Chapter 1
    As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankmentare very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm.
　　If you persist, lawyers' clerks will have to make flying leapsinto the mud; young lady typists will have to fidget behind you.
　　In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded, eccentricitymust pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall,to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the air with your left hand.
　　One afternoon in the beginning of October when the traffic wasbecoming brisk a tall man strode along the edge of the pavementwith a lady on his arm. Angry glances struck upon their backs.
　　The small, agitated figures--for in comparison with this couple mostpeople looked small--decorated with fountain pens, and burdened withdespatch-boxes, had appointments to keep, and drew a weekly salary,so that there was some reason for the unfriendly stare which wasbestowed upon Mr. Ambrose's height and upon Mrs. Ambrose's cloak.
　　But some enchantment had put both man and woman beyond the reach of maliceand unpopularity. In his guess one might guess from the moving lipsthat it was thought; and in hers from the eyes fixed stonily straightin front of her at a level above the eyes of most that it was sorrow.
　　It was only by scorning all she met that she kept herself from tears,and the friction of people brushing past her was evidently painful.
　　After watching the traffic on the Embankment for a minute or twowith a stoical gaze she twitched her husband's sleeve, and theycrossed between the swift discharge of motor cars. When they weresafe on the further side, she gently withdrew her arm from his,allowing her mouth at the same time to relax, to tremble; then tearsrolled down, and leaning her elbows on the balustrade, she shieldedher face from the curious. Mr. Ambrose attempted consolation;he patted her shoulder; but she showed no signs of admitting him,and feeling it awkward to stand beside a grief that was greaterthan his, he crossed his arms behind him, and took a turn alongthe pavement.
　　The embankment juts out in angles here and there, like pulpits;instead of preachers, however, small boys occupy them, dangling string,dropping pebbles, or launching wads of paper for a cruise.
　　With their sharp eye for eccentricity, they were inclined to thinkMr. Ambrose awful; but the quickest witted cried "Bluebeard!"as he passed. In case they should proceed to tease his wife,Mr. Ambrose flourished his stick at them, upon which they decidedthat he was grotesque merely, and four instead of one cried"Bluebeard!" in chorus.
　　Although Mrs. Ambrose stood quite still, much longer than is natural,the little boys let her be. Some one is always looking into the rivernear Waterloo Bridge; a couple will stand there talking for halfan hour on a fine afternoon; most people, walking for pleasure,contemplate for three minutes; when, having compared the occasion withother occasions, or made some sentence, they pass on. Sometimes theflats and churches and hotels of Westminster are like the outlinesof Constantinople in a mist; sometimes the river is an opulent purple,sometimes mud-coloured, sometimes sparkling blue like the sea.
　　It is always worth while to look down and see what is happening.
　　But this lady looked neither up nor down; the only thing she had seen,since she stood there, was a circular iridescent patch slowly floatingpast with a straw in the middle of it. The straw and the patch swamagain and again behind the tremulous medium of a great welling tear,and the tear rose and fell and dropped into the river. Then therestruck close upon her ears--Lars Porsena of ClusiumBy the nine Gods he swore--and then more faintly, as if the speaker had passed her on his walk--That the Great House of TarquinShould suffer wrong no more.
　　Yes, she knew she must go back to all that, but at present she must weep.
　　Screening her face she sobbed more steadily than she had yet done,her shoulders rising and falling with great regularity. It was thisfigure that her husband saw when, having reached the polished Sphinx,having entangled himself with a man selling picture postcards, he turned;the stanza instantly stopped. He came up to her, laid his handon her shoulder, and said, "Dearest." His voice was supplicating.
　　But she shut her face away from him, as much as to say, "You can'tpossibly understand."As he did not leave her, however, she had to wipe her eyes, and toraise them to the level of the factory chimneys on the other bank.
　　She saw also the arches of Waterloo Bridge and the carts movingacross them, like the line of animals in a shooting gallery.
　　They were seen blankly, but to see anything was of course to end herweeping and begin to walk.
　　"I would rather walk," she said, her husband having hailed a cabalready occupied by two city men.
　　The fixity of her mood was broken by the action of walking.
　　The shooting motor cars, more like spiders in the moon thanterrestrial objects, the thundering drays, the jingling hansoms,and little black broughams, made her think of the world she lived in.
　　Somewhere up there above the pinnacles where the smoke rose in apointed hill, her children were now asking for her, and gettinga soothing reply. As for the mass of streets, squares, and publicbuildings which parted them, she only felt at this moment how littleLondon had done to make her love it, although thirty of her fortyyears had been spent in a street. She knew how to read the peoplewho were passing her; there were the rich who were running to and fromeach others' houses at this hour; there were the bigoted workersdriving in a straight line to their offices; there were the poorwho were unhappy and rightly malignant. Already, though therewas sunlight in the haze, tattered old men and women were noddingoff to sleep upon the seats. When one gave up seeing the beautythat clothed things, this was the skeleton beneath.
　　A fine rain now made her still more dismal; vans with the oddnames of those engaged in odd industries--Sprules, Manufacturerof Saw-dust; Grabb, to whom no piece of waste paper comes amiss--fell flat as a bad joke; bold lovers, sheltered behind one cloak,seemed to her sordid, past their passion; the flower women,a contented company, whose talk is always worth hearing, were sodden hags;the red, yellow, and blue flowers, whose heads were pressed together,would not blaze. Moreover, her husband walking with a quickrhythmic stride, jerking his free hand occasionally, was eithera Viking or a stricken Nelson; the sea-gulls had changed his note.
　　"Ridley, shall we drive? Shall we drive, Ridley?"Mrs. Ambrose had to speak sharply; by this time he was far away.
　　The cab, by trotting steadily along the same road, soon withdrewthem from the West End, and plunged them into London. It appearedthat this was a great manufacturing place, where the peoplewere engaged in making things, as though the West End, with itselectric lamps, its vast plate-glass windows all shining yellow,its carefully-finished houses, and tiny live figures trottingon the pavement, or bowled along on wheels in the road, was thefinished work. It appeared to her a very small bit of work for suchan enormous factory to have made. For some reason it appearedto her as a small golden tassel on the edge of a vast black cloak.
　　Observing that they passed no other hansom cab, but only vansand waggons, and that not one of the thousand men and women shesaw was either a gentleman or a lady, Mrs. Ambrose understoodthat after all it is the ordinary thing to be poor, and thatLondon is the city of innumerable poor people. Startled by thisdiscovery and seeing herself pacing a circle all the daysof her life round Picadilly Circus she was greatly relievedto pass a building put up by the London County Council for Night Schools.
　　"Lord, how gloomy it is!" her husband groaned. "Poor creatures!"What with the misery for her children, the poor, and the rain,her mind was like a wound exposed to dry in the air.
　　At this point the cab stopped, for it was in danger of beingcrushed like an egg-shell. The wide Embankment which had had roomfor cannonballs and squadrons, had now shrunk to a cobbled lanesteaming with smells of malt and oil and blocked by waggons.
　　While her husband read the placards pasted on the brick announcingthe hours at which certain ships would sail for Scotland,Mrs. Ambrose did her best to find information. From a worldexclusively occupied in feeding waggons with sacks, half obliteratedtoo in a fine yellow fog, they got neither help nor attention.
　　It seemed a miracle when an old man approached, guessed their condition,and proposed to row them out to their ship in the little boatwhich he kept moored at the bottom of a flight of steps. With somehesitation they trusted themselves to him, took their places,and were soon waving up and down upon the water, London having shrunkto two lines of buildings on either side of them, square buildingsand oblong buildings placed in rows like a child's avenue of bricks.
　　The river, which had a certain amount of troubled yellow light in it,ran with great force; bulky barges floated down swiftly escorted by tugs;police boats shot past everything; the wind went with the current.
　　The open rowing-boat in which they sat bobbed and curtseyed acrossthe line of traffic. In mid-stream the old man stayed his hands uponthe oars, and as the water rushed past them, remarked that once hehad taken many passengers across, where now he took scarcely any.
　　He seemed to recall an age when his boat, moored among rushes,carried delicate feet across to lawns at Rotherhithe.
　　"They want bridges now," he said, indicating the monstrousoutline of the Tower Bridge. Mournfully Helen regarded him,who was putting water between her and her children. Mournfully shegazed at the ship they were approaching; anchored in the middleof the stream they could dimly read her name--_Euphrosyne_.
　　Very dimly in the falling dusk they could see the lines of the rigging,the masts and the dark flag which the breeze blew out squarely behind.
　　As the little boat sidled up to the steamer, and the old man shippedhis oars, he remarked once more pointing above, that ships allthe world over flew that flag the day they sailed. In the mindsof both the passengers the blue flag appeared a sinister token,and this the moment for presentiments, but nevertheless they rose,gathered their things together, and climbed on deck.
　　Down in the saloon of her father's ship, Miss Rachel Vinrace,aged twenty-four, stood waiting her uncle and aunt nervously.
　　To begin with, though nearly related, she scarcely remembered them;to go on with, they were elderly people, and finally, as her father'sdaughter she must be in some sort prepared to entertain them.
　　She looked forward to seeing them as civilised people generallylook forward to the first sight of civilised people, as thoughthey were of the nature of an approaching physical discomfort--a tight shoe or a draughty window. She was already unnaturallybraced to receive them. As she occupied herself in laying forksseverely straight by the side of knives, she heard a man's voicesaying gloomily:
　　"On a dark night one would fall down these stairs head foremost,"to which a woman's voice added, "And be killed."As she spoke the last words the woman stood in the doorway. Tall,large-eyed, draped in purple shawls, Mrs. Ambrose was romantic and beautiful;not perhaps sympathetic, for her eyes looked straight and consideredwhat they saw. Her face was much warmer than a Greek face; on theother hand it was much bolder than the face of the usual pretty Englishwoman.
　　"Oh, Rachel, how d'you do," she said, shaking hands.
　　"How are you, dear," said Mr. Ambrose, inclining his foreheadto be kissed. His niece instinctively liked his thin angular body,and the big head with its sweeping features, and the acute,innocent eyes.
　　"Tell Mr. Pepper," Rachel bade the servant. Husband and wife thensat down on one side of the table, with their niece opposite to them.
　　"My father told me to begin," she explained. "He is very busywith the men. . . . You know Mr. Pepper?"A little man who was bent as some trees are by a gale on one sideof them had slipped in. Nodding to Mr. Ambrose, he shook handswith Helen.
　　"Draughts," he said, erecting the collar of his coat.
　　"You are still rheumatic?" asked Helen. Her voice was lowand seductive, though she spoke absently enough, the sightof town and river being still present to her mind.
　　"Once rheumatic, always rheumatic, I fear," he replied. "To someextent it depends on the weather, though not so much as peopleare apt to think.""One does not die of it, at any rate," said Helen.
　　"As a general rule--no," said Mr. Pepper.
　　"Soup, Uncle Ridley?" asked Rachel.
　　"Thank you, dear," he said, and, as he held his plate out,sighed audibly, "Ah! she's not like her mother." Helen was justtoo late in thumping her tumbler on the table to prevent Rachelfrom hearing, and from blushing scarlet with embarrassment.
　　"The way servants treat flowers!" she said hastily. She drewa green vase with a crinkled lip towards her, and began pulling outthe tight little chrysanthemums, which she laid on the table-cloth,arranging them fastidiously side by side.
　　There was a pause.
　　"You knew Jenkinson, didn't you, Ambrose?" asked Mr. Pepper acrossthe table.
　　"Jenkinson of Peterhouse?""He's dead," said Mr. Pepper.
　　"Ah, dear!--I knew him--ages ago," said Ridley. "He was the heroof the punt accident, you remember? A queer card. Married a youngwoman out of a tobacconist's, and lived in the Fens--never heardwhat became of him.""Drink--drugs," said Mr. Pepper with sinister conciseness.
　　"He left a commentary. Hopeless muddle, I'm told.""The man had really great abilities," said Ridley.
　　"His introduction to Jellaby holds its own still," went on Mr. Pepper,"which is surprising, seeing how text-books change.""There was a theory about the planets, wasn't there?" asked Ridley.
　　"A screw loose somewhere, no doubt of it," said Mr. Pepper,shaking his head.
　　Now a tremor ran through the table, and a light outside swerved.
　　At the same time an electric bell rang sharply again and again.
　　"We're off," said Ridley.
　　A slight but perceptible wave seemed to roll beneath the floor;then it sank; then another came, more perceptible. Lights slid rightacross the uncurtained window. The ship gave a loud melancholy moan.
　　"We're off!" said Mr. Pepper. Other ships, as sad as she,answered her outside on the river. The chuckling and hissing of watercould be plainly heard, and the ship heaved so that the stewardbringing plates had to balance himself as he drew the curtain.
　　There was a pause.
　　"Jenkinson of Cats--d'you still keep up with him?" asked Ambrose.
　　"As much as one ever does," said Mr. Pepper. "We meet annually.
　　This year he has had the misfortune to lose his wife, which madeit painful, of course.""Very painful," Ridley agreed.
　　"There's an unmarried daughter who keeps house for him, I believe,but it's never the same, not at his age."Both gentlemen nodded sagely as they carved their apples.
　　"There was a book, wasn't there?" Ridley enquired.
　　"There _was_ a book, but there never _will_ be a book," said Mr. Pepperwith such fierceness that both ladies looked up at him.
　　"There never will be a book, because some one else has writtenit for him," said Mr. Pepper with considerable acidity.
　　"That's what comes of putting things off, and collecting fossils,and sticking Norman arches on one's pigsties.""I confess I sympathise," said Ridley with a melancholy sigh.
　　"I have a weakness for people who can't begin."". . . The accumulations of a lifetime wasted," continued Mr. pepper.
　　"He had accumulations enough to fill a barn.""It's a vice that some of us escape," said Ridley. "Our friendMiles has another work out to-day."Mr. Pepper gave an acid little laugh. "According to my calculations,"he said, "he has produced two volumes and a half annually,which, allowing for time spent in the cradle and so forth,shows a commendable industry.""Yes, the old Master's saying of him has been pretty well realised,"said Ridley.
　　"A way they had," said Mr. Pepper. "You know the Bruce collection?--not for publication, of course.""I should suppose not," said Ridley significantly. "For a Divinehe was--remarkably free.""The Pump in Neville's Row, for example?" enquired Mr. Pepper.
　　"Precisely," said Ambrose.
　　Each of the ladies, being after the fashion of their sex,highly trained in promoting men's talk without listening to it,could think--about the education of children, about the useof fog sirens in an opera--without betraying herself. Only itstruck Helen that Rachel was perhaps too still for a hostess,and that she might have done something with her hands.
　　"Perhaps--?" she said at length, upon which they rose and left,vaguely to the surprise of the gentlemen, who had either thoughtthem attentive or had forgotten their presence.
　　"Ah, one could tell strange stories of the old days," they heardRidley say, as he sank into his chair again. Glancing back,at the doorway, they saw Mr. Pepper as though he had suddenly loosenedhis clothes, and had become a vivacious and malicious old ape.
　　Winding veils round their heads, the women walked on deck.
　　They were now moving steadily down the river, passing the darkshapes of ships at anchor, and London was a swarm of lights witha pale yellow canopy drooping above it. There were the lightsof the great theatres, the lights of the long streets, lights thatindicated huge squares of domestic comfort, lights that hung highin air. No darkness would ever settle upon those lamps, as nodarkness had settled upon them for hundreds of years. It seemeddreadful that the town should blaze for ever in the same spot;dreadful at least to people going away to adventure upon the sea,and beholding it as a circumscribed mound, eternally burnt,eternally scarred. From the deck of the ship the great cityappeared a crouched and cowardly figure, a sedentary miser.
　　Leaning over the rail, side by side, Helen said, "Won't you be cold?"Rachel replied, "No. . . . How beautiful!" she added a moment later.
　　Very little was visible--a few masts, a shadow of land here,a line of brilliant windows there. They tried to make head againstthe wind.
　　"It blows--it blows!" gasped Rachel, the words rammed down her throat.
　　Struggling by her side, Helen was suddenly overcome by the spiritof movement, and pushed along with her skirts wrapping themselves roundher knees, and both arms to her hair. But slowly the intoxicationof movement died down, and the wind became rough and chilly.
　　They looked through a chink in the blind and saw that long cigarswere being smoked in the dining-room; they saw Mr. Ambrose throwhimself violently against the back of his chair, while Mr. Peppercrinkled his cheeks as though they had been cut in wood.
　　The ghost of a roar of laughter came out to them, and was drownedat once in the wind. In the dry yellow-lighted room Mr. Pepperand Mr. Ambrose were oblivious of all tumult; they were in Cambridge,and it was probably about the year 1875.
　　"They're old friends," said Helen, smiling at the sight.
　　"Now, is there a room for us to sit in?"Rachel opened a door.
　　"It's more like a landing than a room," she said. Indeed ithad nothing of the shut stationary character of a room on shore.
　　A table was rooted in the middle, and seats were stuck to the sides.
