katharine, hiding her slip 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'sthe truth, it's the only truth."

  Katharine was on the point of interrupting her mother, and then she wason the point of confiding in her. They came strangely close togethersometimes. 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, farbetter than she could. Accordingly, Katharine did nothing but scrub oneof her circles an intense black with her pencil, in the midst of whichprocess the telephone-bell rang, and she left the room to answer it.

  When she returned, Mrs. Hilbery had found not the passage she wanted,but another of exquisite beauty as she justly observed, looking up for asecond 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'sthe daffodils; it's the green fields; it's the birds."

  She was cut short in her quotation by another imperative telephone-bell.Once more Katharine left the room.

  "My dear child, how odious the triumphs of science are!" Mrs. Hilberyexclaimed on her return. "They'll be linking us with the moon next--butwho 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 gesture wasnot lost upon her mother. It hinted at the existence of something sternand unapproachable in her daughter's character, which struck chill uponher, as the sight of poverty, or drunkenness, or the logic with whichMr. Hilbery sometimes thought good to demolish her certainty of anapproaching millennium struck chill upon her. She
went back to her owntable, and putting on her spectacles with a curious expression of quiethumility, addressed herself for the first time that morning to the taskbefore her. The shock with an unsympathetic world had a sobering effecton her. For once, her industry surpassed her daughter's. Katharine couldnot reduce the world to that particular perspective in which HarrietMartineau, for instance, was a figure of solid importance, and possessedof a genuine relationship to this figure or to that date. Singularlyenough, 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 wholeof the nineteenth century. She did not clearly realize what this callwas to be; but when the ears have got into the habit of listening, theygo on listening involuntarily, and thus Katharine spent the greater partof the morning in listening to a variety of sounds in the back streetsof Chelsea. 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 the squareaspect of her own position at the table, or, perhaps, she would havethrown her pen down and told her mother the reason of her restlessness.The only writing she managed to accomplish in the course of the morningwas one letter, addressed to her cousin, Cassandra Otway--a ramblingletter, long, affectionate, playful and commanding all at once. She badeCassandra put her creatures in the charge of a groom, and come tothem for a week or so. They would go and hear some music together.Cassandra's dislike of rational society, she said, was an affectationfast hardening into a prejudice, which would, in the long run, isolateher from all interesting people and pursuits. She was finishing thesheet when the sound she was anticipating all the time actually struckupon her ears. She jumped up hastily, and slammed the door with asharpness which made Mrs. Hilbery start. Where was Katharine off to? Inher 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 pocket forsuperfluous possessions, such as exist in most houses which harbor thewreckage of three generations. Prints of great-uncles, famed for theirprowess in the East, hung above Chinese teapots, whose sides wereriveted by little gold stitches, and the precious teapots, again, stoodupon bookcases containing the complete works of William Cowper andSir Walter Scott. The thread of sound, issuing from the telephone, wasalways colored by the surroundings which received it, so it seemed toKatharine. Whose voice was now going to combine with them, or to strikea 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 ask herselfthis question. It was solved next moment.

  "I've looked out the train.... Early on Saturday afternoon would suit mebest.... I'm Ralph Denham.... But I'll write it 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 the IndianMutiny. And yet, gently swinging against the wall, within the blacktube, was a voice which recked nothing of Uncle James, of China teapots,or of red velvet curtains. She watched the oscillation of the tube, andat the same moment became conscious of the individuality of the house inwhich she stood; she heard the soft domestic sounds of regular existenceupon staircases and floors above her head, and movements through thewall in the house next door. She had no very clear vision of Denhamhimself, when she lifted the telephone to her lips and replied thatshe thought Saturday would suit her. She hoped that he would not saygood-bye at once, although she felt no particular anxiety to attend towhat he was saying, and began, even while he spoke, to think of her ownupper room, with its books, its papers pressed between the leaves ofdictionaries, and the table that could be cleared for work. She replacedthe instrument, thoughtfully; her restlessness was assuaged; shefinished her letter to Cassandra without difficulty, addressed theenvelope, and fixed the stamp with her 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 a poolof variegated light on a polished Chippendale table in the drawing-roomwindow, made her stop dead with an exclamation of pleasure.

  "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 are overdue,and the cook leaving in a temper without waiting for her wages? Therewas somebody I know--" she concluded, but for the moment the name ofthis desirable acquaintance escaped her. The best representative of theforlorn company whose day would be brightened by a bunch of anemoneswas, in Katharine's opinion, the widow of a general living in theCromwell Road. In default of the actually destitute and starving, whomshe would much have preferred, Mrs. Hilbery was forced to acknowledgeher claims, for though in comfortable circumstances, she was extremelydull, unattractive, connected in some oblique fashion with literature,and had been touched to the verge of tears, on one occasion, by anafternoon call.

