Night and Day Read online

  CHAPTER XXVII

  London, in the first days of spring, has buds that open and flowers thatsuddenly shake their petals--white, purple, or crimson--in competitionwith the display in the garden beds, although these city flowers aremerely so many doors flung wide in Bond Street and the neighborhood,inviting you to look at a picture, or hear a symphony, or merely crowdand crush yourself among all sorts of vocal, excitable, brightly coloredhuman beings. But, all the same, it is no mean rival to the quieterprocess of vegetable florescence. Whether or not there is a generousmotive at the root, a desire to share and impart, or whether theanimation is purely that of insensate fervor and friction, the effect,while it lasts, certainly encourages those who are young, and thosewho are ignorant, to think the world one great bazaar, with bannersfluttering and divans heaped with spoils from every quarter of the globefor their delight.

  As Cassandra Otway went about London provided with shillings thatopened turnstiles, or more often with large white cards that disregardedturnstiles, the city seemed to her the most lavish and hospitableof hosts. After visiting the National Gallery, or Hertford House, orhearing Brahms or Beethoven at the Bechstein Hall, she would come backto find a new person awaiting her, in whose soul were imbedded somegrains of the invaluable substance which she still called reality, andstill believed that she could find. The Hilberys, as the saying is,"knew every one," and that arrogant claim was certainly upheld by thenumber of houses which, within a certain area, lit their lamps at night,opened their doors after 3 p. m., and admitted the Hilberys to theirdining-rooms, say, once a month. An indefinable freedom and authority ofmanner, shared by most of the people who lived in these houses, seemedto indicate that whether it was a question of art, music, or government,they were well within the gates, and could smile indulgently at thevast mass of humanity which is forced to wait and struggle, and pay forentrance with common coin at the door. The gates opened instantly toadmit Cassandra. She was naturally critical of what went on inside, andinclined to quote what Henry would have said; but she often succeeded incontradicting Henry, in his absence, and invariably paid her partnerat dinner, or the kind old lady who remembered her grandmother, thecompliment of believing that there was meaning in what they said. Forthe sake of the light in her eager eyes, much crudity of expression andsome untidiness of person were forgiven her. It was generally felt that,given a year or two of experience, introduced to good dressmakers,and preserved from bad influences, she would be an acquisition. Thoseelderly ladies, who sit on the edge of ballrooms sampling the stuffof humanity between finger and thumb and breathing so evenly that thenecklaces, which rise and fall upon their breasts, seem to representsome elemental force, such as the waves upon the ocean of humanity,concluded, a little smilingly, that she would do. They meant thatshe would in all probability marry some young man whose mother theyrespected.

  William Rodney was fertile in suggestions. He knew of little galleries,and select concerts, and private performances, and somehow made time tomeet Katharine and Cassandra, and to give them tea or dinner or supperin his rooms afterwards. Each one of her fourteen days thus promised tobear some bright illumination in its sober text. But Sunday approached.The day is usually dedicated to Nature. The weather was almost kindlyenough for an expedition. But Cassandra rejected Hampton Court,Greenwich, Richmond, and Kew in favor of the Zoological Gardens. She hadonce trifled with the psychology of animals, and still knew somethingabout inherited characteristics. On Sunday afternoon, therefore,Katharine, Cassandra, and William Rodney drove off to the Zoo. As theircab approached the entrance, Katharine bent forward and waved her handto a young man who was walking rapidly in the same direction.

  "There's Ralph Denham!" she exclaimed. "I told him to meet us here,"she added. She had even come provided with a ticket for him. William'sobjection that he would not be admitted was, therefore, silenceddirectly. But the way in which the two men greeted each other wassignificant of what was going to happen. As soon as they had admired thelittle birds in the large cage William and Cassandra lagged behind, andRalph and Katharine pressed on rather in advance. It was an arrangementin which William took his part, and one that suited his convenience, buthe was annoyed all the same. He thought that Katharine should have toldhim that she had invited Denham to meet them.