　　Happily the tropical suns had bleached the tapestries to a fadedblue-green colour, and the mirror with its frame of shells, the workof the steward's love, when the time hung heavy in the southern seas,was quaint rather than ugly. Twisted shells with red lips likeunicorn's horns ornamented the mantelpiece, which was draped by a pallof purple plush from which depended a certain number of balls.
　　Two windows opened on to the deck, and the light beating through themwhen the ship was roasted on the Amazons had turned the prints onthe opposite wall to a faint yellow colour, so that "The Coliseum"was scarcely to be distinguished from Queen Alexandra playingwith her Spaniels. A pair of wicker arm-chairs by the firesideinvited one to warm one's hands at a grate full of gilt shavings;a great lamp swung above the table--the kind of lamp which makesthe light of civilisation across dark fields to one walking inthe country.
　　"It's odd that every one should be an old friend of Mr. Pepper's,"Rachel started nervously, for the situation was difficult,the room cold, and Helen curiously silent.
　　"I suppose you take him for granted?" said her aunt.
　　"He's like this," said Rachel, lighting on a fossilised fishin a basin, and displaying it.
　　"I expect you're too severe," Helen remarked.
　　Rachel immediately tried to qualify what she had said againsther belief.
　　"I don't really know him," she said, and took refuge in facts,believing that elderly people really like them better than feelings.
　　She produced what she knew of William Pepper. She told Helenthat he always called on Sundays when they were at home; he knewabout a great many things--about mathematics, history, Greek,zoology, economics, and the Icelandic Sagas. He had turned Persianpoetry into English prose, and English prose into Greek iambics;he was an authority upon coins; and--one other thing--oh yes,she thought it was vehicular traffic.
　　He was here either to get things out of the sea, or to write uponthe probable course of Odysseus, for Greek after all was his hobby.
　　"I've got all his pamphlets," she said. "Little pamphlets.
　　Little yellow books." It did not appear that she had read them.
　　"Has he ever been in love?" asked Helen, who had chosen a seat.
　　This was unexpectedly to the point.
　　"His heart's a piece of old shoe leather," Rachel declared,dropping the fish. But when questioned she had to own that shehad never asked him.
　　"I shall ask him," said Helen.
　　"The last time I saw you, you were buying a piano," she continued.
　　"Do you remember--the piano, the room in the attic, and the greatplants with the prickles?""Yes, and my aunts said the piano would come through the floor,but at their age one wouldn't mind being killed in the night?"she enquired.
　　"I heard from Aunt Bessie not long ago," Helen stated. "She is afraidthat you will spoil your arms if you insist upon so much practising.""The muscles of the forearm--and then one won't marry?""She didn't put it quite like that," replied Mrs. Ambrose.
　　"Oh, no--of course she wouldn't," said Rachel with a sigh.
　　Helen looked at her. Her face was weak rather than decided,saved from insipidity by the large enquiring eyes; denied beauty,now that she was sheltered indoors, by the lack of colour anddefinite outline. Moreover, a hesitation in speaking, or rathera tendency to use the wrong words, made her seem more than normallyincompetent for her years. Mrs. Ambrose, who had been speaking muchat random, now reflected that she certainly did not look forward tothe intimacy of three or four weeks on board ship which was threatened.
　　Women of her own age usually boring her, she supposed that girlswould be worse. She glanced at Rachel again. Yes! how clear itwas that she would be vacillating, emotional, and when you saidsomething to her it would make no more lasting impression thanthe stroke of a stick upon water. There was nothing to take holdof in girls--nothing hard, permanent, satisfactory. Did Willoughbysay three weeks, or did he say four? She tried to remember.
　　At this point, however, the door opened and a tall burly manentered the room, came forward and shook Helen's hand with anemotional kind of heartiness, Willoughby himself, Rachel's father,Helen's brother-in-law. As a great deal of flesh would have beenneeded to make a fat man of him, his frame being so large,he was not fat; his face was a large framework too, looking, by thesmallness of the features and the glow in the hollow of the cheek,more fitted to withstand assaults of the weather than to expresssentiments and emotions, or to respond to them in others.
　　"It is a great pleasure that you have come," he said, "for bothof us."Rachel murmured in obedience to her father's glance.
　　"We'll do our best to make you comfortable. And Ridley. We thinkit an honour to have charge of him. Pepper'll have some one tocontradict him--which I daren't do. You find this child grown,don't you? A young woman, eh?"Still holding Helen's hand he drew his arm round Rachel's shoulder,thus making them come uncomfortably close, but Helen forboreto look.
　　"You think she does us credit?" he asked.
　　"Oh yes," said Helen.
　　"Because we expect great things of her," he continued, squeezing hisdaughter's arm and releasing her. "But about you now." They sat downside by side on the little sofa. "Did you leave the children well?
　　They'll be ready for school, I suppose. Do they take after youor Ambrose? They've got good heads on their shoulders, I'll be bound?"At this Helen immediately brightened more than she had yet done,and explained that her son was six and her daughter ten.
　　Everybody said that her boy was like her and her girl like Ridley.
　　As for brains, they were quick brats, she thought, and modestly sheventured on a little story about her son,--how left alone for a minutehe had taken the pat of butter in his fingers, run across the roomwith it, and put it on the fire--merely for the fun of the thing,a feeling which she could understand.
　　"And you had to show the young rascal that these tricks wouldn't do, eh?""A child of six? I don't think they matter.""I'm an old-fashioned father.""Nonsense, Willoughby; Rachel knows better."Much as Willoughby would doubtless have liked his daughterto praise him she did not; her eyes were unreflecting as water,her fingers still toying with the fossilised fish, her mind absent.
　　The elder people went on to speak of arrangements that could bemade for Ridley's comfort--a table placed where he couldn't helplooking at the sea, far from boilers, at the same time shelteredfrom the view of people passing. Unless he made this a holiday,when his books were all packed, he would have no holiday whatever;for out at Santa Marina Helen knew, by experience, that he would workall day; his boxes, she said, were packed with books.
　　"Leave it to me--leave it to me!" said Willoughby, obviously intendingto do much more than she asked of him. But Ridley and Mr. Pepperwere heard fumbling at the door.
　　"How are you, Vinrace?" said Ridley, extending a limp handas he came in, as though the meeting were melancholy to both,but on the whole more so to him.
　　Willoughby preserved his heartiness, tempered by respect.
　　For the moment nothing was said.
　　"We looked in and saw you laughing," Helen remarked. "Mr. Pepperhad just told a very good story.""Pish. None of the stories were good," said her husband peevishly.
　　"Still a severe judge, Ridley?" enquired Mr. Vinrace.
　　"We bored you so that you left," said Ridley, speaking directlyto his wife.
　　As this was quite true Helen did not attempt to deny it,and her next remark, "But didn't they improve after we'd gone?"was unfortunate, for her husband answered with a droop of his shoulders,"If possible they got worse."The situation was now one of considerable discomfort for everyone concerned, as was proved by a long interval of constraintand silence. Mr. Pepper, indeed, created a diversion of a kindby leaping on to his seat, both feet tucked under him, with theaction of a spinster who detects a mouse, as the draught struckat his ankles. Drawn up there, sucking at his cigar, with hisarms encircling his knees, he looked like the image of Buddha,and from this elevation began a discourse, addressed to nobody,for nobody had called for it, upon the unplumbed depths of ocean.
　　He professed himself surprised to learn that although Mr. Vinracepossessed ten ships, regularly plying between London and Buenos Aires,not one of them was bidden to investigate the great white monstersof the lower waters.
　　"No, no," laughed Willoughby, "the monsters of the earth are toomany for me!"Rachel was heard to sigh, "Poor little goats!""If it weren't for the goats there'd be no music, my dear;music depends upon goats," said her father rather sharply,and Mr. Pepper went on to describe the white, hairless, blind monsterslying curled on the ridges of sand at the bottom of the sea,which would explode if you brought them to the surface,their sides bursting asunder and scattering entrails to the windswhen released from pressure, with considerable detail and withsuch show of knowledge, that Ridley was disgusted, and begged him to stop.
　　From all this Helen drew her own conclusions, which were gloomy enough.
　　Pepper was a bore; Rachel was an unlicked girl, no doubt prolificof confidences, the very first of which would be: "You see,I don't get on with my father." Willoughby, as usual, loved hisbusiness and built his Empire, and between them all she would beconsiderably bored. Being a woman of action, however, she rose,and said that for her part she was going to bed. At the doorshe glanced back instinctively at Rachel, expecting that as twoof the same sex they would leave the room together. Rachel rose,looked vaguely into Helen's face, and remarked with her slight stammer,"I'm going out to t-t-triumph in the wind."Mrs. Ambrose's worst suspicions were confirmed; she went downthe passage lurching from side to side, and fending off the wallnow with her right arm, now with her left; at each lurch sheexclaimed emphatically, "Damn!"
Chapter 2
    Uncomfortable as the night, with its rocking movement,and salt smells, may have been, and in one case undoubtedly was,for Mr. Pepper had insufficient clothes upon his bed, the breakfastnext morning wore a kind of beauty. The voyage had begun,and had begun happily with a soft blue sky, and a calm sea.
　　The sense of untapped resources, things to say as yet unsaid,made the hour significant, so that in future years the entire journeyperhaps would be represented by this one scene, with the soundof sirens hooting in the river the night before, somehow mixing in.
　　The table was cheerful with apples and bread and eggs. Helen handedWilloughby the butter, and as she did so cast her eye on himand reflected, "And she married you, and she was happy, I suppose."She went off on a familiar train of thought, leading on to allkinds of well-known reflections, from the old wonder, why Theresahad married Willoughby?
　　"Of course, one sees all that," she thought, meaning that one seesthat he is big and burly, and has a great booming voice, and a fistand a will of his own; "but--" here she slipped into a fine analysisof him which is best represented by one word, "sentimental," by whichshe meant that he was never simple and honest about his feelings.
　　For example, he seldom spoke of the dead, but kept anniversarieswith singular pomp. She suspected him of nameless atrocitieswith regard to his daughter, as indeed she had always suspectedhim of bullying his wife. Naturally she fell to comparing herown fortunes with the fortunes of her friend, for Willoughby'swife had been perhaps the one woman Helen called friend, and thiscomparison often made the staple of their talk. Ridley was a scholar,and Willoughby was a man of business. Ridley was bringing out the thirdvolume of Pindar when Willoughby was launching his first ship.
　　They built a new factory the very year the commentary on Aristotle--was it?--appeared at the University Press. "And Rachel," she lookedat her, meaning, no doubt, to decide the argument, which wasotherwise too evenly balanced, by declaring that Rachel was notcomparable to her own children. "She really might be six years old,"was all she said, however, this judgment referring to the smoothunmarked outline of the girl's face, and not condemning her otherwise,for if Rachel were ever to think, feel, laugh, or express herself,instead of dropping milk from a height as though to see what kind ofdrops it made, she might be interesting though never exactly pretty.
　　She was like her mother, as the image in a pool on a still summer'sday is like the vivid flushed face that hangs over it.
　　Meanwhile Helen herself was under examination, though not from eitherof her victims. Mr. Pepper considered her; and his meditations,carried on while he cut his toast into bars and neatly buttered them,took him through a considerable stretch of autobiography. One ofhis penetrating glances assured him that he was right last nightin judging that Helen was beautiful. Blandly he passed her the jam.
　　She was talking nonsense, but not worse nonsense than people usuallydo talk at breakfast, the cerebral circulation, as he knew to his cost,being apt to give trouble at that hour. He went on saying "No" to her,on principle, for he never yielded to a woman on account of her sex.
　　And here, dropping his eyes to his plate, he became autobiographical.
　　He had not married himself for the sufficient reason that he hadnever met a woman who commanded his respect. Condemned to passthe susceptible years of youth in a railway station in Bombay,he had seen only coloured women, military women, official women;and his ideal was a woman who could read Greek, if not Persian,was irreproachably fair in the face, and able to understandthe small things he let fall while undressing. As it was hehad contracted habits of which he was not in the least ashamed.
　　Certain odd minutes every day went to learning things by heart;he never took a ticket without noting the number; he devotedJanuary to Petronius, February to Catullus, March to the Etruscanvases perhaps; anyhow he had done good work in India, and therewas nothing to regret in his life except the fundamental defectswhich no wise man regrets, when the present is still his.
　　So concluding he looked up suddenly and smiled. Rachel caughthis eye.
　　"And now you've chewed something thirty-seven times, I suppose?"she thought, but said politely aloud, "Are your legs troubling youto-day, Mr. Pepper?""My shoulder blades?" he asked, shifting them painfully.
　　"Beauty has no effect upon uric acid that I'm aware of," he sighed,contemplating the round pane opposite, through which the sky and seashowed blue. At the same time he took a little parchment volumefrom his pocket and laid it on the table. As it was clear that heinvited comment, Helen asked him the name of it. She got the name;but she got also a disquisition upon the proper method of making roads.
　　Beginning with the Greeks, who had, he said, many difficultiesto contend with, he continued with the Romans, passed to Englandand the right method, which speedily became the wrong method,and wound up with such a fury of denunciation directed againstthe road-makers of the present day in general, and the road-makersof Richmond Park in particular, where Mr. Pepper had the habitof cycling every morning before breakfast, that the spoons fairlyjingled against the coffee cups, and the insides of at least fourrolls mounted in a heap beside Mr. Pepper's plate.
　　"Pebbles!" he concluded, viciously dropping another bread pelletupon the heap. "The roads of England are mended with pebbles!
　　'With the first heavy rainfall,' I've told 'em, 'your roadwill be a swamp.' Again and again my words have proved true.
　　But d'you suppose they listen to me when I tell 'em so, when Ipoint out the consequences, the consequences to the public purse,when I recommend 'em to read Coryphaeus? No, Mrs. Ambrose, you willform no just opinion of the stupidity of mankind until you have satupon a Borough Council!" The little man fixed her with a glanceof ferocious energy.
　　"I have had servants," said Mrs. Ambrose, concentrating her gaze.
　　"At this moment I have a nurse. She's a good woman as they go,but she's determined to make my children pray. So far, owing togreat care on my part, they think of God as a kind of walrus;but now that my back's turned--Ridley," she demanded, swinging roundupon her husband, "what shall we do if we find them saying the Lord'sPrayer when we get home again?"Ridley made the sound which is represented by "Tush." But Willoughby,whose discomfort as he listened was manifested by a slight movementrocking of his body, said awkwardly, "Oh, surely, Helen, a littlereligion hurts nobody.""I would rather my children told lies," she replied, and whileWilloughby was reflecting that his sister-in-law was even more eccentricthan he remembered, pushed her chair back and swept upstairs.
　　In a second they heard her calling back, "Oh, look! We're out at sea!"They followed her on to the deck. All the smoke and the houseshad disappeared, and the ship was out in a wide space of sea veryfresh and clear though pale in the early light. They had leftLondon sitting on its mud. A very thin line of shadow tapered onthe horizon, scarcely thick enough to stand the burden of Paris,which nevertheless rested upon it. They were free of roads,free of mankind, and the same exhilaration at their freedom ranthrough them all. The ship was making her way steadily through smallwaves which slapped her and then fizzled like effervescing water,leaving a little border of bubbles and foam on either side.
　　The colourless October sky above was thinly clouded as if by the trailof wood-fire smoke, and the air was wonderfully salt and brisk.
　　Indeed it was too cold to stand still. Mrs. Ambrose drew her armwithin her husband's, and as they moved off it could be seen fromthe way in which her sloping cheek turned up to his that she hadsomething private to communicate. They went a few paces and Rachelsaw them kiss.
　　Down she looked into the depth of the sea. While it was slightlydisturbed on the surface by the passage of the _Euphrosyne_,beneath it was green and dim, and it grew dimmer and dimmer untilthe sand at the bottom was only a pale blur. One could scarcelysee the black ribs of wrecked ships, or the spiral towers madeby the burrowings of great eels, or the smooth green-sided monsterswho came by flickering this way and that.
　　--"And, Rachel, if any one wants me, I'm busy till one," said her father,enforcing his words as he often did, when he spoke to his daughter,by a smart blow upon the shoulder.
　　"Until one," he repeated. "And you'll find yourself some employment,eh? Scales, French, a little German, eh? There's Mr. Pepper who knowsmore about separable verbs than any man in Europe, eh?" and he wentoff laughing. Rachel laughed, too, as indeed she had laughed ever since shecould remember, without thinking it funny, but because she admired her father.
　　But just as she was turning with a view perhaps to findingsome employment, she was intercepted by a woman who was so broadand so thick that to be intercepted by her was inevitable.
　　The discreet tentative way in which she moved, together with hersober black dress, showed that she belonged to the lower orders;nevertheless she took up a rock-like position, looking about her to seethat no gentry were near before she delivered her message, which hadreference to the state of the sheets, and was of the utmost gravity.