  It happened that Mrs. Hilbery had an engagement elsewhere, so that thetask of taking the flowers to the Cromwell Road fell upon Katharine. Shetook her letter to Cassandra with her, meaning to post it in the firstpillar-box she came to. When, however, she was fairly out of doors, andconstantly invited by pillar-boxes and post-offices to slip her envelopedown their scarlet throats, she forbore. She made absurd excuses, asthat she did not wish to cross the road, or that she was certain to passanother post-office in a more central position a little farther on. Thelonger she held the letter in her hand, however, the more persistentlycertain questions pressed upon her, as if from a collection of voicesin the air. These invisible people wished to be informed whether shewas engaged to William Rodney, or was the engagement broken off? Wasit right, they asked, to invite Cassandra for a visit, and was WilliamRodney in love with her, or likely to fall in love? Then the questionerspaused for a moment, and resumed as if another side of the problem hadjust come to their notice. What did Ralph Denham mean by what he said toyou last night? Do you consider that he is in love with you? Is it rightto consent to a solitary walk with him, and what advice are you goingto give him about his future? Has William Rodney cause to be jealous ofyour conduct, 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 gainbreathing-space. Like all people brought up in a tradition, Katharinewas able, within ten minutes or so, to reduce any moral difficulty toits traditional shape and solve it by the traditional answers. The bookof wisdom lay open, if not upon her mother's knee, upon the knees ofmany uncles and aunts. She had only to consult them, and they would atonce turn to the right page and read out an answer exactly suited toone in her position. The rules which should govern the behavior of anunmarried woman are written in red ink, graved upon marble, if, by somefreak of nature, it should fall out that the unmarried woman has not thesame writing scored upon her heart. She was ready to believe that somepeople are fortunate enough to reject, accept, resign, or lay down theirlives at the bidding of traditional authority; she could envy them; butin her case the questions became phantoms directly she tried seriouslyto find an answer, which proved that the traditional answer would beof no use to her individu
ally. Yet it had served so many people, shethought, glancing at the rows of houses on either side of her, wherefamilies, whose incomes must be between a thousand and fifteen-hundred ayear lived, and kept, perhaps, three servants, and draped their windowswith curtains which were always thick and generally dirty, and must,she thought, since you could only see a looking-glass gleaming above asideboard on which a dish of apples was set, keep the room inside verydark. But she turned her head away, observing that this was not a methodof thinking the matter out.

  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 see together;but having rejected the visionary voices, she had no choice but to makethis her guide through the dark masses which confronted her. She triedto follow her beam, with an expression upon her face which would havemade any passer-by think her reprehensibly and almost ridiculouslydetached from the surrounding scene. One would have felt alarmed lestthis young and striking woman were about to do something eccentric. Buther 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 feelingamong the chaos of the unfeelings or half-feelings of life, to recognizeit when found, and to accept the consequences of the discovery, drawslines upon the smoothest brow, while it quickens the light of theeyes; it is a pursuit which is alternately bewildering, debasing, andexalting, and, as Katharine speedily found, her discoveries gave herequal cause for surprise, shame, and intense anxiety. Much depended,as usual, upon the interpretation of the word love; which word came upagain 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, insteadof running parallel, had suddenly intersected each other, the moredistinctly she seemed to convince herself that there was no other lighton them than was shed by this strange illumination, and no other pathsave the one upon which it threw its beams. Her blindness in the caseof Rodney, her attempt to match his true feeling with her false feeling,was a failure never to be sufficiently condemned; indeed, she could onlypay it the tribute of leaving it a black and naked landmark unburied byattempt at oblivion 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'm in love--I'm in love"; she thought of Rodney losing hisself-consciousness among the dead leaves, and speaking with theabandonment of a child; she thought of Denham leaning upon the stoneparapet and talking to the distant sky, so that she thought him mad. Hermind, 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 upholding splendidpalaces upon their bent backs. They were the lantern-bearers, whoselights, scattered among the crowd, wove a pattern, dissolving, joining,meeting again in combination. Half forming such conceptions as thesein her rapid walk along the dreary streets of South Kensington, shedetermined that, whatever else might be obscure, she must furtherthe objects of Mary, Denham, William, and Cassandra. The way was notapparent. No course of action seemed to her indubitably right. All sheachieved by her thinking was the conviction that, in such a cause, norisk was too great; and that, far from making any rules for herself orothers, she would let difficulties accumulate unsolved, situations widentheir jaws unsatiated, while she maintained a position of absolute andfearless independence. So she could best serve 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 the bunchof anemones. The door of the house in the Cromwell Road opened; gloomyvistas of passage and staircase were revealed; such light as there wasseemed to be concentrated upon a silver salver of visiting-cards, whoseblack borders suggested that the widow's friends had all suffered thesame bereavement. The parlor-maid could hardly be expected to fathom themeaning of the grave tone in which the young lady proffered the flowers,with Mrs. Hilbery's love; and the door shut upon the offering.