  "One of Katharine's friends," he said rather sharply. It was clearthat he was irritated, and Cassandra felt for his annoyance. They werestanding by the pen of some Oriental hog, and she was prodding thebrute gently with the point of her umbrella, when a thousand littleobservations seemed, in some way, to collect in one center. The centerwas one of intense and curious emotion. Were they happy? She dismissedthe question as she asked it, scorning herself for applying such simplemeasures to the rare and splendid emotions of so unique a couple.Nevertheless, her manner became immediately different, as if, forthe first time, she felt consciously womanly, and as if William mightconceivably wish later on to confide in her. She forgot all about thepsychology of animals, and the recurrence of blue eyes and brown,and became instantly engrossed in her feelings as a woman who couldadminister consolation, and she hoped that Katharine would keep aheadwith Mr. Denham, as a child who plays at being grown-up hopes that hermother won't come in just yet, and spoil the game. Or was it not ratherthat she had ceased to play at being grown-up, and was conscious,suddenly, that she was alarmingly mature and in earnest?

  There was still unbroken silence between Katharine and Ralph Denham, butthe occupants of the different cages served instead of speech.

  "What have you been doing since we met?" Ralph asked at length.

  "Doing?" she pondered. "Walking in and out of other people's houses. Iwonder if these animals are happy?" she speculated, stopping before agray bear, who was philosophically playing with a tassel which once,perhaps, formed part of a lady's parasol.

  "I'm afraid Rodney didn't like my coming," Ralph remarked.

  "No. But he'll soon get over that," she replied. The detachmentexpressed by her voice puzzled Ralph, and he would have been glad if shehad explained her meaning further. But he was not going to press herfor explanations. Each moment was to be, as far as he could make it,complete in itself, owing nothing of its happiness to explanations,borrowing neither bright nor dark tints from the future.

  "The bears seem happy," he remarked. "But we must buy them a bag ofsomething. There's the place to buy buns. Let's go and get them."They walked to the counter piled with little paper bags, and eachsimultaneously produced a shilling and pressed it upon the young lady,who did not know whether to oblige the lady or the gentleman, butdecided, from conventional reasons, that it was the part of thegentleman to pay.

  "I wish to pay," said Ralph peremptorily, refusing the coin whichKatharine tendered. "I have a reason for what I do," he added, seeingher smile at his tone of decision.

  "I believe you have a reason for everything," she agreed, breaking thebun into parts and tossing them down the bears' throats, "but I can'tbelieve it's a good one this time. What is your reason?"

  He refused to tell her. He could not explain to her that he was offeringup consciously all his happiness to her, and wished, absurdly enough, topour every possession he had upon the blazing pyre, even his silver andgold. He wished to keep this distance between them--the distance whichseparates the devotee from the image in the shrine.

  Circumstances conspired to make this easier than it would have been, hadthey been seated in a drawing-room, for example, with a tea-tray betweenthem. He saw her against a background of pale grottos and sleek hides;camels slanted their heavy-ridded eyes at her, giraffes fastidiouslyobserved her from their melancholy eminence, and the pink-lined trunksof elephants cautiously abstracted buns from her outstretched hands.Then there were the hothouses. He saw her bending over pythons coiledupon the sand, or considering the brown rock breaking the stagnant waterof the alligators' pool, or searching some minute section of tropicalforest for the golden eye of a lizard or the indrawn movement of thegreen frogs' flanks. In particular, he saw her outlined against
the deepgreen waters, in which squadrons of silvery fish wheeled incessantly,or ogled her for a moment, pressing their distorted mouths against theglass, quivering their tails straight out behind them. Again, there wasthe insect house, where she lifted the blinds of the little cages, andmarveled at the purple circles marked upon the rich tussore wings ofsome lately emerged and semi-conscious butterfly, or at caterpillarsimmobile like the knobbed twigs of a pale-skinned tree, or at slim greensnakes stabbing the glass wall again and again with their flickeringcleft tongues. The heat of the air, and the bloom of heavy flowers,which swam in water or rose stiffly from great red jars, togetherwith the display of curious patterns and fantastic shapes, produced anatmosphere in which human beings tended to look pale and to fall silent.