　　"How ever we're to get through this voyage, Miss Rachel, I reallycan't tell," she began with a shake of her head. "There's onlyjust sheets enough to go round, and the master's has a rotten placeyou could put your fingers through. And the counterpanes. Did younotice the counterpanes? I thought to myself a poor person wouldhave been ashamed of them. The one I gave Mr. Pepper was hardly fitto cover a dog. . . . No, Miss Rachel, they could _not_ be mended;they're only fit for dust sheets. Why, if one sewed one's fingerto the bone, one would have one's work undone the next time theywent to the laundry."Her voice in its indignation wavered as if tears were near.
　　There was nothing for it but to descend and inspect a large pileof linen heaped upon a table. Mrs. Chailey handled the sheetsas if she knew each by name, character, and constitution. Some hadyellow stains, others had places where the threads made long ladders;but to the ordinary eye they looked much as sheets usually do look,very chill, white, cold, and irreproachably clean.
　　Suddenly Mrs. Chailey, turning from the subject of sheets,dismissing them entirely, clenched her fists on the top of them,and proclaimed, "And you couldn't ask a living creature to sitwhere I sit!"Mrs. Chailey was expected to sit in a cabin which was large enough,but too near the boilers, so that after five minutes she couldhear her heart "go," she complained, putting her hand above it,which was a state of things that Mrs. Vinrace, Rachel's mother,would never have dreamt of inflicting--Mrs. Vinrace, who knew everysheet in her house, and expected of every one the best they could do,but no more.
　　It was the easiest thing in the world to grant another room,and the problem of sheets simultaneously and miraculously solved itself,the spots and ladders not being past cure after all, but--"Lies! Lies! Lies!" exclaimed the mistress indignantly, as sheran up on to the deck. "What's the use of telling me lies?"In her anger that a woman of fifty should behave like a childand come cringing to a girl because she wanted to sit where shehad not leave to sit, she did not think of the particular case, and,unpacking her music, soon forgot all about the old woman and her sheets.
　　Mrs. Chailey folded her sheets, but her expression testified toflatness within. The world no longer cared about her, and a shipwas not a home. When the lamps were lit yesterday, and the sailorswent tumbling above her head, she had cried; she would crythis evening; she would cry to-morrow. It was not home. Meanwhile shearranged her ornaments in the room which she had won too easily.
　　They were strange ornaments to bring on a sea voyage--china pugs,tea-sets in miniature, cups stamped floridly with the arms of the cityof Bristol, hair-pin boxes crusted with shamrock, antelopes' heads incoloured plaster, together with a multitude of tiny photographs,representing downright workmen in their Sunday best, and womenholding white babies. But there was one portrait in a gilt frame,for which a nail was needed, and before she sought it Mrs. Chaileyput on her spectacles and read what was written on a slip of paperat the back:
　　"This picture of her mistress is given to Emma Chailey by WilloughbyVinrace in gratitude for thirty years of devoted service."Tears obliterated the words and the head of the nail.
　　"So long as I can do something for your family," she was saying,as she hammered at it, when a voice called melodiously in the passage:
　　"Mrs. Chailey! Mrs. Chailey!"Chailey instantly tidied her dress, composed her face, and openedthe door.
　　"I'm in a fix," said Mrs. Ambrose, who was flushed and out of breath.
　　"You know what gentlemen are. The chairs too high--the tablestoo low--there's six inches between the floor and the door.
　　What I want's a hammer, an old quilt, and have you such a thingas a kitchen table? Anyhow, between us"--she now flung open the doorof her husband's sitting room, and revealed Ridley pacing up and down,his forehead all wrinkled, and the collar of his coat turned up.
　　"It's as though they'd taken pains to torment me!" he cried,stopping dead. "Did I come on this voyage in order to catchrheumatism and pneumonia? Really one might have credited Vinracewith more sense. My dear," Helen was on her knees under a table,"you are only making yourself untidy, and we had much better recognisethe fact that we are condemned to six weeks of unspeakable misery.
　　To come at all was the height of folly, but now that we are here Isuppose that I can face it like a man. My diseases of course willbe increased--I feel already worse than I did yesterday, but we'veonly ourselves to thank, and the children happily--""Move! Move! Move!" cried Helen, chasing him from cornerto corner with a chair as though he were an errant hen.
　　"Out of the way, Ridley, and in half an hour you'll find it ready."She turned him out of the room, and they could hear him groaningand swearing as he went along the passage.
　　"I daresay he isn't very strong," said Mrs. Chailey, looking atMrs. Ambrose compassionately, as she helped to shift and carry.
　　"It's books," sighed Helen, lifting an armful of sad volumesfrom the floor to the shelf. "Greek from morning to night.
　　If ever Miss Rachel marries, Chailey, pray that she may marry a manwho doesn't know his ABC."The preliminary discomforts and harshnesses, which generally makethe first days of a sea voyage so cheerless and trying to the temper,being somehow lived through, the succeeding days passed pleasantly enough.
　　October was well advanced, but steadily burning with a warmth that madethe early months of the summer appear very young and capricious.
　　Great tracts of the earth lay now beneath the autumn sun, and the wholeof England, from the bald moors to the Cornish rocks, was lit up fromdawn to sunset, and showed in stretches of yellow, green, and purple.
　　Under that illumination even the roofs of the great towns glittered.
　　In thousands of small gardens, millions of dark-red flowers were blooming,until the old ladies who had tended them so carefully came downthe paths with their scissors, snipped through their juicy stalks,and laid them upon cold stone ledges in the village church.
　　Innumerable parties of picnickers coming home at sunset cried,"Was there ever such a day as this?" "It's you," the young men whispered;"Oh, it's you," the young women replied. All old people and many sickpeople were drawn, were it only for a foot or two, into the open air,and prognosticated pleasant things about the course of the world.
　　As for the confidences and expressions of love that were heard notonly in cornfields but in lamplit rooms, where the windows openedon the garden, and men with cigars kissed women with grey hairs,they were not to be counted. Some said that the sky was an emblemof the life to come. Long-tailed birds clattered and screamed,and crossed from wood to wood, with golden eyes in their plumage.
　　But while all this went on by land, very few people thoughtabout the sea. They took it for granted that the sea was calm;and there was no need, as there is in many houses when the creepertaps on the bedroom windows, for the couples to murmur beforethey kiss, "Think of the ships to-night," or "Thank Heaven,I'm not the man in the lighthouse!" For all they imagined, the shipswhen they vanished on the sky-line dissolved, like snow in water.
　　The grown-up view, indeed, was not much clearer than the viewof the little creatures in bathing drawers who were trotting in tothe foam all along the coasts of England, and scooping up bucketsfull of water. They saw white sails or tufts of smoke pass acrossthe horizon, and if you had said that these were waterspouts,or the petals of white sea flowers, they would have agreed.
　　The people in ships, however, took an equally singular view of England.
　　Not only did it appear to them to be an island, and a very small island,but it was a shrinking island in which people were imprisoned.
　　One figured them first swarming about like aimless ants, and almostpressing each other over the edge; and then, as the ship withdrew,one figured them making a vain clamour, which, being unheard,either ceased, or rose into a brawl. Finally, when the ship wasout of sight of land, it became plain that the people of Englandwere completely mute. The disease attacked other parts of the earth;Europe shrank, Asia shrank, Africa and America shrank, until it seemeddoubtful whether the ship would ever run against any of those wrinkledlittle rocks again. But, on the other hand, an immense dignity haddescended upon her; she was an inhabitant of the great world, which hasso few inhabitants, travelling all day across an empty universe,with veils drawn before her and behind. She was more lonely thanthe caravan crossing the desert; she was infinitely more mysterious,moving by her own power and sustained by her own resources. The seamight give her death or some unexampled joy, and none would know of it.
　　She was a bride going forth to her husband, a virgin unknown of men;in her vigor and purity she might be likened to all beautiful things,for as a ship she had a life of her own.
　　Indeed if they had not been blessed in their weather, one blueday being bowled up after another, smooth, round, and flawless.
　　Mrs. Ambrose would have found it very dull. As it was, she had herembroidery frame set up on deck, with a little table by her sideon which lay open a black volume of philosophy. She chose a threadfrom the vari-coloured tangle that lay in her lap, and sewedred into the bark of a tree, or yellow into the river torrent.
　　She was working at a great design of a tropical river runningthrough a tropical forest, where spotted deer would eventually browseupon masses of fruit, bananas, oranges, and giant pomegranates,while a troop of naked natives whirled darts into the air.
　　Between the stitches she looked to one side and read a sentenceabout the Reality of Matter, or the Nature of Good. Round her menin blue jerseys knelt and scrubbed the boards, or leant over the railsand whistled, and not far off Mr. Pepper sat cutting up roots witha penknife. The rest were occupied in other parts of the ship:
　　Ridley at his Greek--he had never found quarters more to his liking;Willoughby at his documents, for he used a voyage to work of arrearsof business; and Rachel--Helen, between her sentences of philosophy,wondered sometimes what Rachel _did_ do with herself? She meantvaguely to go and see. They had scarcely spoken two words to eachother since that first evening; they were polite when they met,but there had been no confidence of any kind. Rachel seemed to geton very well with her father--much better, Helen thought, than sheought to--and was as ready to let Helen alone as Helen was to lether alone.
　　At that moment Rachel was sitting in her room doing absolutely nothing.
　　When the ship was full this apartment bore some magnificent titleand was the resort of elderly sea-sick ladies who left the deckto their youngsters. By virtue of the piano, and a mess of bookson the floor, Rachel considered it her room, and there she would sitfor hours playing very difficult music, reading a little German,or a little English when the mood took her, and doing--as at this moment--absolutely nothing.
　　The way she had been educated, joined to a fine natural indolence,was of course partly the reason of it, for she had been educatedas the majority of well-to-do girls in the last part of the nineteenthcentury were educated. Kindly doctors and gentle old professors hadtaught her the rudiments of about ten different branches of knowledge,but they would as soon have forced her to go through one piece of drudgerythoroughly as they would have told her that her hands were dirty.
　　The one hour or the two hours weekly passed very pleasantly,partly owing to the other pupils, partly to the fact that the windowlooked upon the back of a shop, where figures appeared againstthe red windows in winter, partly to the accidents that are boundto happen when more than two people are in the same room together.
　　But there was no subject in the world which she knew accurately.
　　Her mind was in the state of an intelligent man's in the beginningof the reign of Queen Elizabeth; she would believe practicallyanything she was told, invent reasons for anything she said.
　　The shape of the earth, the history of the world, how trains worked,or money was invested, what laws were in force, which people wanted what,and why they wanted it, the most elementary idea of a system inmodern life--none of this had been imparted to her by any of herprofessors or mistresses. But this system of education had onegreat advantage. It did not teach anything, but it put no obstaclein the way of any real talent that the pupil might chance to have.
　　Rachel, being musical, was allowed to learn nothing but music;she became a fanatic about music. All the energies that might havegone into languages, science, or literature, that might have madeher friends, or shown her the world, poured straight into music.
　　Finding her teachers inadequate, she had practically taught herself.
　　At the age of twenty-four she knew as much about music as mostpeople do when they are thirty; and could play as well as natureallowed her to, which, as became daily more obvious, was a reallygenerous allowance. If this one definite gift was surrounded bydreams and ideas of the most extravagant and foolish description,no one was any the wiser.
　　Her education being thus ordinary, her circumstances were no more outof the common. She was an only child and had never been bullied andlaughed at by brothers and sisters. Her mother having died when shewas eleven, two aunts, the sisters of her father, brought her up,and they lived for the sake of the air in a comfortable housein Richmond. She was of course brought up with excessive care,which as a child was for her health; as a girl and a youngwoman was for what it seems almost crude to call her morals.
　　Until quite lately she had been completely ignorant that for womensuch things existed. She groped for knowledge in old books,and found it in repulsive chunks, but she did not naturally carefor books and thus never troubled her head about the censorshipwhich was exercised first by her aunts, later by her father.
　　Friends might have told her things, but she had few of her own age,--Richmond being an awkward place to reach,--and, as it happened,the only girl she knew well was a religious zealot, who in the fervourof intimacy talked about God, and the best ways of taking upone's cross, a topic only fitfully interesting to one whose mindreached other stages at other times.
　　But lying in her chair, with one hand behind her head, the othergrasping the knob on the arm, she was clearly following herthoughts intently. Her education left her abundant time for thinking.
　　Her eyes were fixed so steadily upon a ball on the rail of the shipthat she would have been startled and annoyed if anything had chancedto obscure it for a second. She had begun her meditations witha shout of laughter, caused by the following translation from _Tristan_:
　　In shrinking trepidationHis shame he seems to hideWhile to the king his relationHe brings the corpse-like Bride.
　　Seems it so senseless what I say?
　　She cried that it did, and threw down the book. Next she hadpicked up _Cowper's_ _Letters_, the classic prescribed by herfather which had bored her, so that one sentence chancing tosay something about the smell of broom in his garden, she hadthereupon seen the little hall at Richmond laden with flowerson the day of her mother's funeral, smelling so strong that nowany flower-scent brought back the sickly horrible sensation;and so from one scene she passed, half-hearing, half-seeing,to another. She saw her Aunt Lucy arranging flowers in the drawing-room.
　　"Aunt Lucy," she volunteered, "I don't like the smell of broom;it reminds me of funerals.""Nonsense, Rachel," Aunt Lucy replied; "don't say such foolishthings, dear. I always think it a particularly cheerful plant."Lying in the hot sun her mind was fixed upon the characters of her aunts,their views, and the way they lived. Indeed this was a subjectthat lasted her hundreds of morning walks round Richmond Park,and blotted out the trees and the people and the deer. Why didthey do the things they did, and what did they feel, and what wasit all about? Again she heard Aunt Lucy talking to Aunt Eleanor.
　　She had been that morning to take up the character of a servant,"And, of course, at half-past ten in the morning one expects to findthe housemaid brushing the stairs." How odd! How unspeakably odd!
　　But she could not explain to herself why suddenly as her aunt spokethe whole system in which they lived had appeared before her eyesas something quite unfamiliar and inexplicable, and themselves aschairs or umbrellas dropped about here and there without any reason.
　　She could only say with her slight stammer, "Are you f-f-fond ofAunt Eleanor, Aunt Lucy?" to which her aunt replied, with her nervoushen-like twitter of a laugh, "My dear child, what questions youdo ask!""How fond? Very fond!" Rachel pursued.
　　"I can't say I've ever thought 'how,'" said Miss Vinrace.
　　"If one cares one doesn't think 'how,' Rachel," which was aimedat the niece who had never yet "come" to her aunts as cordiallyas they wished.
　　"But you know I care for you, don't you, dear, because you'reyour mother's daughter, if for no other reason, and there_are_ plenty of other reasons"--and she leant over and kissedher with some emotion, and the argument was spilt irretrievablyabout the place like a bucket of milk.
　　By these means Rachel reached that stage in thinking, if thinkingit can be called, when the eyes are intent upon a ball or a knoband the lips cease to move. Her efforts to come to an understandinghad only hurt her aunt's feelings, and the conclusion must be that itis better not to try. To feel anything strongly was to create an abyssbetween oneself and others who feel strongly perhaps but differently.
　　It was far better to play the piano and forget all the rest.
　　The conclusion was very welcome. Let these odd men and women--her aunts, the Hunts, Ridley, Helen, Mr. Pepper, and the rest--be symbols,--featureless but dignified, symbols of age, of youth,of motherhood, of learning, and beautiful often as people upon the stageare beautiful. It appeared that nobody ever said a thing they meant,or ever talked of a feeling they felt, but that was what music was for.
　　Reality dwelling in what one saw and felt, but did not talk about,one could accept a system in which things went round and roundquite satisfactorily to other people, without often troublingto think about it, except as something superficially strange.
　　Absorbed by her music she accepted her lot very complacently,blazing into indignation perhaps once a fortnight, and subsidingas she subsided now. Inextricably mixed in dreamy confusion,her mind seemed to enter into communion, to be delightfully expandedand combined with the spirit of the whitish boards on deck,with the spirit of the sea, with the spirit of Beethoven Op.
　　112, even with the spirit of poor William Cowper there at Olney.
　　Like a ball of thistledown it kissed the sea, rose, kissed it again,and thus rising and kissing passed finally out of sight. The risingand falling of the ball of thistledown was represented by the suddendroop forward of her own head, and when it passed out of sight shewas asleep.
　　Ten minutes later Mrs. Ambrose opened the door and looked at her.
　　It did not surprise her to find that this was the way in which Rachelpassed her mornings. She glanced round the room at the piano,at the books, at the general mess. In the first place she consideredRachel aesthetically; lying unprotected she looked somehow like a victimdropped from the claws of a bird of prey, but considered as a woman,a young woman of twenty-four, the sight gave rise to reflections.
　　Mrs. Ambrose stood thinking for at least two minutes. She then smiled,turned noiselessly away and went, lest the sleeper should waken,and there should be the awkwardness of speech between them.
Chapter 3
     Early next morning there was a sound as of chains being drawnroughly overhead; the steady heart of the _Euphrosyne_ slowly ceasedto beat; and Helen, poking her nose above deck, saw a stationarycastle upon a stationary hill. They had dropped anchor in the mouthof the Tagus, and instead of cleaving new waves perpetually,the same waves kept returning and washing against the sides of the ship.