  The sight of a face, the slam of a door, are both rather 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 fast tofigures, and in some way or other her thought about such problems as shewas wont to consider worked in happily with her mood as to her friends'lives. She reached home rather late for tea.

  On the ancient Dutch chest in the hall she perceived one or two hats,coats, and walking-sticks, and the sound of voices reached her as shestood outside the drawing-room door. Her mother gave a little cry as shecame 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, andthat she must immediately take her place at the head of the table andpour out tea for the guests. Augustus Pelham, the diarist, liked a calmatmosphere in which to tell his stories; he liked attention he liked toelicit little facts, little stories, about the past and the great dead,from such distinguished characters as Mrs. Hilbery for the nourishmentof his diary, for whose sake he frequented tea-tables and ate yearly anenormous quantity of buttered toast. He, therefore, welcomed Katharinewith relief, and she had merely to shake hands with Rodney and to greetthe American lady who had come to be shown the relics, before the talkstarted again on the broad lines of reminiscence and discussion whichwere familiar to her.

  Yet, even with this thick veil between them, she could not help lookingat Rodney, as if she could detect what had happened to him since theymet. It was in vain. His clothes, even the white slip, the pearl in histie, seemed to intercept her quick glance, and to proclaim the futilityof such inquiries of a discreet, urbane gentleman, who balanced his cupof 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 hisactivity in serving and helping, and the polite alacrity with which hewas answering the questions of the American 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. Hilberyherself. Katharine set her teeth, not entirely in the metaphoricalsense, for her hand, obeying the impulse towards definite action, laidfirmly upon the table beside her an envelope which she had been graspingall this time in complete forgetfulness. The address was uppermost, anda moment later she saw William's eye rest upon it as he rose to fulfilsome duty with a plate. His expression instantly changed. He did whathe was on the point of doing, and then looked at Katharine with a lookwhich revealed enough of his confusion to show her that he was notentirely represented by his appearance. In a minute or two he provedhimself at a loss with Mrs. Vermont Bankes, and Mrs. Hilbery, aware ofthe silence with her usual quickness, suggested that, perhaps, it wasnow time that Mrs. Bankes should be shown "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, pleasant voice:"This table is my grandfather's writing-table. Most of the later poemswere written at it. And this is his pen--the last pen he ever used." Shetook it in her hand and paused for the right number of seconds. "Here,"she continued, "is the original manuscript of the 'Ode to Winter.' Theearly manuscripts are far less corrected than the later ones, as youwill see directly....
Oh, do take it yourself," she added, as Mrs.Bankes asked, in an awestruck tone of voice, for that privilege, andbegan a preliminary unbuttoning of her white kid gloves.