  Opening the door of a house which rang with the mocking and profoundlyunhappy laughter of monkeys, they discovered William and Cassandra.William appeared to be tempting some small reluctant animal to descendfrom an upper perch to partake of half an apple. Cassandra was readingout, in her high-pitched tones, an account of this creature's secludeddisposition and nocturnal habits. She saw Katharine and exclaimed:

  "Here you are! Do prevent William from torturing this unfortunateaye-aye."

  "We thought we'd lost you," said William. He looked from one to theother, and seemed to take stock of Denham's unfashionable appearance. Heseemed to wish to find some outlet for malevolence, but, failing one,he remained silent. The glance, the slight quiver of the upper lip, werenot lost upon Katharine.

  "William isn't kind to animals," she remarked. "He doesn't know whatthey like and what they don't like."

  "I take it you're well versed in these matters, Denham," said Rodney,withdrawing his hand with the apple.

  "It's mainly a question of knowing how to stroke them," Denham replied.

  "Which is the way to the Reptile House?" Cassandra asked him, not froma genuine desire to visit the reptiles, but in obedience to her new-bornfeminine susceptibility, which urged her to charm and conciliate theother sex. Denham began to give her directions, and Katharine andWilliam moved on together.

  "I hope you've had a pleasant afternoon," William remarked.

  "I like Ralph Denham," she replied.

  "Ca se voit," William returned, with superficial urbanity.

  Many retorts were obvious, but wishing, on the whole, for peace,Katharine merely inquired:

  "Are you coming back to tea?"

  "Cassandra and I thought of having tea at a little shop in PortlandPlace," he replied. "I don't know whether you and Denham would care tojoin us."

  "I'll ask him," she replied, turning her head to look for him. But heand Cassandra were absorbed in the aye-aye once more.

  William and Katharine watched them for a moment, and each lookedcuriously at the object of the other's preference. But resting his eyeupon Cassandra, to whose elegance the dressmakers had now done justice,William said sharply:

  "If you come, I hope you won't do your best to make me ridiculous."

  "If that's what you're afraid of I certainly shan't come," Katharinereplied.

  They were professedly looking into the enormous central cage of monkeys,and being thoroughly annoyed by William, she compared him to a wretchedmisanthropical ape, huddled in a scrap of old shawl at the end ofa pole, darting peevish glances of suspicion and distrust at hiscompanions. Her tolerance was deserting her. The events of the past weekhad worn it thin. She was in one of those moods, perhaps not uncommonwith either sex, when the other becomes very clearly distinguished,and of contemptible baseness, so that the necessity of association isdegrading, and the tie, which at such moments is always extremely close,drags like a halter round the neck. William's exacting demands and hisjealousy had pulled her down into some horrible swamp of her naturewhere the primeval struggle between man and woman still rages.

  "You seem to delight in hurting me," William persisted. "Why did you saythat just now about my behavior to animals?" As he spoke he rattledhis stick against the bars of the cage, which gave his words anaccompaniment peculiarly exasperating to Katharine's nerves.

  "Because it's true. You never see what any one feels," she said. "Youthink of no one but yourself."

  "That is not true," said William. By his determined rattling he hadnow collected the animated attention of some half-dozen apes. Eitherto propitiate them, or to show his consideration for their feelings, heproceeded to offer them the apple which he held.

  The sight, unfortunately, was so comically apt in its illustration ofthe picture in her mind, the ruse was so transparent, that Katharine wasseized with laughter. She laughed uncontrollably. William flushed red.No display of anger could have hurt his feelings more profoundly. It wasnot only that she was laughing at him; the detachment of the sound washorrible.