　　As soon as breakfast was done, Willoughby disappeared overthe vessel's side, carrying a brown leather case, shouting overhis shoulder that every one was to mind and behave themselves,for he would be kept in Lisbon doing business until five o'clockthat afternoon.
　　At about that hour he reappeared, carrying his case, professinghimself tired, bothered, hungry, thirsty, cold, and in immediate needof his tea. Rubbing his hands, he told them the adventures of the day:
　　how he had come upon poor old Jackson combing his moustache beforethe glass in the office, little expecting his descent, had put himthrough such a morning's work as seldom came his way; then treated himto a lunch of champagne and ortolans; paid a call upon Mrs. Jackson,who was fatter than ever, poor woman, but asked kindly after Rachel--and O Lord, little Jackson had confessed to a confounded pieceof weakness--well, well, no harm was done, he supposed, but whatwas the use of his giving orders if they were promptly disobeyed?
　　He had said distinctly that he would take no passengers on this trip.
　　Here he began searching in his pockets and eventually discovered a card,which he planked down on the table before Rachel. On it she read,"Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dalloway, 23 Browne Street, Mayfair.""Mr. Richard Dalloway," continued Vinrace, "seems to be a gentlemanwho thinks that because he was once a member of Parliament,and his wife's the daughter of a peer, they can have what theylike for the asking. They got round poor little Jackson anyhow.
　　Said they must have passages--produced a letter from Lord Glenaway,asking me as a personal favour--overruled any objections Jackson made(I don't believe they came to much), and so there's nothing for itbut to submit, I suppose."But it was evident that for some reason or other Willoughby wasquite pleased to submit, although he made a show of growling.
　　The truth was that Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway had found themselvesstranded in Lisbon. They had been travelling on the Continent forsome weeks, chiefly with a view to broadening Mr. Dalloway's mind.
　　Unable for a season, by one of the accidents of political life,to serve his country in Parliament, Mr. Dalloway was doing the besthe could to serve it out of Parliament. For that purpose the Latincountries did very well, although the East, of course, would havedone better.
　　"Expect to hear of me next in Petersburg or Teheran," he had said,turning to wave farewell from the steps of the Travellers'. Buta disease had broken out in the East, there was cholera in Russia,and he was heard of, not so romantically, in Lisbon. They had beenthrough France; he had stopped at manufacturing centres where,producing letters of introduction, he had been shown over works,and noted facts in a pocket-book. In Spain he and Mrs. Dalloway hadmounted mules, for they wished to understand how the peasants live.
　　Are they ripe for rebellion, for example? Mrs. Dalloway hadthen insisted upon a day or two at Madrid with the pictures.
　　Finally they arrived in Lisbon and spent six days which, in a journalprivately issued afterwards, they described as of "unique interest."Richard had audiences with ministers, and foretold a crisis at nodistant date, "the foundations of government being incurably corrupt.
　　Yet how blame, etc."; while Clarissa inspected the royal stables,and took several snapshots showing men now exiled and windows now broken.
　　Among other things she photographed Fielding's grave, and let loosea small bird which some ruffian had trapped, "because one hatesto think of anything in a cage where English people lie buried,"the diary stated. Their tour was thoroughly unconventional,and followed no meditated plan. The foreign correspondentsof the _Times_ decided their route as much as anything else.
　　Mr. Dalloway wished to look at certain guns, and was of opinionthat the African coast is far more unsettled than people at homewere inclined to believe. For these reasons they wanted a slowinquisitive kind of ship, comfortable, for they were bad sailors,but not extravagant, which would stop for a day or two at thisport and at that, taking in coal while the Dalloways saw thingsfor themselves. Meanwhile they found themselves stranded in Lisbon,unable for the moment to lay hands upon the precise vessel they wanted.
　　They heard of the _Euphrosyne_, but heard also that she was primarilya cargo boat, and only took passengers by special arrangement,her business being to carry dry goods to the Amazons, and rubberhome again. "By special arrangement," however, were words of highencouragement to them, for they came of a class where almosteverything was specially arranged, or could be if necessary.
　　On this occasion all that Richard did was to write a noteto Lord Glenaway, the head of the line which bears his title;to call on poor old Jackson; to represent to him how Mrs. Dallowaywas so-and-so, and he had been something or other else,and what they wanted was such and such a thing. It was done.
　　They parted with compliments and pleasure on both sides, and here,a week later, came the boat rowing up to the ship in the dusk withthe Dalloways on board of it; in three minutes they were standingtogether on the deck of the _Euphrosyne_. Their arrival, of course,created some stir, and it was seen by several pairs of eyes thatMrs. Dalloway was a tall slight woman, her body wrapped in furs,her head in veils, while Mr. Dalloway appeared to be a middle-sizedman of sturdy build, dressed like a sportsman on an autumnal moor.
　　Many solid leather bags of a rich brown hue soon surrounded them,in addition to which Mr. Dalloway carried a despatch box, and his wifea dressing-case suggestive of a diamond necklace and bottles withsilver tops.
　　"It's so like Whistler!" she exclaimed, with a wave towards the shore,as she shook Rachel by the hand, and Rachel had only time to lookat the grey hills on one side of her before Willoughby introducedMrs. Chailey, who took the lady to her cabin.
　　Momentary though it seemed, nevertheless the interruption was upsetting;every one was more or less put out by it, from Mr. Grice,the steward, to Ridley himself. A few minutes later Rachel passedthe smoking-room, and found Helen moving arm-chairs. She was absorbedin her arrangements, and on seeing Rachel remarked confidentially:
　　"If one can give men a room to themselves where they will sit,it's all to the good. Arm-chairs are _the_ important things--"She began wheeling them about. "Now, does it still look like a barat a railway station?"She whipped a plush cover off a table. The appearance of the placewas marvellously improved.
　　Again, the arrival of the strangers made it obvious to Rachel,as the hour of dinner approached, that she must change her dress;and the ringing of the great bell found her sitting on the edge of herberth in such a position that the little glass above the washstandreflected her head and shoulders. In the glass she wore an expressionof tense melancholy, for she had come to the depressing conclusion,since the arrival of the Dalloways, that her face was not the faceshe wanted, and in all probability never would be.
　　However, punctuality had been impressed on her, and whatever faceshe had, she must go in to dinner.
　　These few minutes had been used by Willoughby in sketching to theDalloways the people they were to meet, and checking them upon his fingers.
　　"There's my brother-in-law, Ambrose, the scholar (I daresayyou've heard his name), his wife, my old friend Pepper, a veryquiet fellow, but knows everything, I'm told. And that's all.
　　We're a very small party. I'm dropping them on the coast."Mrs. Dalloway, with her head a little on one side, did her bestto recollect Ambrose--was it a surname?--but failed. She was madeslightly uneasy by what she had heard. She knew that scholarsmarried any one--girls they met in farms on reading parties;or little suburban women who said disagreeably, "Of course I knowit's my husband you want; not _me_."But Helen came in at that point, and Mrs. Dalloway saw with reliefthat though slightly eccentric in appearance, she was not untidy,held herself well, and her voice had restraint in it, which she heldto be the sign of a lady. Mr. Pepper had not troubled to changehis neat ugly suit.
　　"But after all," Clarissa thought to herself as she followed Vinracein to dinner, "_every_ _one's_ interesting really."When seated at the table she had some need of that assurance,chiefly because of Ridley, who came in late, looked decidedly unkempt,and took to his soup in profound gloom.
　　An imperceptible signal passed between husband and wife, meaning thatthey grasped the situation and would stand by each other loyally.
　　With scarcely a pause Mrs. Dalloway turned to Willoughby and began:
　　"What I find so tiresome about the sea is that there are no flowersin it. Imagine fields of hollyhocks and violets in mid-ocean!
　　How divine!""But somewhat dangerous to navigation," boomed Richard, in the bass,like the bassoon to the flourish of his wife's violin. "Why, weedscan be bad enough, can't they, Vinrace? I remember crossing in the_Mauretania_ once, and saying to the Captain--Richards--did you knowhim?--'Now tell me what perils you really dread most for your ship,Captain Richards?' expecting him to say icebergs, or derelicts,or fog, or something of that sort. Not a bit of it. I've alwaysremembered his answer. '_Sedgius_ _aquatici_,' he said, which Itake to be a kind of duck-weed."Mr. Pepper looked up sharply, and was about to put a questionwhen Willoughby continued:
　　"They've an awful time of it--those captains! Three thousand soulson board!""Yes, indeed," said Clarissa. She turned to Helen with an airof profundity. "I'm convinced people are wrong when they say it'swork that wears one; it's responsibility. That's why one paysone's cook more than one's housemaid, I suppose.""According to that, one ought to pay one's nurse double;but one doesn't," said Helen.
　　"No; but think what a joy to have to do with babies, instead of saucepans!"said Mrs. Dalloway, looking with more interest at Helen, a probable mother.
　　"I'd much rather be a cook than a nurse," said Helen. "Nothing wouldinduce me to take charge of children.""Mothers always exaggerate," said Ridley. "A well-bred childis no responsibility. I've travelled all over Europe with mine.
　　You just wrap 'em up warm and put 'em in the rack."Helen laughed at that. Mrs. Dalloway exclaimed, looking at Ridley:
　　"How like a father! My husband's just the same. And then one talksof the equality of the sexes!""Does one?" said Mr. Pepper.
　　"Oh, some do!" cried Clarissa. "My husband had to pass an iratelady every afternoon last session who said nothing else, I imagine.""She sat outside the house; it was very awkward," said Dalloway.
　　"At last I plucked up courage and said to her, 'My good creature,you're only in the way where you are. You're hindering me, and you'redoing no good to yourself.'""And then she caught him by the coat, and would have scratchedhis eyes out--" Mrs. Dalloway put in.
　　"Pooh--that's been exaggerated," said Richard. "No, I pity them,I confess. The discomfort of sitting on those steps must be awful.""Serve them right," said Willoughby curtly.
　　"Oh, I'm entirely with you there," said Dalloway. "Nobody can condemnthe utter folly and futility of such behaviour more than I do;and as for the whole agitation, well! may I be in my grave beforea woman has the right to vote in England! That's all I say."The solemnity of her husband's assertion made Clarissa grave.
　　"It's unthinkable," she said. "Don't tell me you're a suffragist?"she turned to Ridley.
　　"I don't care a fig one way or t'other," said Ambrose.
　　"If any creature is so deluded as to think that a vote doeshim or her any good, let him have it. He'll soon learn better.""You're not a politician, I see," she smiled.
　　"Goodness, no," said Ridley.
　　"I'm afraid your husband won't approve of me," said Dalloway aside,to Mrs. Ambrose. She suddenly recollected that he had beenin Parliament.
　　"Don't you ever find it rather dull?" she asked, not knowing exactlywhat to say.
　　Richard spread his hands before him, as if inscriptions were to beread in the palms of them.
　　"If you ask me whether I ever find it rather dull," he said, "I ambound to say yes; on the other hand, if you ask me what career doyou consider on the whole, taking the good with the bad, the mostenjoyable and enviable, not to speak of its more serious side,of all careers, for a man, I am bound to say, 'The Politician's.'""The Bar or politics, I agree," said Willoughby. "You get more runfor your money.""All one's faculties have their play," said Richard. "I may betreading on dangerous ground; but what I feel about poets and artistsin general is this: on your own lines, you can't be beaten--granted; but off your own lines--puff--one has to make allowances.
　　Now, I shouldn't like to think that any one had to make allowances for me.""I don't quite agree, Richard," said Mrs. Dalloway. "Think of Shelley.
　　I feel that there's almost everything one wants in 'Adonais.'""Read 'Adonais' by all means," Richard conceded. "But whenever Ihear of Shelley I repeat to myself the words of Matthew Arnold,'What a set! What a set!'"This roused Ridley's attention. "Matthew Arnold? A detestable prig!"he snapped.
　　"A prig--granted," said Richard; "but, I think a man of the world.
　　That's where my point comes in. We politicians doubtless seem to you"(he grasped somehow that Helen was the representative of the arts)"a gross commonplace set of people; but we see both sides;we may be clumsy, but we do our best to get a grasp of things.
　　Now your artists _find_ things in a mess, shrug their shoulders,turn aside to their visions--which I grant may be very beautiful--and _leave_ things in a mess. Now that seems to me evadingone's responsibilities. Besides, we aren't all born with theartistic faculty.""It's dreadful," said Mrs. Dalloway, who, while her husband spoke,had been thinking. "When I'm with artists I feel so intenselythe delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one's own,with pictures and music and everything beautiful, and then I goout into the streets and the first child I meet with its poor,hungry, dirty little face makes me turn round and say, 'No, I_can't_ shut myself up--I _won't_ live in a world of my own.
　　I should like to stop all the painting and writing and musicuntil this kind of thing exists no longer.' Don't you feel,"she wound up, addressing Helen, "that life's a perpetual conflict?"Helen considered for a moment. "No," she said. "I don't thinkI do."There was a pause, which was decidedly uncomfortable.
　　Mrs. Dalloway then gave a little shiver, and asked whethershe might have her fur cloak brought to her. As she adjustedthe soft brown fur about her neck a fresh topic struck her.
　　"I own," she said, "that I shall never forget the _Antigone_.
　　I saw it at Cambridge years ago, and it's haunted me ever since.
　　Don't you think it's quite the most modern thing you ever saw?"she asked Ridley. "It seemed to me I'd known twenty Clytemnestras.
　　Old Lady Ditchling for one. I don't know a word of Greek, but I couldlisten to it for ever--"Here Mr. Pepper struck up:
　　{Some editions of the work contain a brief passage from Antigone,in Greek, at this spot. ed.}
　　Mrs. Dalloway looked at him with compressed lips.
　　"I'd give ten years of my life to know Greek," she said, when hehad done.
　　"I could teach you the alphabet in half an hour," said Ridley,"and you'd read Homer in a month. I should think it an honourto instruct you."Helen, engaged with Mr. Dalloway and the habit, now fallen into decline,of quoting Greek in the House of Commons, noted, in the greatcommonplace book that lies open beside us as we talk, the factthat all men, even men like Ridley, really prefer women to be fashionable.
　　Clarissa exclaimed that she could think of nothing more delightful.
　　For an instant she saw herself in her drawing-room in Browne Streetwith a Plato open on her knees--Plato in the original Greek. She couldnot help believing that a real scholar, if specially interested,could slip Greek into her head with scarcely any trouble.
　　Ridley engaged her to come to-morrow.
　　"If only your ship is going to treat us kindly!" she exclaimed,drawing Willoughby into play. For the sake of guests, and thesewere distinguished, Willoughby was ready with a bow of his headto vouch for the good behaviour even of the waves.
　　"I'm dreadfully bad; and my husband's not very good," sighed Clarissa.
　　"I am never sick," Richard explained. "At least, I have only beenactually sick once," he corrected himself. "That was crossingthe Channel. But a choppy sea, I confess, or still worse, a swell,makes me distinctly uncomfortable. The great thing is neverto miss a meal. You look at the food, and you say, 'I can't';you take a mouthful, and Lord knows how you're going to swallow it;but persevere, and you often settle the attack for good. My wife'sa coward."They were pushing back their chairs. The ladies were hesitatingat the doorway.
　　"I'd better show the way," said Helen, advancing.
　　Rachel followed. She had taken no part in the talk; no one hadspoken to her; but she had listened to every word that was said.
　　She had looked from Mrs. Dalloway to Mr. Dalloway, and from Mr. Dallowayback again. Clarissa, indeed, was a fascinating spectacle.
　　She wore a white dress and a long glittering necklace.
　　What with her clothes, and her arch delicate face, which showedexquisitely pink beneath hair turning grey, she was astonishinglylike an eighteenth-century masterpiece--a Reynolds or a Romney.
　　She made Helen and the others look coarse and slovenly beside her.
　　Sitting lightly upright she seemed to be dealing with the world asshe chose; the enormous solid globe spun round this way and that beneathher fingers. And her husband! Mr. Dalloway rolling that rich deliberatevoice was even more impressive. He seemed to come from the hummingoily centre of the machine where the polished rods are sliding,and the pistons thumping; he grasped things so firmly but so loosely;he made the others appear like old maids cheapening remnants.
　　Rachel followed in the wake of the matrons, as if in a trance;a curious scent of violets came back from Mrs. Dalloway, mingling withthe soft rustling of her skirts, and the tinkling of her chains.
　　As she followed, Rachel thought with supreme self-abasement,taking in the whole course of her life and the lives of allher friends, "She said we lived in a world of our own. It's true.
　　We're perfectly absurd.""We sit in here," said Helen, opening the door of the saloon.
　　"You play?" said Mrs. Dalloway to Mrs. Ambrose, taking up the scoreof _Tristan_ which lay on the table.
　　"My niece does," said Helen, laying her hand on Rachel's shoulder.
　　"Oh, how I envy you!" Clarissa addressed Rachel for the first time.