  "You are wonderfully like your grandfather, Miss Hilbery," the Americanlady observed, gazing from Katharine to the portrait, "especially aboutthe 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 ofa poet, is it not, Mr. Rodney? I cannot tell you what a privilege I feelit to be standing just here with the poet's granddaughter. You must knowwe 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, andremained for a moment dumb in contemplation 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 to takeadvantage of these little respites, as if he had been out in a high windand must straighten his dress in the first shelter he reached. His calmwas only superficial, as he knew too well; it did not exist much belowthe 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 had meanthis cheerful but authoritative tones to convey to her the fact that,after a night of madness, they were as indissolubly engaged as ever. Butwhen he reached his office his torments began. He found a letter fromCassandra waiting for him. She had read his play, and had taken thevery first opportunity to write and tell him what she thought of it. Sheknew, she wrote, that her praise meant absolutely nothing; but still,she had sat up all night; she thought this, that, and the other; she wasfull of enthusiasm most elaborately scratched out in places, but enoughwas written plain to gratify William's vanity exceedingly. She was quiteintelligent enough to say the right things, or, even more charmingly,to hint at them. In other ways, too, it was a very charming letter. Shetold him about her music, and about a Suffrage meeting to which Henryhad taken her, and she asserted, half seriously, that she had learnt theGreek alphabet, and found it "fascinating." The word was underlined. Hadshe laughed when she drew that line? Was she ever serious? Didn't theletter show the most engaging compound of enthusiasm and spirit andwhimsicality, all tapering into a flame of girlish freakishness, whichflitted, for the rest of the morning, as a will-o'-the-wisp, acrossRodney's landscape. He could not resist beginning an answer to her thereand then. He found it particularly delightful to shape a style whichshould express the bowing and curtsying, advancing and retreating, whichare characteristic of one of the many million partnerships of men andwomen. Katharine never trod that particular measure, he could not helpreflecting; Katharine--Cassandra; Cassandra--Katharine--they alternatedin his consciousness all day long. It was all very well to dress oneselfcarefully, compose one's face, and start off punctually at half-pastfour to a tea-party in Cheyne Walk, but Heaven only knew what wouldcome of it all, and when Katharine, after sitting silent with her usualimmobility, wantonly drew from her pocket and slapped down on the tablebeneath his eyes a letter addressed to Cassandra herself, his composuredeserted him. What did she mean by her behavior?

  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 in theeyes of the poet's granddaughter. Katharine never made any attempt tospare people's feelings, he reflected; and, being himself very sensitiveto all shades of comfort and discomfort, he cut short the auctioneer'scatalog, which Katharine was reeling off more and more absent-mindedly,and took Mrs. Vermont Bankes, with a queer sense of fellowship insuffering, under his own protection.

  But within a few minutes the American lady had completed her inspection,and inclining her head in a little nod of reverential farewell to thepoet and his shoes, she was escorted downstairs by Rodney. Katharinestayed by herself in the little room. The ceremony of ancestor-worshiphad been more than usually oppressive to her. Moreover, the room wasbecoming crowded beyond the bounds of order. Only that morning a heavilyinsured 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. Butwas there room for it? Must it be hung on the staircase, or should someother relic give place to do it honor? Feeling unable to decide thequestion, Katharine glanced at the portrait of her grandfather, as if toask his opinion. The artist who had painted it was now out of fashion,and by dint of showing it to visitors, Katharine had almost ceasedto see anything but a glow of faintly pleasing pink and brown tints,enclosed within a circular scroll of gilt laurel-leaves. The young manwho was her grandfather looked vaguely over her head. The sensual lipswere slightly parted, and gave the face an expression of beholdingsomething lovely or miraculous vanishing or just rising upon the rim ofthe distance. The expression repeated itself curiously upon Katharine'sface as she gazed up into his. They were the same age, or very nearlyso. She wondered what he was looking for; were there waves beatingupon a shore for him, too, she wondered, and heroes riding through theleaf-hung forests? For perhaps the first time in her life she thought ofhim as a man, young, unhappy, tempestuous, full of desires and faults;for the first time she realized him for herself, and not from hermother's memory. He might have been her brother, she thought. It seemedto her that they were akin, with the mysterious kinship of blood whichmakes it seem possible to interpret the sights which the eyes of thedead behold so intently, or even to believe that they look with us uponour 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 andadoration. Doubts, questionings, and despondencies she felt, as shelooked up, would be more welcome to him than homage, and he would holdthem but a very small burden if she gave him, also, some share in whatshe suffered and achieved. The depth of her own pride and love were notmore apparent to her than the sense that the dead asked neither flowersnor regrets, but a share in the life which they had given her, the lifewhich 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, andsaid:

  "Come and sit down, William. How glad I was you were here! I felt myselfgetting 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-trees andumbrellas had been revealed to her. She spoke lightly, and succeeded inputting him at his ease. Indeed, he rapidly became too much at his easeto persist in a condition of cheerful neutrality. He felt his composureslipping from him. Katharine made it seem so natural to ask her to helphim, or advise him, to say straight out what he had in his mind. Theletter from Cassandra was heavy in his pocket. There was also the letterto Cassandra lying on the table in the next room. The atmosphere seemedcharged with Cassandra. But, unless Katharine began the subject of herown accord, he could not even hint--he must ignore the whole affair; itwas the part of a gentleman to preserve a bearing that was, as far ashe could make it, the bearing of an undoubting lover. At intervalshe sighed deeply. He talked rather more quickly than usual about thepossibility that some of the operas of Mozart would be played in thesummer. He had received a notice, he said, and at once produced apocket-book stuffed with papers, and began shuffling them in search.He held a thick envelope between his finger and thumb, as if the noticefrom the ope
ra company had become in some way inseparably attached toit.