  "I don't know what you're laughing at," he muttered, and, turning,found that the other couple had rejoined them. As if the matter had beenprivately agreed upon, the couples separated once more, Katharine andDenham passing out of the house without more than a perfunctory glanceround them. Denham obeyed what seemed to be Katharine's wish in thusmaking haste. Some change had come over her. He connected it with herlaughter, and her few words in private with Rodney; he felt that she hadbecome unfriendly to him. She talked, but her remarks were indifferent,and when he spoke her attention seemed to wander. This change ofmood was at first extremely disagreeable to him; but soon he found itsalutary. The pale drizzling atmosphere of the day affected him, also.The charm, the insidious magic in which he had luxuriated, were suddenlygone; his feeling had become one of friendly respect, and to his greatpleasure he found himself thinking spontaneously of the relief offinding himself alone in his room that night. In his surprise at thesuddenness of the change, and at the extent of his freedom, he bethoughthim of a daring plan, by which the ghost of Katharine could be moreeffectually exorcised than by mere abstinence. He would ask her to comehome with him to tea. He would force her through the mill of familylife; he would place her in a light unsparing and revealing. His familywould find nothing to admire in her, and she, he felt certain, woulddespise them all, and this, too, would help him. He felt himselfbecoming more and more merciless towards her. By such courageousmeasures any one, he thought, could end the absurd passions which werethe cause of so much pain and waste. He could foresee a time when hisexperiences, his discovery, and his triumph were made available foryounger brothers who found themselves in the same predicament. He lookedat his watch, and remarked that the gardens would soon be closed.

  "Anyhow," he added, "I think we've seen enough for one afternoon. Wherehave the others got to?" He looked over his shoulder, and, seeing notrace of them, remarked at once:

  "We'd better be independent of them. The best plan will be for you tocome back to tea with me."

  "Why shouldn't you come with me?" she asked.

  "Because we're next door to Highgate here," he replied promptly.

  She assented, having very little notion whether Highgate was next doorto Regent's Park or not. She was only glad to put off her return tothe family tea-table in Chelsea for an hour or two. They proceeded withdogged determination through the winding roads of Regent's Park, andthe Sunday-stricken streets of the neighborhood, in the direction of theTube station. Ignorant of the way, she resigned herself entirely to him,and found his silence a convenient cover beneath which to continue heranger with Rodney.

  When they stepped out of the train into the still grayer gloom ofHighgate, she wondered, for the first time, where he was taking her.Had he a family, or did he live alone in rooms? On the whole she wasinclined to believe that he was the only son of an aged, and possiblyinvalid, mother. She sketched lightly, upon the blank vista down whichthey walked, the little white house and the tremulous old lady risingfrom behind her tea-table to greet her with faltering words about "myson's friends," and was on the point of asking Ralph to tell her whatshe might expect, when he jerked open one of the infinite number ofidentical wooden doors, and led her up a tiled path to a porch in theAlpine style of ar
chitecture. As they listened to the shaking of thebell in the basement, she could summon no vision to replace the one sorudely destroyed.

  "I must warn you to expect a family party," said Ralph. "They're mostlyin on Sundays. We can go to my room afterwards."

  "Have you many brothers and sisters?" she asked, without concealing herdismay.

  "Six or seven," he replied grimly, as the door opened.

  While Ralph took off his coat, she had time to notice the ferns andphotographs and draperies, and to hear a hum, or rather a babble, ofvoices talking each other down, from the sound of them. The rigidityof extreme shyness came over her. She kept as far behind Denham as shecould, and walked stiffly after him into a room blazing with unshadedlights, which fell upon a number of people, of different ages,sitting round a large dining-room table untidily strewn with food, andunflinchingly lit up by incandescent gas. Ralph walked straight to thefar end of the table.

  "Mother, this is Miss Hilbery," he said.

  A large elderly lady, bent over an unsatisfactory spirit-lamp, looked upwith a little frown, and observed:

  "I beg your pardon. I thought you were one of my own girls. Dorothy,"she continued on the same breath, to catch the servant before she leftthe room, "we shall want some more methylated spirits--unless the lampitself is out of order. If one of you could invent a good spirit-lamp--"she sighed, looking generally down the table, and then began seekingamong the china before her for two clean cups for the new-comers.