　　"D'you remember this? Isn't it divine?" She played a bar or twowith ringed fingers upon the page.
　　"And then Tristan goes like this, and Isolde--oh!--it's alltoo thrilling! Have you been to Bayreuth?""No, I haven't," said Rachel. `"Then that's still to come.
　　I shall never forget my first _Parsifal_--a grilling August day,and those fat old German women, come in their stuffy high frocks,and then the dark theatre, and the music beginning, and one couldn'thelp sobbing. A kind man went and fetched me water, I remember;and I could only cry on his shoulder! It caught me here" (she touchedher throat). "It's like nothing else in the world! But where'syour piano?" "It's in another room," Rachel explained.
　　"But you will play to us?" Clarissa entreated. "I can't imagineanything nicer than to sit out in the moonlight and listen to music--only that sounds too like a schoolgirl! You know," she said,turning to Helen, "I don't think music's altogether good for people--I'm afraid not.""Too great a strain?" asked Helen.
　　"Too emotional, somehow," said Clarissa. "One notices it at oncewhen a boy or girl takes up music as a profession. Sir WilliamBroadley told me just the same thing. Don't you hate the kind ofattitudes people go into over Wagner--like this--" She cast her eyesto the ceiling, clasped her hands, and assumed a look of intensity.
　　"It really doesn't mean that they appreciate him; in fact, I alwaysthink it's the other way round. The people who really care aboutan art are always the least affected. D'you know Henry Philips,the painter?" she asked.
　　"I have seen him," said Helen.
　　"To look at, one might think he was a successful stockbroker,and not one of the greatest painters of the age. That's what I like.""There are a great many successful stockbrokers, if you like lookingat them," said Helen.
　　Rachel wished vehemently that her aunt would not be so perverse.
　　"When you see a musician with long hair, don't you know instinctivelythat he's bad?" Clarissa asked, turning to Rachel. "Watts and Joachim--they looked just like you and me.""And how much nicer they'd have looked with curls!" said Helen.
　　"The question is, are you going to aim at beauty or are you not?""Cleanliness!" said Clarissa, "I do want a man to look clean!""By cleanliness you really mean well-cut clothes," said Helen.
　　"There's something one knows a gentleman by," said Clarissa,"but one can't say what it is.""Take my husband now, does he look like a gentleman?"The question seemed to Clarissa in extraordinarily bad taste.
　　"One of the things that can't be said," she would have put it.
　　She could find no answer, but a laugh.
　　"Well, anyhow," she said, turning to Rachel, "I shall insist uponyour playing to me to-morrow."There was that in her manner that made Rachel love her.
　　Mrs. Dalloway hid a tiny yawn, a mere dilation of the nostrils.
　　"D'you know," she said, "I'm extraordinarily sleepy. It's the sea air.
　　I think I shall escape."A man's voice, which she took to be that of Mr. Pepper, stridentin discussion, and advancing upon the saloon, gave her the alarm.
　　"Good-night--good-night!" she said. "Oh, I know my way--do prayfor calm! Good-night!"Her yawn must have been the image of a yawn. Instead of letting hermouth droop, dropping all her clothes in a bunch as though they dependedon one string, and stretching her limbs to the utmost end of her berth,she merely changed her dress for a dressing-gown, with innumerablefrills, and wrapping her feet in a rug, sat down with a writing-padon her knee. Already this cramped little cabin was the dressingroom of a lady of quality. There were bottles containing liquids;there were trays, boxes, brushes, pins. Evidently not an inch of herperson lacked its proper instrument. The scent which had intoxicatedRachel pervaded the air. Thus established, Mrs. Dalloway beganto write. A pen in her hands became a thing one caressed paper with,and she might have been stroking and tickling a kitten as she wrote:
　　Picture us, my dear, afloat in the very oddest ship you can imagine.
　　It's not the ship, so much as the people. One does come acrossqueer sorts as one travels. I must say I find it hugely amusing.
　　There's the manager of the line--called Vinrace--a nice big Englishman,doesn't say much--you know the sort. As for the rest--they mighthave come trailing out of an old number of _Punch_. They're likepeople playing croquet in the 'sixties. How long they've all beenshut up in this ship I don't know--years and years I should say--but one feels as though one had boarded a little separate world,and they'd never been on shore, or done ordinary things intheir lives. It's what I've always said about literary people--they're far the hardest of any to get on with. The worst of it is,these people--a man and his wife and a niece--might have been,one feels, just like everybody else, if they hadn't got swallowed upby Oxford or Cambridge or some such place, and been made cranks of.
　　The man's really delightful (if he'd cut his nails), and the womanhas quite a fine face, only she dresses, of course, in a potato sack,and wears her hair like a Liberty shopgirl's. They talk about art,and think us such poops for dressing in the evening. However, I can'thelp that; I'd rather die than come in to dinner without changing--wouldn't you? It matters ever so much more than the soup.
　　(It's odd how things like that _do_ matter so much more than what'sgenerally supposed to matter. I'd rather have my head cut offthan wear flannel next the skin.) Then there's a nice shy girl--poor thing--I wish one could rake her out before it's too late.
　　She has quite nice eyes and hair, only, of course, she'll getfunny too. We ought to start a society for broadening the mindsof the young--much more useful than missionaries, Hester! Oh,I'd forgotten there's a dreadful little thing called Pepper.
　　He's just like his name. He's indescribably insignificant,and rather queer in his temper, poor dear. It's like sitting downto dinner with an ill-conditioned fox-terrier, only one can't combhim out, and sprinkle him with powder, as one would one's dog.
　　It's a pity, sometimes, one can't treat people like dogs!
　　The great comfort is that we're away from newspapers, so that Richardwill have a real holiday this time. Spain wasn't a holiday. . .
　　.
　　"You coward!" said Richard, almost filling the room with hissturdy figure.
　　"I did my duty at dinner!" cried Clarissa.
　　"You've let yourself in for the Greek alphabet, anyhow.""Oh, my dear! Who _is_ Ambrose?""I gather that he was a Cambridge don; lives in London now,and edits classics.""Did you ever see such a set of cranks? The woman asked me if Ithought her husband looked like a gentleman!""It was hard to keep the ball rolling at dinner, certainly,"said Richard. "Why is it that the women, in that class,are so much queerer than the men?""They're not half bad-looking, really--only--they're so odd!"They both laughed, thinking of the same things, so that therewas no need to compare their impressions.
　　"I see I shall have quite a lot to say to Vinrace," said Richard.
　　"He knows Sutton and all that set. He can tell me a good deal aboutthe conditions of ship-building in the North.""Oh, I'm glad. The men always _are_ so much better than the women.""One always has something to say to a man certainly," said Richard.
　　"But I've no doubt you'll chatter away fast enough aboutthe babies, Clarice.""Has she got children? She doesn't look like it somehow.""Two. A boy and girl."A pang of envy shot through Mrs. Dalloway's heart.
　　"We _must_ have a son, Dick," she said.
　　"Good Lord, what opportunities there are now for young men!"said Dalloway, for his talk had set him thinking. "I don't supposethere's been so good an opening since the days of Pitt.""And it's yours!" said Clarissa.
　　"To be a leader of men," Richard soliloquised. "It's a fine career.
　　My God--what a career!"The chest slowly curved beneath his waistcoat.
　　"D'you know, Dick, I can't help thinking of England," said hiswife meditatively, leaning her head against his chest. "Being onthis ship seems to make it so much more vivid--what it really meansto be English. One thinks of all we've done, and our navies,and the people in India and Africa, and how we've gone on centuryafter century, sending out boys from little country villages--and of men like you, Dick, and it makes one feel as if one couldn'tbear _not_ to be English! Think of the light burning overthe House, Dick! When I stood on deck just now I seemed to see it.
　　It's what one means by London.""It's the continuity," said Richard sententiously. A vision ofEnglish history, King following King, Prime Minister Prime Minister,and Law Law had come over him while his wife spoke. He ran hismind along the line of conservative policy, which went steadilyfrom Lord Salisbury to Alfred, and gradually enclosed, as thoughit were a lasso that opened and caught things, enormous chunksof the habitable globe.
　　"It's taken a long time, but we've pretty nearly done it," he said;"it remains to consolidate.""And these people don't see it!" Clarissa exclaimed.
　　"It takes all sorts to make a world," said her husband. "There wouldnever be a government if there weren't an opposition.""Dick, you're better than I am," said Clarissa. "You see round,where I only see _there_." She pressed a point on the back ofhis hand.
　　"That's my business, as I tried to explain at dinner.""What I like about you, Dick," she continued, "is that you'realways the same, and I'm a creature of moods.""You're a pretty creature, anyhow," he said, gazing at her withdeeper eyes.
　　"You think so, do you? Then kiss me."He kissed her passionately, so that her half-written letter slidto the ground. Picking it up, he read it without asking leave.
　　"Where's your pen?" he said; and added in his little masculine hand:
　　R.D. _loquitur_: Clarice has omitted to tell you that she lookedexceedingly pretty at dinner, and made a conquest by which shehas bound herself to learn the Greek alphabet. I will take thisoccasion of adding that we are both enjoying ourselves in theseoutlandish parts, and only wish for the presence of our friends(yourself and John, to wit) to make the trip perfectly enjoyableas it promises to be instructive. . . .
　　Voices were heard at the end of the corridor. Mrs. Ambrosewas speaking low; William Pepper was remarking in his definiteand rather acid voice, "That is the type of lady with whomI find myself distinctly out of sympathy. She--"But neither Richard nor Clarissa profited by the verdict, for directlyit seemed likely that they would overhear, Richard crackled a sheetof paper.
　　"I often wonder," Clarissa mused in bed, over the little white volumeof Pascal which went with her everywhere, "whether it is reallygood for a woman to live with a man who is morally her superior,as Richard is mine. It makes one so dependent. I suppose I feelfor him what my mother and women of her generation felt for Christ.
　　It just shows that one can't do without _something_." She then fellinto a sleep, which was as usual extremely sound and refreshing,but visited by fantastic dreams of great Greek letters stalkinground the room, when she woke up and laughed to herself,remembering where she was and that the Greek letters were real people,lying asleep not many yards away. Then, thinking of the blacksea outside tossing beneath the moon, she shuddered, and thoughtof her husband and the others as companions on the voyage.
　　The dreams were not confined to her indeed, but went from onebrain to another. They all dreamt of each other that night,as was natural, considering how thin the partitions were between them,and how strangely they had been lifted off the earth to sit next eachother in mid-ocean, and see every detail of each other's faces,and hear whatever they chanced to say.
Chapter 4
    Next morning Clarissa was up before anyone else. She dressed,and was out on deck, breathing the fresh air of a calm morning,and, making the circuit of the ship for the second time,she ran straight into the lean person of Mr. Grice, the steward.
　　She apologised, and at the same time asked him to enlighten her:
　　what were those shiny brass stands for, half glass on the top?
　　She had been wondering, and could not guess. When he had done explaining,she cried enthusiastically:
　　"I do think that to be a sailor must be the finest thing in the world!""And what d'you know about it?" said Mr. Grice, kindling in astrange manner. "Pardon me. What does any man or woman broughtup in England know about the sea? They profess to know; but they don't."The bitterness with which he spoke was ominous of what was to come.
　　He led her off to his own quarters, and, sitting on the edgeof a brass-bound table, looking uncommonly like a sea-gull,with her white tapering body and thin alert face, Mrs. Dallowayhad to listen to the tirade of a fanatical man. Did she realise,to begin with, what a very small part of the world the land was?
　　How peaceful, how beautiful, how benignant in comparison the sea?
　　The deep waters could sustain Europe unaided if every earthly animaldied of the plague to-morrow. Mr. Grice recalled dreadful sightswhich he had seen in the richest city of the world--men and womenstanding in line hour after hour to receive a mug of greasy soup.
　　"And I thought of the good flesh down here waiting and asking tobe caught. I'm not exactly a Protestant, and I'm not a Catholic,but I could almost pray for the days of popery to come again--because of the fasts."As he talked he kept opening drawers and moving little glass jars.
　　Here were the treasures which the great ocean had bestowed upon him--pale fish in greenish liquids, blobs of jelly with streaming tresses,fish with lights in their heads, they lived so deep.
　　"They have swum about among bones," Clarissa sighed.
　　"You're thinking of Shakespeare," said Mr. Grice, and taking downa copy from a shelf well lined with books, recited in an emphaticnasal voice:
　　Full fathom five thy father lies,"A grand fellow, Shakespeare," he said, replacing the volume.
　　Clarissa was so glad to hear him say so.
　　"Which is your favourite play? I wonder if it's the same as mine?""_Henry the Fifth_," said Mr. Grice.
　　"Joy!" cried Clarissa. "It is!"_Hamlet_ was what you might call too introspective for Mr. Grice,the sonnets too passionate; Henry the Fifth was to him the modelof an English gentleman. But his favourite reading was Huxley,Herbert Spencer, and Henry George; while Emerson and Thomas Hardyhe read for relaxation. He was giving Mrs. Dalloway his viewsupon the present state of England when the breakfast bell rungso imperiously that she had to tear herself away, promising to comeback and be shown his sea-weeds.
　　The party, which had seemed so odd to her the night before,was already gathered round the table, still under the influenceof sleep, and therefore uncommunicative, but her entrance senta little flutter like a breath of air through them all.
　　"I've had the most interesting talk of my life!" she exclaimed,taking her seat beside Willoughby. "D'you realise that one of yourmen is a philosopher and a poet?""A very interesting fellow--that's what I always say," said Willoughby,distinguishing Mr. Grice. "Though Rachel finds him a bore.""He's a bore when he talks about currents," said Rachel. Her eyeswere full of sleep, but Mrs. Dalloway still seemed to her wonderful.
　　"I've never met a bore yet!" said Clarissa.
　　"And I should say the world was full of them!" exclaimed Helen.
　　But her beauty, which was radiant in the morning light, took thecontrariness from her words.
　　"I agree that it's the worst one can possibly say of any one,"said Clarissa. "How much rather one would be a murderer than a bore!"she added, with her usual air of saying something profound.
　　"One can fancy liking a murderer. It's the same with dogs.
　　Some dogs are awful bores, poor dears."It happened that Richard was sitting next to Rachel. She was curiouslyconscious of his presence and appearance--his well-cut clothes,his crackling shirt-front, his cuffs with blue rings round them,and the square-tipped, very clean fingers with the red stone onthe little finger of the left hand.
　　"We had a dog who was a bore and knew it," he said, addressing herin cool, easy tones. "He was a Skye terrier, one of thoselong chaps, with little feet poking out from their hair like--like caterpillars--no, like sofas I should say. Well, we had anotherdog at the same time, a black brisk animal--a Schipperke, I think,you call them. You can't imagine a greater contrast. The Skyeso slow and deliberate, looking up at you like some old gentlemanin the club, as much as to say, "You don't really mean it, do you?"and the Schipperke as quick as a knife. I liked the Skye best,I must confess. There was something pathetic about him."The story seemed to have no climax.
　　"What happened to him?" Rachel asked.
　　"That's a very sad story," said Richard, lowering his voiceand peeling an apple. "He followed my wife in the car one dayand got run over by a brute of a cyclist.""Was he killed?" asked Rachel.
　　But Clarissa at her end of the table had overheard.
　　"Don't talk of it!" she cried. "It's a thing I can't bear to thinkof to this day."Surely the tears stood in her eyes?
　　"That's the painful thing about pets," said Mr. Dalloway; "they die.
　　The first sorrow I can remember was for the death of a dormouse.
　　I regret to say that I sat upon it. Still, that didn't make one anythe less sorry. Here lies the duck that Samuel Johnson sat on, eh?
　　I was big for my age.""Then we had canaries," he continued, "a pair of ring-doves, a lemur,and at one time a martin.""Did you live in the country?" Rachel asked him.
　　"We lived in the country for six months of the year. When I say'we' I mean four sisters, a brother, and myself. There's nothinglike coming of a large family. Sisters particularly are delightful.""Dick, you were horribly spoilt!" cried Clarissa across the table.
　　"No, no. Appreciated," said Richard.
　　Rachel had other questions on the tip of her tongue; or rather oneenormous question, which she did not in the least know how to putinto words. The talk appeared too airy to admit of it.
　　"Please tell me--everything." That was what she wanted to say.
　　He had drawn apart one little chink and showed astonishing treasures.
　　It seemed to her incredible that a man like that should be willing totalk to her. He had sisters and pets, and once lived in the country.
　　She stirred her tea round and round; the bubbles which swam andclustered in the cup seemed to her like the union of their minds.
　　The talk meanwhile raced past her, and when Richard suddenly statedin a jocular tone of voice, "I'm sure Miss Vinrace, now, has secretleanings towards Catholicism," she had no idea what to answer,and Helen could not help laughing at the start she gave.
　　However, breakfast was over and Mrs. Dalloway was rising.
　　"I always think religion's like collecting beetles," she said,summing up the discussion as she went up the stairs with Helen.