  "A letter from Cassandra?" said Katharine, in the easiest voice in theworld, looking over his shoulder. "I've just written to ask her to comehere, 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 the pagesonce 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 chieflyof English. Her criticisms of my play, though they're too generous,evidently immature--she can't be more than twenty-two, I suppose?--theycertainly show the sort of thing one wants: real feeling for poetry,understanding, not formed, of course, but it's at the root of everythingafter all. There'd be no harm in lending her books?"

  "No. Certainly not."

  "But if it--hum--led to a correspondence? I mean, Katharine, I take it,without going into matters which seem to me a little morbid, I mean,"he floundered, "you, from your point of view, feel that there's nothingdisagreeable to you in the notion? If so, you've only to speak, and Inever 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, but wascertainly 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 hisweakness, which it made her angry to think was known to another. For hewas not weak; he had the rare strength of doing what he promised--shehad only to speak, and he would never think of Cassandra again.

  She paused. Rodney guessed the reason. He was amazed.

  "She loves me," he thought. The woman he admired more than any one inthe world, loved him, as he had given up hope that she would everlove him. 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 or herdupe. He would be her master in future. The instant prolonged itself asKatharine realized the strength of her desire to speak the words thatshould keep William for ever, and the baseness of the temptation whichassailed her to make the movement, or speak the word, which he had oftenbegged her for, which she was now near enough to feeling. She held theletter in her hand. She sat silent.

  At this moment there was a stir in the other room; the voice ofMrs. 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 lookedat her 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't move,Katharine. Sit still, William. Mr. Pelham will come another day."

  Mr. Pelham looked, smiled, bowed, and, as his hostess had moved on,followed her without a word. The curtain was drawn again either by 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. But wemust 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 itwas impossible 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.He would 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.She knew in what direction complete generosity pointed the way; butpride--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 to tellme openly what he wants. He hates the notion of a public breach. Hewants to keep us both."

  When she reached this point, Rodney pocketed the letter and elaboratelylooked at his watch. Although the action meant that he resignedCassandra, for he knew his own incompetence and distrusted himselfentirely, and lost Katharine, for whom his feeling was profound thoughunsatisfactory, still it appeared to him that there was nothing elseleft for him to do. He was forced to go, leaving Katharine free, as hehad said, to tell her mother that the engagement was at an end. But todo what plain duty required of an honorable man, cost an effort whichonly a day or two ago would have been inconceivable to him. That arelationship such as he had glanced at with desire could be possiblebetween him and Katharine, he would have been the first, two days ago,to deny with indignation. But now his life had changed; his attitudehad changed; his feelings were different; new aims and possibilitieshad been shown him, and they had an almost irresistible fascinationand force. The training of a life of thirty-five years had not left himdefenceless; he was still master of his dignity; he rose, with a mindmade up to an irrevocable farewell.

  "I leave you, then," he said, standing up and holding out his hand withan effort that left him pale, but lent him dignity, "to tell your motherthat 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's impossible,it's wrong--I'm infinitely to blame for having allowed this situation toarise."

  "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 think certain,the whole thing proves a dream, we tell your mother instantly. Why nottell 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 I couldnot endure to see my own sister."

  "We're not brothers and sisters," she said impatiently, "and if we can'tdecide, who can? I'm not talking nonsense," she proceeded. "I've donemy best to think this out from every point of view, and I've come to theconclusion that there are risks which have to be taken,--though I don'tdeny 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 a Christiandoctrine, isn't it?"

  "It sounds more like Paganism to me," Rodney groaned, as he reviewed thesituation 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 to knowthe date of her arrival than he could own even to himself. It seemedbase to be so anxious to pluck this fruit of Katharine's unexampledgenerosity and of his own contemptible baseness. And yet, though he usedthese words automatically, they had now no meaning. He was not debasedin his own eyes by what he had done, and as for praising Katharine,were they not partners, conspirators, people bent upon the same questtogether, so that to praise the pursuit of a common end as an act ofgenerosity was meaningless. He took her hand and pressed it, not inthanks 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, shecould hear the earth pouring from above to make a barrier betweenthem, so that, as they sat, they were separated second by second byan impenetrable 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, disappearingwith an impulsive gesture, as if she forced herself to draw the curtainupon a scene which she refused all temptation to interrupt.