  The unsparing light revealed more ugliness than Katharine had seen inone room for a very long time. It was the ugliness of enormous foldsof brown material, looped and festooned, of plush curtains, from whichdepended balls and fringes, partially concealing bookshelves swollenwith black school-texts. Her eye was arrested by crossed scabbards offretted wood upon the dull green wall, and whereever there was a highflat eminence, some fern waved from a pot of crinkled china, or abronze horse reared so high that the stump of a tree had to sustain hisforequarters. The waters of family life seemed to rise and close overher head, and she munched in silence.

  At length Mrs. Denham looked up from her teacups and remarked:

  "You see, Miss Hilbery, my children all come in at different hours andwant different things. (The tray should go up if you've done,Johnnie.) My boy Charles is in bed with a cold. What else can youexpect?--standing in the wet playing football. We did try drawing-roomtea, but it didn't do."

  A boy of sixteen, who appeared to be Johnnie, grumbled derisively bothat the notion of drawing-room tea and at the necessity of carrying atray up to his brother. But he took himself off, being enjoined by hismother to mind what he was doing, and shut the door after him.

  "It's much nicer like this," said Katharine, applying herself withdetermination to the dissection of her cake; they had given her toolarge a slice. She knew that Mrs. Denham suspected her of criticalcomparisons. She knew that she was making poor progress with her cake.Mrs. Denham had looked at her sufficiently often to make it clear toKatharine that she was asking who this young woman was, and why Ralphhad brought her to tea with them. There was an obvious reason, whichMrs. Denham had probably reached by this time. Outwardly, she wasbehaving with rather rusty and laborious civility. She was makingconversation about the amenities of Highgate, its development andsituation.

  "When I first married," she said, "Highgate was quite separate fromLondon, Miss Hilbery, and this house, though you wouldn't believe it,had a view of apple orchards. That was before the Middletons built theirhouse in front of us."

  "It must be a great advantage to live at the top of a hill," saidKatharine. Mrs. Denham agreed effusively, as if her opinion ofKatharine's sense had risen.

  "Yes, indeed, we find it very healthy," she said, and she went on,as people who live in the suburbs so often do, to prove that it washealthier, more convenient, and less spoilt than any suburb roundLondon. She spoke with such emphasis that it was quite obvious that sheexpressed unpopular views, and that her children disagreed with her.

  "The ceiling's fallen down in the pantry again," said Hester, a girl ofeighteen, abruptly.

  "The whole house will be down one of these days," James muttered.

  "Nonsense," said Mrs. Denham. "It's only a little bit of plaster--Idon't see how any house could be expected to stand the wear and tearyou give it." Here some family joke exploded, which Katharine could notfollow. Even Mrs. Denham laughed against her will.

  "Miss Hilbery's thinking us all so rude," she added reprovingly. MissHilbery smiled and shook her head, and was conscious that a great manyeyes rested upon her, for a moment, as if they would find pleasurein discussing her when she was gone. Owing, perhaps, to this criticalglance, Katharine decided that Ralph Denham's family was commonplace,unshapely, lacking in charm, and fitly expressed by the hideous natureof their furniture and decorations. She glanced along a mantelpieceranged with bronze chariots, silver vases, and china ornaments that wereeither facetious or eccentric.

  She did not apply her judgment consciously to Ralph, but when she lookedat him, a moment later, she rated him lower than at any other time oftheir acquaintanceship.