　　"One person has a passion for black beetles; another hasn't; it's nogood arguing about it. What's _your_ black beetle now?""I suppose it's my children," said Helen.
　　"Ah--that's different," Clarissa breathed. "Do tell me.
　　You have a boy, haven't you? Isn't it detestable, leaving them?"It was as though a blue shadow had fallen across a pool.
　　Their eyes became deeper, and their voices more cordial.
　　Instead of joining them as they began to pace the deck, Rachel wasindignant with the prosperous matrons, who made her feel outsidetheir world and motherless, and turning back, she left them abruptly.
　　She slammed the door of her room, and pulled out her music.
　　It was all old music--Bach and Beethoven, Mozart and Purcell--the pages yellow, the engraving rough to the finger. In threeminutes she was deep in a very difficult, very classical fugue in A,and over her face came a queer remote impersonal expression ofcomplete absorption and anxious satisfaction. Now she stumbled;now she faltered and had to play the same bar twice over; but aninvisible line seemed to string the notes together, from whichrose a shape, a building. She was so far absorbed in this work,for it was really difficult to find how all these sounds shouldstand together, and drew upon the whole of her faculties, that shenever heard a knock at the door. It was burst impulsively open,and Mrs. Dalloway stood in the room leaving the door open, so thata strip of the white deck and of the blue sea appeared throughthe opening. The shape of the Bach fugue crashed to the ground.
　　"Don't let me interrupt," Clarissa implored. "I heard you playing,and I couldn't resist. I adore Bach!"Rachel flushed and fumbled her fingers in her lap. She stoodup awkwardly.
　　"It's too difficult," she said.
　　"But you were playing quite splendidly! I ought to have stayed outside.""No," said Rachel.
　　She slid _Cowper's_ _Letters_ and _Wuthering_ _Heights_ outof the arm-chair, so that Clarissa was invited to sit there.
　　"What a dear little room!" she said, looking round.
　　"Oh, _Cowper's_ _Letters>!" I've never read them. Are they nice?""Rather dull," said Rachel.
　　"He wrote awfully well, didn't he?" said Clarissa; "--if onelikes that kind of thing--finished his sentences and all that.
　　_Wuthering_ _Heights_! Ah--that's more in my line. I really couldn'texist without the Brontes! Don't you love them? Still, on the whole,I'd rather live without them than without Jane Austen."Lightly and at random though she spoke, her manner conveyedan extraordinary degree of sympathy and desire to befriend.
　　"Jane Austen? I don't like Jane Austen," said Rachel.
　　"You monster!" Clarissa exclaimed. "I can only just forgive you.
　　Tell me why?""She's so--so--well, so like a tight plait," Rachel floundered.
　　"Ah--I see what you mean. But I don't agree. And you won't whenyou're older. At your age I only liked Shelley. I can remembersobbing over him in the garden.
　　He has outsoared the shadow of our night,Envy and calumny and hate and pain-- you remember?
　　Can touch him not and torture not againFrom the contagion of the world's slow stain.
　　How divine!--and yet what nonsense!" She looked lightly round the room.
　　"I always think it's _living_, not dying, that counts. I reallyrespect some snuffy old stockbroker who's gone on adding up columnafter column all his days, and trotting back to his villa at Brixtonwith some old pug dog he worships, and a dreary little wife sittingat the end of the table, and going off to Margate for a fortnight--I assure you I know heaps like that--well, they seem to me _really_nobler than poets whom every one worships, just because they'regeniuses and die young. But I don't expect _you_ to agree with me!"She pressed Rachel's shoulder.
　　"Um-m-m--" she went on quoting--Unrest which men miscall delight--"when you're my age you'll see that the world is _crammed_ withdelightful things. I think young people make such a mistake about that--not letting themselves be happy. I sometimes think that happinessis the only thing that counts. I don't know you well enough to say,but I should guess you might be a little inclined to--when one's youngand attractive--I'm going to say it!--_every_thing's at one's feet."She glanced round as much as to say, "not only a few stuffy booksand Bach.""I long to ask questions," she continued. "You interest me so much.
　　If I'm impertinent, you must just box my ears.""And I--I want to ask questions," said Rachel with such earnestnessthat Mrs. Dalloway had to check her smile.
　　"D'you mind if we walk?" she said. "The air's so delicious."She snuffed it like a racehorse as they shut the door and stoodon deck.
　　"Isn't it good to be alive?" she exclaimed, and drew Rachel's armwithin hers.
　　"Look, look! How exquisite!"The shores of Portugal were beginning to lose their substance;but the land was still the land, though at a great distance.
　　They could distinguish the little towns that were sprinkled inthe folds of the hills, and the smoke rising faintly. The townsappeared to be very small in comparison with the great purplemountains behind them.
　　"Honestly, though," said Clarissa, having looked, "I don't like views.
　　They're too inhuman." They walked on.
　　"How odd it is!" she continued impulsively. "This time yesterdaywe'd never met. I was packing in a stuffy little room in the hotel.
　　We know absolutely nothing about each other--and yet--I feel as if I_did_ know you!""You have children--your husband was in Parliament?""You've never been to school, and you live--?""With my aunts at Richmond.""Richmond?""You see, my aunts like the Park. They like the quiet.""And you don't! I understand!" Clarissa laughed.
　　"I like walking in the Park alone; but not--with the dogs,"she finished.
　　"No; and some people _are_ dogs; aren't they?" said Clarissa,as if she had guessed a secret. "But not every one--oh no,not every one.""Not every one," said Rachel, and stopped.
　　"I can quite imagine you walking alone," said Clarissa: "and thinking--in a little world of your own. But how you will enjoy it--some day!""I shall enjoy walking with a man--is that what you mean?" said Rachel,regarding Mrs. Dalloway with her large enquiring eyes.
　　"I wasn't thinking of a man particularly," said Clarissa.
　　"But you will.""No. I shall never marry," Rachel determined.
　　"I shouldn't be so sure of that," said Clarissa. Her sidelongglance told Rachel that she found her attractive although shewas inexplicably amused.
　　"Why do people marry?" Rachel asked.
　　"That's what you're going to find out," Clarissa laughed.
　　Rachel followed her eyes and found that they rested for a second,on the robust figure of Richard Dalloway, who was engaged in strikinga match on the sole of his boot; while Willoughby expounded something,which seemed to be of great interest to them both.
　　"There's nothing like it," she concluded. "Do tell me aboutthe Ambroses. Or am I asking too many questions?""I find you easy to talk to," said Rachel.
　　The short sketch of the Ambroses was, however, somewhat perfunctory,and contained little but the fact that Mr. Ambrose was her uncle.
　　"Your mother's brother?"When a name has dropped out of use, the lightest touch upon it tells.
　　Mrs. Dalloway went on:
　　"Are you like your mother?""No; she was different," said Rachel.
　　She was overcome by an intense desire to tell Mrs. Dalloway thingsshe had never told any one--things she had not realised herselfuntil this moment.
　　"I am lonely," she began. "I want--" She did not know what she wanted,so that she could not finish the sentence; but her lip quivered.
　　But it seemed that Mrs. Dalloway was able to understand without words.
　　"I know," she said, actually putting one arm round Rachel's shoulder.
　　"When I was your age I wanted too. No one understood until Imet Richard. He gave me all I wanted. He's man and woman as well."Her eyes rested upon Mr. Dalloway, leaning upon the rail,still talking. "Don't think I say that because I'm his wife--I see his faults more clearly than I see any one else's. Whatone wants in the person one lives with is that they should keepone at one's best. I often wonder what I've done to be so happy!"she exclaimed, and a tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away,squeezed Rachel's hand, and exclaimed:
　　"How good life is!" At that moment, standing out in the fresh breeze,with the sun upon the waves, and Mrs. Dalloway's hand upon her arm,it seemed indeed as if life which had been unnamed before wasinfinitely wonderful, and too good to be true.
　　Here Helen passed them, and seeing Rachel arm-in-arm with acomparative stranger, looking excited, was amused, but at the same timeslightly irritated. But they were immediately joined by Richard, who hadenjoyed a very interesting talk with Willoughby and was in a sociable mood.
　　"Observe my Panama," he said, touching the brim of his hat.
　　"Are you aware, Miss Vinrace, how much can be done to induce fineweather by appropriate headdress? I have determined that it is a hotsummer day; I warn you that nothing you can say will shake me.
　　Therefore I am going to sit down. I advise you to follow my example."Three chairs in a row invited them to be seated.
　　Leaning back, Richard surveyed the waves.
　　"That's a very pretty blue," he said. "But there's a little toomuch of it. Variety is essential to a view. Thus, if you havehills you ought to have a river; if a river, hills. The best viewin the world in my opinion is that from Boars Hill on a fine day--it must be a fine day, mark you--A rug?--Oh, thank you, my dear.
　　. . . in that case you have also the advantage of associations--the Past.""D'you want to talk, Dick, or shall I read aloud?"Clarissa had fetched a book with the rugs.
　　"_Persuasion_," announced Richard, examining the volume.
　　"That's for Miss Vinrace," said Clarissa. "She can't bear ourbeloved Jane.""That--if I may say so--is because you have not read her," said Richard.
　　"She is incomparably the greatest female writer we possess.""She is the greatest," he continued, "and for this reason:
　　she does not attempt to write like a man. Every other woman does;on that account, I don't read 'em.""Produce your instances, Miss Vinrace," he went on, joining hisfinger-tips. "I'm ready to be converted."He waited, while Rachel vainly tried to vindicate her sex fromthe slight he put upon it.
　　"I'm afraid he's right," said Clarissa. "He generally is--the wretch!""I brought _Persuasion_," she went on, "because I thought it wasa little less threadbare than the others--though, Dick, it's nogood _your_ pretending to know Jane by heart, considering that shealways sends you to sleep!""After the labours of legislation, I deserve sleep," said Richard.
　　"You're not to think about those guns," said Clarissa, seeing thathis eye, passing over the waves, still sought the land meditatively,"or about navies, or empires, or anything." So saying she openedthe book and began to read:
　　"'Sir Walter Elliott, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who,for his own amusement, never took up any book but the _Baronetage_'--don't you know Sir Walter?--'There he found occupation for an idle hour,and consolation in a distressed one.' She does write well,doesn't she? 'There--'" She read on in a light humorous voice.
　　She was determined that Sir Walter should take her husband'smind off the guns of Britain, and divert him in an exquisite,quaint, sprightly, and slightly ridiculous world. After a time itappeared that the sun was sinking in that world, and the pointsbecoming softer. Rachel looked up to see what caused the change.
　　Richard's eyelids were closing and opening; opening and closing.
　　A loud nasal breath announced that he no longer considered appearances,that he was sound asleep.
　　"Triumph!" Clarissa whispered at the end of a sentence. Suddenly sheraised her hand in protest. A sailor hesitated; she gave the bookto Rachel, and stepped lightly to take the message--"Mr. Gricewished to know if it was convenient," etc. She followed him.
　　Ridley, who had prowled unheeded, started forward, stopped, and,with a gesture of disgust, strode off to his study. The sleepingpolitician was left in Rachel's charge. She read a sentence,and took a look at him. In sleep he looked like a coat hangingat the end of a bed; there were all the wrinkles, and the sleevesand trousers kept their shape though no longer filled out by legsand arms. You can then best judge the age and state of the coat.
　　She looked him all over until it seemed to her that he must protest.
　　He was a man of forty perhaps; and here there were lines roundhis eyes, and there curious clefts in his cheeks. Slightly batteredhe appeared, but dogged and in the prime of life.
　　"Sisters and a dormouse and some canaries," Rachel murmured,never taking her eyes off him. "I wonder, I wonder" she ceased,her chin upon her hand, still looking at him. A bell chimed behind them,and Richard raised his head. Then he opened his eyes which wore fora second the queer look of a shortsighted person's whose spectaclesare lost. It took him a moment to recover from the improprietyof having snored, and possibly grunted, before a young lady. To wakeand find oneself left alone with one was also slightly disconcerting.
　　"I suppose I've been dozing," he said. "What's happenedto everyone? Clarissa?""Mrs. Dalloway has gone to look at Mr. Grice's fish," Rachel replied.
　　"I might have guessed," said Richard. "It's a common occurrence.
　　And how have you improved the shining hour? Have you becomea convert?""I don't think I've read a line," said Rachel.
　　"That's what I always find. There are too many things to look at.
　　I find nature very stimulating myself. My best ideas have come to meout of doors.""When you were walking?""Walking--riding--yachting--I suppose the most momentous conversationsof my life took place while perambulating the great court at Trinity.
　　I was at both universities. It was a fad of my father's. He thoughtit broadening to the mind. I think I agree with him. I can remember--what an age ago it seems!--settling the basis of a future state withthe present Secretary for India. We thought ourselves very wise.
　　I'm not sure we weren't. We were happy, Miss Vinrace, and we were young--gifts which make for wisdom.""Have you done what you said you'd do?" she asked.
　　"A searching question! I answer--Yes and No. If on the one hand Ihave not accomplished what I set out to accomplish--which of us does!--on the other I can fairly say this: I have not lowered my ideal."He looked resolutely at a sea-gull, as though his ideal flewon the wings of the bird.
　　"But," said Rachel, "what _is_ your ideal?""There you ask too much, Miss Vinrace," said Richard playfully.
　　She could only say that she wanted to know, and Richard wassufficiently amused to answer.
　　"Well, how shall I reply? In one word--Unity. Unity of aim,of dominion, of progress. The dispersion of the best ideas overthe greatest area.""The English?""I grant that the English seem, on the whole, whiter than most men,their records cleaner. But, good Lord, don't run away with the ideathat I don't see the drawbacks--horrors--unmentionable things donein our very midst! I'm under no illusions. Few people, I suppose,have fewer illusions than I have. Have you ever been in a factory,Miss Vinrace!--No, I suppose not--I may say I hope not.
　　As for Rachel, she had scarcely walked through a poor street,and always under the escort of father, maid, or aunts.
　　"I was going to say that if you'd ever seen the kind of thingthat's going on round you, you'd understand what it is that makesme and men like me politicians. You asked me a moment ago whetherI'd done what I set out to do. Well, when I consider my life,there is one fact I admit that I'm proud of; owing to me some thousandsof girls in Lancashire--and many thousands to come after them--can spend an hour every day in the open air which their mothershad to spend over their looms. I'm prouder of that, I own,than I should be of writing Keats and Shelley into the bargain!"It became painful to Rachel to be one of those who write Keatsand Shelley. She liked Richard Dalloway, and warmed as he warmed.
　　He seemed to mean what he said.
　　"I know nothing!" she exclaimed.
　　"It's far better that you should know nothing," he said paternally,"and you wrong yourself, I'm sure. You play very nicely, I'm told,and I've no doubt you've read heaps of learned books."Elderly banter would no longer check her.
　　"You talk of unity," she said. "You ought to make me understand.""I never allow my wife to talk politics," he said seriously.
　　"For this reason. It is impossible for human beings, constituted asthey are, both to fight and to have ideals. If I have preserved mine,as I am thankful to say that in great measure I have, it is dueto the fact that I have been able to come home to my wife inthe evening and to find that she has spent her day in calling,music, play with the children, domestic duties--what you will;her illusions have not been destroyed. She gives me courage to go on.
　　The strain of public life is very great," he added.
　　This made him appear a battered martyr, parting every day with someof the finest gold, in the service of mankind.
　　"I can't think," Rachel exclaimed, "how any one does it!""Explain, Miss Vinrace," said Richard. "This is a matter I wantto clear up."His kindness was genuine, and she determined to take the chance hegave her, although to talk to a man of such worth and authoritymade her heart beat.
　　"It seems to me like this," she began, doing her best firstto recollect and then to expose her shivering private visions.
　　"There's an old widow in her room, somewhere, let us supposein the suburbs of Leeds."Richard bent his head to show that he accepted the widow.
　　"In London you're spending your life, talking, writing things,getting bills through, missing what seems natural. The result of itall is that she goes to her cupboard and finds a little more tea,a few lumps of sugar, or a little less tea and a newspaper.
　　Widows all over the country I admit do this. Still, there's the mindof the widow--the affections; those you leave untouched. But youwaste you own.""If the widow goes to her cupboard and finds it bare," Richard answered,"her spiritual outlook we may admit will be affected. If I maypick holes in your philosophy, Miss Vinrace, which has its merits,I would point out that a human being is not a set of compartments,but an organism. Imagination, Miss Vinrace; use your imagination;that's where you young Liberals fail. Conceive the world as a whole.
　　Now for your second point; when you assert that in trying to setthe house in order for the benefit of the young generation I amwasting my higher capabilities, I totally disagree with you.
　　I can conceive no more exalted aim--to be the citizen of the Empire.
　　Look at it in this way, Miss Vinrace; conceive the state as acomplicated machine; we citizens are parts of that machine;some fulfil more important duties; others (perhaps I am one of them)serve only to connect some obscure parts of the mechanism, concealedfrom the public eye. Yet if the meanest screw fails in its task,the proper working of the whole is imperilled."It was impossible to combine the image of a lean black widow, gazing outof her window, and longing for some one to talk to, with the imageof a vast machine, such as one sees at South Kensington, thumping,thumping, thumping. The attempt at communication had been a failure.
　　"We don't seem to understand each other," she said.
　　"Shall I say something that will make you very angry?" he replied.
　　"It won't," said Rachel.
　　"Well, then; no woman has what I may call the political instinct.
　　You have very great virtues; I am the first, I hope, to admit that;but I have never met a woman who even saw what is meantby statesmanship. I am going to make you still more angry.
　　I hope that I never shall meet such a woman. Now, Miss Vinrace,are we enemies for life?"Vanity, irritation, and a thrusting desire to be understood,urged her to make another attempt.
　　"Under the streets, in the sewers, in the wires, in the telephones,there is something alive; is that what you mean? In things likedust-carts, and men mending roads? You feel that all the time whenyou walk about London, and when you turn on a tap and the water comes?""Certainly," said Richard. "I understand you to mean thatthe whole of modern society is based upon cooperative effort.
　　If only more people would realise that, Miss Vinrace, there wouldbe fewer of your old widows in solitary lodgings!"Rachel considered.
　　"Are you a Liberal or are you a Conservative?" she asked.
　　"I call myself a Conservative forconvenience sake," said Richard, smiling. "Butthere is more in common between the two parties than people generally allow."There was a pause, which did not come on Rachel's side from any lackof things to say; as usual she could not say them, and was furtherconfused by the fact that the time for talking probably ran short.
　　She was haunted by absurd jumbled ideas--how, if one went backfar enough, everything perhaps was intelligible; everything wasin common; for the mammoths who pastured in the fields of RichmondHigh Street had turned into paving stones and boxes full of ribbon,and her aunts.
　　"Did you say you lived in the country when you were a child?"she asked.
　　Crude as her manners seemed to him, Richard was flattered.
　　There could be no doubt that her interest was genuine.
　　"I did," he smiled.
　　"And what happened?" she asked. "Or do I ask too many questions?""I'm flattered, I assure you. But--let me see--what happened?
　　Well, riding, lessons, sisters. There was an enchanted rubbish heap,I remember, where all kinds of queer things happened. Odd, what thingsimpress children! I can remember the look of the place to this day.
　　It's a fallacy to think that children are happy. They're not;they're unhappy. I've never suffered so much as I did when I wasa child.""Why?" she asked.
　　"I didn't get on well with my father," said Richard shortly.
　　"He was a very able man, but hard. Well--it makes one determinednot to sin in that way oneself. Children never forget injustice.
　　They forgive heaps of things grown-up people mind; but that sin isthe unpardonable sin. Mind you--I daresay I was a difficult childto manage; but when I think what I was ready to give! No, I wasmore sinned against than sinning. And then I went to school,where I did very fairly well; and and then, as I say, my fathersent me to both universities. . . . D'you know, Miss Vinrace,you've made me think? How little, after all, one can tell anybodyabout one's life! Here I sit; there you sit; both, I doubt not,chock-full of the most interesting experiences, ideas, emotions;yet how communicate? I've told you what every second person you meetmight tell you.""I don't think so," she said. "It's the way of saying things,isn't it, not the things?""True," said Richard. "Perfectly true." He paused. "When Ilook back over my life--I'm forty-two--what are the great factsthat stand out? What were the revelations, if I may call them so?
　　The misery of the poor and--" (he hesitated and pitched over) "love!"Upon that word he lowered his voice; it was a word that seemedto unveil the skies for Rachel.
　　"It's an odd thing to say to a young lady," he continued.
　　"But have you any idea what--what I mean by that? No, of course not.
　　I don't use the word in a conventional sense. I use it asyoung men use it. Girls are kept very ignorant, aren't they?
　　Perhaps it's wise--perhaps--You _don't_ know?"He spoke as if he had lost consciousness of what he was saying.
　　"No; I don't," she said, scarcely speaking above her breath.
　　"Warships, Dick! Over there! Look!" Clarissa, released from Mr. Grice,appreciative of all his seaweeds, skimmed towards them, gesticulating.
　　She had sighted two sinister grey vessels, low in the water,and bald as bone, one closely following the other with the lookof eyeless beasts seeking their prey. Consciousness returnedto Richard instantly.
　　"By George!" he exclaimed, and stood shielding his eyes.
　　"Ours, Dick?" said Clarissa.
　　"The Mediterranean Fleet," he answered.
　　"The _Euphrosyne_ was slowly dipping her flag. Richard raised his hat.
　　Convulsively Clarissa squeezed Rachel's hand.
　　"Aren't you glad to be English!" she said.
　　The warships drew past, casting a curious effect of disciplineand sadness upon the waters, and it was not until they were againinvisible that people spoke to each other naturally. At lunchthe talk was all of valour and death, and the magnificent qualities ofBritish admirals. Clarissa quoted one poet, Willoughby quoted another.
　　Life on board a man-of-war was splendid, so they agreed, and sailors,whenever one met them, were quite especially nice and simple.
　　This being so, no one liked it when Helen remarked that it seemedto her as wrong to keep sailors as to keep a Zoo, and that as fordying on a battle-field, surely it was time we ceased to praisecourage--"or to write bad poetry about it," snarled Pepper.
　　But Helen was really wondering why Rachel, sitting silent,looked so queer and flushed.
Chapter 5
    She was not able to follow up her observations, however, or to cometo any conclusion, for by one of those accidents which are liableto happen at sea, the whole course of their lives was now putout of order.
　　Even at tea the floor rose beneath their feet and pitched toolow again, and at dinner the ship seemed to groan and strainas though a lash were descending. She who had been a broad-backeddray-horse, upon whose hind-quarters pierrots might waltz,became a colt in a field. The plates slanted away from the knives,and Mrs. Dalloway's face blanched for a second as she helped herselfand saw the potatoes roll this way and that. Willoughby, of course,extolled the virtues of his ship, and quoted what had been saidof her by experts and distinguished passengers, for he loved hisown possessions. Still, dinner was uneasy, and directly the ladieswere alone Clarissa owned that she would be better off in bed,and went, smiling bravely.
　　Next morning the storm was on them, and no politeness could ignore it.
　　Mrs. Dalloway stayed in her room. Richard faced three meals,eating valiantly at each; but at the third, certain glazed asparagusswimming in oil finally conquered him.
　　"That beats me," he said, and withdrew.
　　"Now we are alone once more," remarked William Pepper, looking roundthe table; but no one was ready to engage him in talk, and the mealended in silence.
　　On the following day they met--but as flying leaves meet in the air.
　　Sick they were not; but the wind propelled them hastily into rooms,violently downstairs. They passed each other gasping on deck; they shoutedacross tables. They wore fur coats; and Helen was never seen withouta bandanna on her head. For comfort they retreated to their cabins,where with tightly wedged feet they let the ship bounce and tumble.
　　Their sensations were the sensations of potatoes in a sack on agalloping horse. The world outside was merely a violent grey tumult.
　　For two days they had a perfect rest from their old emotions.
　　Rachel had just enough consciousness to suppose herself a donkey onthe summit of a moor in a hail-storm, with its coat blown into furrows;then she became a wizened tree, perpetually driven back by the saltAtlantic gale.
　　Helen, on the other hand, staggered to Mrs. Dalloway's door, knocked,could not be heard for the slamming of doors and the batteringof wind, and entered.
　　There were basins, of course. Mrs. Dalloway lay half-raised ona pillow, and did not open her eyes. Then she murmured, "Oh, Dick,is that you?"Helen shouted--for she was thrown against the washstand--"Howare you?"Clarissa opened one eye. It gave her an incredibly dissipated appearance.
　　"Awful!" she gasped. Her lips were white inside.
　　Planting her feet wide, Helen contrived to pour champagne intoa tumbler with a tooth-brush in it.
　　"Champagne," she said.
　　"There's a tooth-brush in it," murmured Clarissa, and smiled;it might have been the contortion of one weeping. She drank.
　　"Disgusting," she whispered, indicating the basins. Relics ofhumour still played over her face like moonshine.
　　"Want more?" Helen shouted. Speech was again beyond Clarissa's reach.
　　The wind laid the ship shivering on her side. Pale agonies crossedMrs. Dalloway in waves. When the curtains flapped, grey lightspuffed across her. Between the spasms of the storm, Helen madethe curtain fast, shook the pillows, stretched the bed-clothes,and smoothed the hot nostrils and forehead with cold scent.
　　"You _are_ good!" Clarissa gasped. "Horrid mess!"She was trying to apologise for white underclothes fallen andscattered on the floor. For one second she opened a single eye,and saw that the room was tidy.
　　"That's nice," she gasped.
　　Helen left her; far, far away she knew that she felt a kind of likingfor Mrs. Dalloway. She could not help respecting her spirit andher desire, even in the throes of sickness, for a tidy bedroom.
　　Her petticoats, however, rose above her knees.
　　Quite suddenly the storm relaxed its grasp. It happened at tea;the expected paroxysm of the blast gave out just as it reachedits climax and dwindled away, and the ship instead of takingthe usual plunge went steadily. The monotonous order of plungingand rising, roaring and relaxing, was interfered with, and everyone at table looked up and felt something loosen within them.
　　The strain was slackened and human feelings began to peep again,as they do when daylight shows at the end of a tunnel.
　　"Try a turn with me," Ridley called across to Rachel.""Foolish!" cried Helen, but they went stumbling up the ladder.
　　Choked by the wind their spirits rose with a rush, for on the skirtsof all the grey tumult was a misty spot of gold. Instantly the worlddropped into shape; they were no longer atoms flying in the void,but people riding a triumphant ship on the back of the sea.
　　Wind and space were banished; the world floated like an apple in a tub,and the mind of man, which had been unmoored also, once more attacheditself to the old beliefs.
　　Having scrambled twice round the ship and received many sound cuffsfrom the wind, they saw a sailor's face positively shine golden.
　　They looked, and beheld a complete yellow circle of sun; next minute itwas traversed by sailing stands of cloud, and then completely hidden.
　　By breakfast the next morning, however, the sky was swept clean,the waves, although steep, were blue, and after their view of thestrange under-world, inhabited by phantoms, people began to liveamong tea-pots and loaves of bread with greater zest than ever.
　　Richard and Clarissa, however, still remained on the borderland.
　　She did not attempt to sit up; her husband stood on his feet,contemplated his waistcoat and trousers, shook his head, and then laydown again. The inside of his brain was still rising and fallinglike the sea on the stage. At four o'clock he woke from sleep andsaw the sunlight make a vivid angle across the red plush curtainsand the grey tweed trousers. The ordinary world outside slidinto his mind, and by the time he was dressed he was an Englishgentleman again.
　　He stood beside his wife. She pulled him down to her by the lapelof his coat, kissed him, and held him fast for a minute.
　　"Go and get a breath of air, Dick," she said. "You look quite washed out.
　　. . . How nice you smell! . . . And be polite to that woman.
　　She was so kind to me."Thereupon Mrs. Dalloway turned to the cool side of her pillow,terribly flattened but still invincible.
　　Richard found Helen talking to her brother-in-law, over two dishesof yellow cake and smooth bread and butter.
　　"You look very ill!" she exclaimed on seeing him. "Come and havesome tea."He remarked that the hands that moved about the cups were beautiful.
　　"I hear you've been very good to my wife," he said. "She's hadan awful time of it. You came in and fed her with champagne.
　　Were you among the saved yourself?""I? Oh, I haven't been sick for twenty years--sea-sick, I mean.""There are three stages of convalescence, I always say,"broke in the hearty voice of Willoughby. "The milk stage,the bread-and-butter stage, and the roast-beef stage. I shouldsay you were at the bread-and-butter stage." He handed him the plate.
　　"Now, I should advise a hearty tea, then a brisk walk on deck;and by dinner-time you'll be clamouring for beef, eh?" He wentoff laughing, excusing himself on the score of business.
　　"What a splendid fellow he is!" said Richard. "Always keenon something.""Yes," said Helen, "he's always been like that.""This is a great undertaking of his," Richard continued.
　　"It's a business that won't stop with ships, I should say.
　　We shall see him in Parliament, or I'm much mistaken. He's the kindof man we want in Parliament--the man who has done things."But Helen was not much interested in her brother-in-law.
　　"I expect your head's aching, isn't it?" she asked, pouring a fresh cup.
　　"Well, it is," said Richard. "It's humiliating to find what a slaveone is to one's body in this world. D'you know, I can never workwithout a kettle on the hob. As often as not I don't drink tea,but I must feel that I can if I want to.""That's very bad for you," said Helen.
　　"It shortens one's life; but I'm afraid, Mrs. Ambrose, we politiciansmust make up our minds to that at the outset. We've got to burnthe candle at both ends, or--""You've cooked your goose!" said Helen brightly.
　　"We can't make you take us seriously, Mrs. Ambrose," he protested.
　　"May I ask how you've spent your time? Reading--philosophy?" (He sawthe black book.) "Metaphysics and fishing!" he exclaimed. "If I hadto live again I believe I should devote myself to one or the other."He began turning the pages.
　　"'Good, then, is indefinable,'" he read out. "How jolly to think that'sgoing on still! 'So far as I know there is only one ethical writer,Professor Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and statedthis fact.' That's just the kind of thing we used to talk aboutwhen we were boys. I can remember arguing until five in the morningwith Duffy--now Secretary for India--pacing round and round thosecloisters until we decided it was too late to go to bed, and wewent for a ride instead. Whether we ever came to any conclusion--that's another matter. Still, it's the arguing that counts.
　　It's things like that that stand out in life. Nothing's beenquite so vivid since. It's the philosophers, it's the scholars,"he continued, "they're the people who pass the torch, who keepthe light burning by which we live. Being a politician doesn'tnecessarily blind one to that, Mrs. Ambrose.""No. Why should it?" said Helen. "But can you remember if yourwife takes sugar?"She lifted the tray and went off with it to Mrs. Dalloway.
　　Richard twisted a muffler twice round his throat and struggled upon deck. His body, which had grown white and tender in a dark room,tingled all over in the fresh air. He felt himself a man undoubtedlyin the prime of life. Pride glowed in his eye as he let the windbuffet him and stood firm. With his head slightly lowered hesheered round corners, strode uphill, and met the blast. There wasa collision. For a second he could not see what the body was hehad run into. "Sorry." "Sorry." It was Rachel who apologised.
　　They both laughed, too much blown about to speak. She drove openthe door of her room and stepped into its calm. In order to speakto her, it was necessary that Richard should follow. They stoodin a whirlpool of wind; papers began flying round in circles,the door crashed to, and they tumbled, laughing, into chairs.
　　Richard sat upon Bach.
　　"My word! What a tempest!" he exclaimed.
　　"Fine, isn't it?" said Rachel. Certainly the struggle and windhad given her a decision she lacked; red was in her cheeks,and her hair was down.
　　"Oh, what fun!" he cried. "What am I sitting on? Is this your room?
　　How jolly!" "There--sit there," she commanded. Cowper slidonce more.
　　"How jolly to meet again," said Richard. "It seems an age.
　　_Cowper's_ _Letters>? . . . Bach? . . . _Wuthering_ _Heights_?
　　. . . Is this where you meditate on the world, and then comeout and pose poor politicians with questions? In the intervalsof sea-sickness I've thought a lot of our talk. I assure you,you made me think.""I made you think! But why?""What solitary icebergs we are, Miss Vinrace! How little wecan communicate! There are lots of things I should like to tellyou about--to hear your opinion of. Have you ever read Burke?""Burke?" she repeated. "Who was Burke?""No? Well, then I shall make a point of sending you a copy.
　　_The_ _Speech_ _on_ _the_ _French_ _Revolution_--_The__American_ _Rebellion_? Which shall it be, I wonder?" He notedsomething in his pocket-book. "And then you must write and tell mewhat you think of it. This reticence--this isolation--that's what'sthe matter with modern life! Now, tell me about yourself.
　　What are your interests and occupations? I should imagine that youwere a person with very strong interests. Of course you are!
　　Good God! When I think of the age we live in, with its opportunitiesand possibilities, the mass of things to be done and enjoyed--why haven't we ten lives instead of one? But about yourself?""You see, I'm a woman," said Rachel.
　　"I know--I know," said Richard, throwing his head back, and drawinghis fingers across his eyes.
　　"How strange to be a woman! A young and beautiful woman,"he continued sententiously, "has the whole world at her feet.
　　That's true, Miss Vinrace. You have an inestimable power--for goodor for evil. What couldn't you do--" he broke off.
　　"What?" asked Rachel.
　　"You have beauty," he said. The ship lurched. Rachel fellslightly forward. Richard took her in his arms and kissed her.
　　Holding her tight, he kissed her passionately, so that she feltthe hardness of his body and the roughness of his cheek printedupon hers. She fell back in her chair, with tremendous beatsof the heart, each of which sent black waves across her eyes.
　　He clasped his forehead in his hands.
　　"You tempt me," he said. The tone of his voice was terrifying.