  He had made no effort to tide over the discomforts of her introduction,and now, engaged in argument with his brother, apparently forgot herpresence. She must have counted upon his support more than she realized,for this indifference, emphasized, as it was, by the insignificantcommonplace of his surroundings, awoke her, not only to that ugliness,but to her own folly. She thought of one scene after another in a fewseconds, with that shudder which is almost a blush. She had believedhim when he spoke of friendship. She had believed in a spirituallight burning steadily and steadfastly behind the erratic disorderand incoherence of life. The light was now gone out, suddenly, as ifa sponge had blotted it. The litter of the table and the tedious butexacting conversation of Mrs. Denham remained: they struck, indeed, upona mind bereft of all defences, and, keenly conscious of the degradationwhich is the result of strife whether victorious or not, she thoughtgloomily of her loneliness, of life's futility, of the barren prose ofreality, of William Rodney, of her mother, and the unfinished book.

  Her answers to Mrs. Denham were perfunctory to the verge of rudeness,and to Ralph, who watched her narrowly, she seemed further away than wascompatible with her physical closeness. He glanced at her, and groundout further steps in his argument, determined that no folly shouldremain when this experience was over. Next moment, a silence, sudden andcomplete, descended upon them all. The silence of all these people roundthe untidy table was enormous and hideous; something horrible seemedabout to burst from it, but they endured it obstinately. A second laterthe door opened and there was a stir of relief; cries of "Hullo,Joan! There's nothing left for you to eat," broke up the oppressiveconcentration of so many eyes upon the table-cloth, and set the watersof family life dashing in brisk little waves again. It was obvious thatJoan had some mysterious and beneficent power upon her family. She wentup to Katharine as if she had heard of her, and was very glad to see herat last. She explained that she had been visiting an uncle who was ill,and that had kept her. No, she hadn't had any tea, but a slice of breadwould do. Some one handed up a hot cake, which had been keeping warm inthe fender; she sat down by her mother's side, Mrs. Denham's anxietiesseemed to relax, and every one began eating and drinking, as if tea hadbegun over again. Hester voluntarily explained to Katharine that she wasreading to pass some examination, because she wanted more than anythingin the whole world to go to Newnham.

  "Now, just let me hear you decline 'amo'--I love," Johnnie demanded.

  "No, Johnnie, no Greek at meal-times," said Joan, overhearing himinstantly. "She's up at all hours of the night over her books, MissHilbery, and I'm sure that's not the way to pass examinations," she wenton, smiling at Katharine, with the worried humorous smile of the eldersister whose younger brothers and sisters have become almost likechildren of her own.

  "Joan, you don't really think that 'amo' is Greek?" Ralph

  asked.

  "Did I say Greek?
Well, never mind. No dead languages at tea-time. Mydear boy, don't trouble to make me any toast--"

  "Or if you do, surely there's the toasting-fork somewhere?" said Mrs.Denham, still cherishing the belief that the bread-knife could bespoilt. "Do one of you ring and ask for one," she said, without anyconviction that she would be obeyed. "But is Ann coming to be with UncleJoseph?" she continued. "If so, surely they had better send Amy tous--" and in the mysterious delight of learning further details of thesearrangements, and suggesting more sensible plans of her own, which, fromthe aggrieved way in which she spoke, she did not seem to expect any oneto adopt, Mrs. Denham completely forgot the presence of a well-dressedvisitor, who had to be informed about the amenities of Highgate. As soonas Joan had taken her seat, an argument had sprung up on either side ofKatharine, as to whether the Salvation Army has any right to play hymnsat street corners on Sunday mornings, thereby making it impossible forJames to have his sleep out, and tampering with the rights of individualliberty.

  "You see, James likes to lie in bed and sleep like a hog," said Johnnie,explaining himself to Katharine, whereupon James fired up and, makingher his goal, also exclaimed:

  "Because Sundays are my one chance in the week of having my sleep out.Johnnie messes with stinking chemicals in the pantry--"

  They appealed to her, and she forgot her cake and began to laugh andtalk and argue with sudden animation. The large family seemed to herso warm and various that she forgot to censure them for their taste inpottery. But the personal question between James and Johnnie merged intosome argument already, apparently, debated, so that the parts hadbeen distributed among the family, in which Ralph took the lead; andKatharine found herself opposed to him and the champion of Johnnie'scause, who, it appeared, always lost his head and got excited inargument with Ralph.

  "Yes, yes, that's what I mean. She's got it right," he exclaimed, afterKatharine had restated his case, and made it more precise. The debatewas left almost solely to Katharine and Ralph. They looked into eachother's eyes fixedly, like wrestlers trying to see what movement iscoming next, and while Ralph spoke, Katharine bit her lower lip, and wasalways ready with her next point as soon as he had done. They were verywell matched, and held the opposite views.

  But at the most exciting stage of the argument, for no reason thatKatharine could see, all chairs were pushed back, and one after anotherthe Denham family got up and went out of the door, as if a bell hadsummoned them. She was not used to the clockwork regulations of a largefamily. She hesitated in what she was saying, and rose. Mrs. Denham andJoan had drawn together and stood by the fireplace, slightly raisingtheir skirts above their ankles, and discussing something which hadan air of being very serious and very private. They appeared to haveforgotten her presence among them. Ralph stood holding the door open forher.

  "Won't you come up to my room?" he said. And Katharine, glancing back atJoan, who smiled at her in a preoccupied way, followed Ralph upstairs.She was thinking of their argument, and when, after the long climb, heopened his door, she began at once.

  "The question is, then, at what point is it right for the individual toassert his will against the will of the State."

  For some time they continued the argument, and then the intervalsbetween one statement and the next became longer and longer, and theyspoke more speculatively and less pugnaciously, and at last fell silent.Katharine went over the argument in her mind, remembering how, now andthen, it had been set conspicuously on the right course by some remarkoffered either by James or by Johnnie.

  "Your brothers are very clever," she said. "I suppose you're in thehabit of arguing?"

  "James and Johnnie will go on like that for hours," Ralph replied. "Sowill Hester, if you start her upon Elizabethan dramatists."

  "And the little girl with the pigtail?"

  "Molly? She's only ten. But they're always arguing among themselves."

  He was immensely pleased by Katharine's praise of his brothers andsisters. He would have liked to go on telling her about them, but hechecked himself.

  "I see that it must be difficult to leave them," Katharine continued.His deep pride in his family was more evident to him, at that moment,than ever before, and the idea of living alone in a cottage wasridiculous. All that brotherhood and sisterhood, and a common childhoodin a common past mean, all the stability, the unambitious comradeship,and tacit understanding of family life at its best, came to his mind,and he thought of them as a company, of which he was the leader, boundon a difficult, dreary, but glorious voyage. And it was Katharine whohad opened his eyes to this, he thought.

  A little dry chirp from the corner of the room now roused her attention.

  "My tame rook," he explained briefly. "A cat had bitten one of itslegs." She looked at the rook, and her eyes went from one object toanother.

  "You sit here and read?" she said, her eyes resting upon his books. Hesaid that he was in the habit of working there at night.

  "The great advantage of Highgate is the view over London. At night theview from my window is splendid." He was extremely anxious that sheshould appreciate his view, and she rose to see what was to be seen.It was already dark enough for the turbulent haze to be yellow with thelight of street lamps, and she tried to determine the quarters of thecity beneath her. The sight of her gazing from his window gave him apeculiar satisfaction. When she turned, at length, he was still sittingmotionless in his chair.

  "It must be late," she said. "I must be going." She settled upon thearm of the chair irresolutely, thinking that she had no wish to go home.William would be there, and he would find some way of making thingsunpleasant for her, and the memory of their quarrel came back to her.She had noticed Ralph's coldness, too. She looked at him, and from hisfixed stare she thought that he must be working out some theory, someargument. He had thought, perhaps, of some fresh point in his position,as to the bounds of personal liberty. She waited, silently, thinkingabout liberty.

  "You've won again," he said at last, without moving.

  "I've won?" she repeated, thinking of the argument.

  "I wish to God I hadn't asked you here," he burst out.

  "What do you mean?"

  "When you're here, it's different--I'm happy. You've only to walk tothe window--you've only to talk about liberty. When I saw you down thereamong them all--" He stopped short.

  "You thought how ordinary I was."

  "I tried to think so. But I thought you more wonderful than ever."

  An immense relief, and a reluctance to enjoy that relief, conflicted inher heart.

  She slid down into the chair.

  "I thought you disliked me," she said.

  "God knows I tried," he replied. "I've done my best to see you as youare, without any of this damned romantic nonsense. That was why I askedyou here, and it's increased my folly. When you're gone I shall lookout of that window and think of you. I shall waste the whole eveningthinking of you. I shall waste my whole life, I believe."

  He spoke with such vehemence that her relief disappeared; she frowned;and her tone changed to one almost of severity.

  "This is what I foretold. We shall gain nothing but unhappiness. Look atme, Ralph." He looked at her. "I assure you that I'm far more ordinarythan I appear. Beauty means nothing whatever. In fact, the mostbeautiful women are generally the most stupid. I'm not that, but I'm amatter-of-fact, prosaic, rather ordinary character; I order the dinner,I pay the bills, I do the accounts, I wind up the clock, and I neverlook at a book."

  "You forget--" he began, but she would not let him speak.

  "You come and see me among flowers and pictures, and think memysterious, romantic, and all the rest of it. Being yourself veryinexperienced and very emotional, you go home and invent a story aboutme, and now you can't separate me from the person you've imagined me tobe. You call that, I suppose, being in love; as a matter of fact it'sbeing in delusion. All romantic people are the same," she added. "Mymother spends her life in making stories about the people she's fond of.But I won't have you do it about
me, if I can help it."

  "You can't help it," he said.

  "I warn you it's the source of all evil."

  "And of all good," he added.

  "You'll find out that I'm not what you think me."

  "Perhaps. But I shall gain more than I lose."

  "If such gain's worth having."

  They were silent for a space.

  "That may be what we have to face," he said. "There may be nothing else.Nothing but what we imagine."

  "The reason of our loneliness," she mused, and they were silent for atime.

  "When are you to be married?" he asked abruptly, with a change of tone.

  "Not till September, I think. It's been put off."

  "You won't be lonely then," he said. "According to what people say,marriage is a very queer business. They say it's different from anythingelse. It may be true. I've known one or two cases where it seems to betrue." He hoped that she would go on with the subject. But she madeno reply. He had done his best to master himself, and his voice wassufficiently indifferent, but her silence tormented him. She would neverspeak to him of Rodney of her own accord, and her reserve left a wholecontinent of her soul in darkness.

  "It may be put off even longer than that," she said, as if by anafterthought. "Some one in the office is ill, and William has to takehis place. We may put it off for some time in fact."

  "That's rather hard on him, isn't it?" Ralph asked.

  "He has his work," she replied. "He has lots of things that interesthim.... I know I've been to that place," she broke off, pointing toa photograph. "But I can't remember where it is--oh, of course it'sOxford. Now, what about your cottage?"

  "I'm not going to take it."

  "How you change your mind!" she smiled.

  "It's not that," he said impatiently. "It's that I want to be where Ican see you."

  "Our compact is going to hold in spite of all I've said?" she asked.

  "For ever, so far as I'm concerned," he replied.

  "You're going to go on dreaming and imagining and making up storiesabout me as you walk along the street, and pretending that we're ridingin a forest, or landing on an island--"

  "No. I shall think of you ordering dinner, paying bills, doing theaccounts, showing old ladies the relics--"

  "That's better," she said. "You can think of me to-morrow morninglooking up dates in the 'Dictionary of National Biography.'"

  "And forgetting your purse," Ralph added.

  At this she smiled, but in another moment her smile faded, eitherbecause of his words or of the way in which he spoke them. She wascapable of forgetting things. He saw that. But what more did he see? Washe not looking at something she had never shown to anybody? Was it notsomething so profound that the notion of his seeing it almost shockedher? Her smile faded, and for a moment she seemed upon the point ofspeaking, but looking at him in silence, with a look that seemed to askwhat she could not put into words, she turned and bade him good night.