　　He seemed choked in fright. They were both trembling.
　　Rachel stood up and went. Her head was cold, her knees shaking,and the physical pain of the emotion was so great that she couldonly keep herself moving above the great leaps of her heart.
　　She leant upon the rail of the ship, and gradually ceased to feel,for a chill of body and mind crept over her. Far out between the waveslittle black and white sea-birds were riding. Rising and fallingwith smooth and graceful movements in the hollows of the waves theyseemed singularly detached and unconcerned.
　　"You're peaceful," she said. She became peaceful too, at the same timepossessed with a strange exultation. Life seemed to hold infinitepossibilities she had never guessed at. She leant upon the railand looked over the troubled grey waters, where the sunlight wasfitfully scattered upon the crests of the waves, until she was coldand absolutely calm again. Nevertheless something wonderful had happened.
　　At dinner, however, she did not feel exalted, but merely uncomfortable,as if she and Richard had seen something together which is hiddenin ordinary life, so that they did not like to look at each other.
　　Richard slid his eyes over her uneasily once, and never lookedat her again. Formal platitudes were manufactured with effort,but Willoughby was kindled.
　　"Beef for Mr. Dalloway!" he shouted. "Come now--after that walkyou're at the beef stage, Dalloway!"Wonderful masculine stories followed about Bright and Disraeliand coalition governments, wonderful stories which made the peopleat the dinner-table seem featureless and small. After dinner,sitting alone with Rachel under the great swinging lamp, Helen wasstruck by her pallor. It once more occurred to her that therewas something strange in the girl's behaviour.
　　"You look tired. Are you tired?" she asked.
　　"Not tired," said Rachel. "Oh, yes, I suppose I am tired."Helen advised bed, and she went, not seeing Richard again.
　　She must have been very tired for she fell asleep at once,but after an hour or two of dreamless sleep, she dreamt. She dreamtthat she was walking down a long tunnel, which grew so narrowby degrees that she could touch the damp bricks on either side.
　　At length the tunnel opened and became a vault; she foundherself trapped in it, bricks meeting her wherever she turned,alone with a little deformed man who squatted on the floor gibbering,with long nails. His face was pitted and like the face of an animal.
　　The wall behind him oozed with damp, which collected into dropsand slid down. Still and cold as death she lay, not daring to move,until she broke the agony by tossing herself across the bed,and woke crying "Oh!"Light showed her the familiar things: her clothes, fallen offthe chair; the water jug gleaming white; but the horror did not goat once. She felt herself pursued, so that she got up and actuallylocked her door. A voice moaned for her; eyes desired her.
　　All night long barbarian men harassed the ship; they came scufflingdown the passages, and stopped to snuffle at her door. She couldnot sleep again.
Chapter 6
    "That's the tragedy of life--as I always say!" said Mrs. Dalloway.
　　"Beginning things and having to end them. Still, I'm not goingto let _this_ end, if you're willing." It was the morning,the sea was calm, and the ship once again was anchored not far fromanother shore.
　　She was dressed in her long fur cloak, with the veils wound aroundher head, and once more the rich boxes stood on top of each otherso that the scene of a few days back seemed to be repeated.
　　"D'you suppose we shall ever meet in London?" said Ridley ironically.
　　"You'll have forgotten all about me by the time you step out there."He pointed to the shore of the little bay, where they could now seethe separate trees with moving branches.
　　"How horrid you are!" she laughed. "Rachel's coming to see me anyhow--the instant you get back," she said, pressing Rachel's arm.
　　"Now--you've no excuse!"With a silver pencil she wrote her name and address on the flyleafof _Persuasion_, and gave the book to Rachel. Sailors wereshouldering the luggage, and people were beginning to congregate.
　　There were Captain Cobbold, Mr. Grice, Willoughby, Helen, and anobscure grateful man in a blue jersey.
　　"Oh, it's time," said Clarissa. "Well, good-bye. I _do_ like you,"she murmured as she kissed Rachel. People in the way made itunnecessary for Richard to shake Rachel by the hand; he managedto look at her very stiffly for a second before he followed his wifedown the ship's side.
　　The boat separating from the vessel made off towards the land,and for some minutes Helen, Ridley, and Rachel leant overthe rail, watching. Once Mrs. Dalloway turned and waved;but the boat steadily grew smaller and smaller until it ceasedto rise and fall, and nothing could be seen save two resolute backs.
　　"Well, that's over," said Ridley after a long silence. "We shallnever see _them_ again," he added, turning to go to his books.
　　A feeling of emptiness and melancholy came over them; they knewin their hearts that it was over, and that they had parted for ever,and the knowledge filled them with far greater depression thanthe length of their acquaintance seemed to justify. Even as the boatpulled away they could feel other sights and sounds beginning totake the place of the Dalloways, and the feeling was so unpleasantthat they tried to resist it. For so, too, would they be forgotten.
　　In much the same way as Mrs. Chailey downstairs was sweepingthe withered rose-leaves off the dressing-table, so Helen wasanxious to make things straight again after the visitors had gone.
　　Rachel's obvious languor and listlessness made her an easy prey,and indeed Helen had devised a kind of trap. That something hadhappened she now felt pretty certain; moreover, she had come tothink that they had been strangers long enough; she wished to knowwhat the girl was like, partly of course because Rachel showedno disposition to be known. So, as they turned from the rail,she said:
　　"Come and talk to me instead of practising," and led the way tothe sheltered side where the deck-chairs were stretched in the sun.
　　Rachel followed her indifferently. Her mind was absorbed by Richard;by the extreme strangeness of what had happened, and by athousand feelings of which she had not been conscious before.
　　She made scarcely any attempt to listen to what Helen was saying,as Helen indulged in commonplaces to begin with. While Mrs. Ambrosearranged her embroidery, sucked her silk, and threaded her needle,she lay back gazing at the horizon.
　　"Did you like those people?" Helen asked her casually.
　　"Yes," she replied blankly.
　　"You talked to him, didn't you?"She said nothing for a minute.
　　"He kissed me," she said without any change of tone.
　　Helen started, looked at her, but could not make out what she felt.
　　"M-m-m'yes," she said, after a pause. "I thought he was that kindof man.""What kind of man?" said Rachel.
　　"Pompous and sentimental.""I like him," said Rachel.
　　"So you really didn't mind?"For the first time since Helen had known her Rachel's eyes litup brightly.
　　"I did mind," she said vehemently. "I dreamt. I couldn't sleep.""Tell me what happened," said Helen. She had to keep her lipsfrom twitching as she listened to Rachel's story. It was pouredout abruptly with great seriousness and no sense of humour.
　　"We talked about politics. He told me what he had done for thepoor somewhere. I asked him all sorts of questions. He told meabout his own life. The day before yesterday, after the storm,he came in to see me. It happened then, quite suddenly.
　　He kissed me. I don't know why." As she spoke she grew flushed.
　　"I was a good deal excited," she continued. "But I didn't mindtill afterwards; when--" she paused, and saw the figure of the bloatedlittle man again--"I became terrified."From the look in her eyes it was evident she was again terrified.
　　Helen was really at a loss what to say. From the little she knewof Rachel's upbringing she supposed that she had been kept entirelyignorant as to the relations of men with women. With a shynesswhich she felt with women and not with men she did not like toexplain simply what these are. Therefore she took the other courseand belittled the whole affair.
　　"Oh, well," she said, "He was a silly creature, and if I were you,I'd think no more about it.""No," said Rachel, sitting bolt upright, "I shan't do that.
　　I shall think about it all day and all night until I find out exactlywhat it does mean.""Don't you ever read?" Helen asked tentatively.
　　"_Cowper's_ _Letters_--that kind of thing. Father gets them for meor my Aunts."Helen could hardly restrain herself from saying out loud what shethought of a man who brought up his daughter so that at the ageof twenty-four she scarcely knew that men desired women and wasterrified by a kiss. She had good reason to fear that Rachelhad made herself incredibly ridiculous.
　　"You don't know many men?" she asked.
　　"Mr. Pepper," said Rachel ironically.
　　"So no one's ever wanted to marry you?""No," she answered ingenuously.
　　Helen reflected that as, from what she had said, Rachel certainlywould think these things out, it might be as well to help her.
　　"You oughtn't to be frightened," she said. "It's the most naturalthing in the world. Men will want to kiss you, just as they'llwant to marry you. The pity is to get things out of proportion.
　　It's like noticing the noises people make when they eat, or menspitting; or, in short, any small thing that gets on one's nerves."Rachel seemed to be inattentive to these remarks.
　　"Tell me," she said suddenly, "what are those women in Piccadilly?""In Picadilly? They are prostituted," said Helen.
　　"It _is_ terrifying--it _is_ disgusting," Rachel asserted, as if sheincluded Helen in the hatred.
　　"It is," said Helen. "But--""I did like him," Rachel mused, as if speaking to herself.
　　"I wanted to talk to him; I wanted to know what he'd done.
　　The women in Lancashire--"It seemed to her as she recalled their talk that there was somethinglovable about Richard, good in their attempted friendship,and strangely piteous in the way they had parted.
　　The softening of her mood was apparent to Helen.
　　"You see," she said, "you must take things as they are; and if you wantfriendship with men you must run risks. Personally," she continued,breaking into a smile, "I think it's worth it; I don't mindbeing kissed; I'm rather jealous, I believe, that Mr. Dalloway kissedyou and didn't kiss me. Though," she added, "he bored me considerably."But Rachel did not return the smile or dismiss the whole affair,as Helen meant her to. Her mind was working very quickly,inconsistently and painfully. Helen's words hewed down great blockswhich had stood there always, and the light which came in was cold.
　　After sitting for a time with fixed eyes, she burst out:
　　"So that's why I can't walk alone!"By this new light she saw her life for the first time a creepinghedged-in thing, driven cautiously between high walls,here turned aside, there plunged in darkness, made dull andcrippled for ever--her life that was the only chance she had--a thousand words and actions became plain to her.
　　"Because men are brutes! I hate men!" she exclaimed.
　　"I thought you said you liked him?" said Helen.
　　"I liked him, and I liked being kissed," she answered, as if thatonly added more difficulties to her problem.
　　Helen was surprised to see how genuine both shock and problem were,but she could think of no way of easing the difficulty except by goingon talking. She wanted to make her niece talk, and so to understandwhy this rather dull, kindly, plausible politician had made so deepan impression on her, for surely at the age of twenty-four thiswas not natural.
　　"And did you like Mrs. Dalloway too?" she asked.
　　As she spoke she saw Rachel redden; for she remembered silly thingsshe had said, and also, it occurred to her that she treated thisexquisite woman rather badly, for Mrs. Dalloway had said that sheloved her husband.
　　"She was quite nice, but a thimble-pated creature," Helen continued.
　　"I never heard such nonsense! Chitter-chatter-chitter-chatter--fish and the Greek alphabet--never listened to a word any one said--chock-full of idiotic theories about the way to bring up children--I'd far rather talk to him any day. He was pompous, but he did atleast understand what was said to him."The glamour insensibly faded a little both from Richard and Clarissa.
　　They had not been so wonderful after all, then, in the eyes of amature person.
　　"It's very difficult to know what people are like," Rachel remarked,and Helen saw with pleasure that she spoke more naturally.
　　"I suppose I was taken in."There was little doubt about that according to Helen, but sherestrained herself and said aloud:
　　"One has to make experiments.""And they _were_ nice," said Rachel. "They were extraordinarilyinteresting." She tried to recall the image of the world as alive thing that Richard had given her, with drains like nerves,and bad houses like patches of diseased skin. She recalledhis watch-words--Unity--Imagination, and saw again the bubblesmeeting in her tea-cup as he spoke of sisters and canaries,boyhood and his father, her small world becoming wonderfully enlarged.
　　"But all people don't seem to you equally interesting, do they?"asked Mrs. Ambrose.
　　Rachel explained that most people had hitherto been symbols;but that when they talked to one they ceased to be symbols,and became--"I could listen to them for ever!" she exclaimed.
　　She then jumped up, disappeared downstairs for a minute, and came backwith a fat red book.
　　"_Who's_ _Who_," she said, laying it upon Helen's knee and turningthe pages. "It gives short lives of people--for instance:
　　'Sir Roland Beal; born 1852; parents from Moffatt; educated at Rugby;passed first into R.E.; married 1878 the daughter of T. Fishwick;served in the Bechuanaland Expedition 1884-85 (honourably mentioned). Clubs:
　　United Service, Naval and Military. Recreations: an enthusiastic curler.'"Sitting on the deck at Helen's feet she went on turning thepages and reading biographies of bankers, writers, clergymen,sailors, surgeons, judges, professors, statesmen, editors,philanthropists, merchants, and actresses; what clubs they belongedto, where they lived, what games they played, and how many acres they owned.
　　She became absorbed in the book.
　　Helen meanwhile stitched at her embroidery and thought over the thingsthey had said. Her conclusion was that she would very much like toshow her niece, if it were possible, how to live, or as she put it,how to be a reasonable person. She thought that there must be somethingwrong in this confusion between politics and kissing politicians,and that an elder person ought to be able to help.
　　"I quite agree," she said, "that people are very interesting;only--" Rachel, putting her finger between the pages, looked up enquiringly.
　　"Only I think you ought to discriminate," she ended. "It's a pityto be intimate with people who are--well, rather second-rate,like the Dalloways, and to find it out later.""But how does one know?" Rachel asked.
　　"I really can't tell you," replied Helen candidly, after amoment's thought. "You'll have to find out for yourself. But try and--Why don't you call me Helen?" she added. "'Aunt's' a horrid name.
　　I never liked my Aunts.""I should like to call you Helen," Rachel answered.
　　"D'you think me very unsympathetic?"Rachel reviewed the points which Helen had certainly failedto understand; they arose chiefly from the difference of nearlytwenty years in age between them, which made Mrs. Ambrose appeartoo humorous and cool in a matter of such moment.
　　"No," she said. "Some things you don't understand, of course.""Of course," Helen agreed. "So now you can go ahead and be a personon your own account," she added.
　　The vision of her own personality, of herself as a real everlastingthing, different from anything else, unmergeable, like the seaor the wind, flashed into Rachel's mind, and she became profoundlyexcited at the thought of living.
　　"I can by m-m-myself," she stammered, "in spite of you, in spiteof the Dalloways, and Mr. Pepper, and Father, and my Aunts, in spiteof these?" She swept her hand across a whole page of statesmenand soldiers.
　　"In spite of them all," said Helen gravely. She then put down her needle,and explained a plan which had come into her head as they talked.
　　Instead of wandering on down the Amazons until she reached somesulphurous tropical port, where one had to lie within doors all daybeating off insects with a fan, the sensible thing to do surelywas to spend the season with them in their villa by the seaside,where among other advantages Mrs. Ambrose herself would be at hand to--"After all, Rachel," she broke off, "it's silly to pretend thatbecause there's twenty years' difference between us we thereforecan't talk to each other like human beings.""No; because we like each other," said Rachel.
　　"Yes," Mrs. Ambrose agreed.
　　That fact, together with other facts, had been made clear by theirtwenty minutes' talk, although how they had come to these conclusionsthey could not have said.
　　However they were come by, they were sufficiently serious to sendMrs. Ambrose a day or two later in search of her brother-in-law. Shefound him sitting in his room working, applying a stout blue pencilauthoritatively to bundles of filmy paper. Papers lay to left andto right of him, there were great envelopes so gorged with papersthat they spilt papers on to the table. Above him hung a photographof a woman's head. The need of sitting absolutely still beforea Cockney photographer had given her lips a queer little pucker,and her eyes for the same reason looked as though she thoughtthe whole situation ridiculous. Nevertheless it was the headof an individual and interesting woman, who would no doubt haveturned and laughed at Willoughby if she could have caught his eye;but when he looked up at her he sighed profoundly. In his mindthis work of his, the great factories at Hull which showed likemountains at night, the ships that crossed the ocean punctually,the schemes for combining this and that and building up a solidmass of industry, was all an offering to her; he laid his successat her feet; and was always thinking how to educate his daughterso that Theresa might be glad. He was a very ambitious man;and although he had not been particularly kind to her while she lived,as Helen thought, he now believed that she watched him from Heaven,and inspired what was good in him.
　　Mrs. Ambrose apologised for the interruption, and asked whethershe might speak to him about a plan of hers. Would he consentto leave his daughter with them when they landed, instead of takingher on up the Amazons?
　　"We would take great care of her," she added, "and we should reallylike it."Willoughby looked very grave and carefully laid aside his papers.
　　"She's a good girl," he said at length. "There is a likeness?"--he nodded his head at the photograph of Theresa and sighed. Helen lookedat Theresa pursing up her lips before the Cockney photographer.
　　It suggested her in an absurd human way, and she felt an intensedesire to share some joke.
　　"She's the only thing that's left to me," sighed Willoughby.
　　"We go on year after year without talking about these things--"He broke off. "But it's better so. Only life's very hard."Helen was sorry for him, and patted him on the shoulder, but shefelt uncomfortable when her brother-in-law expressed his feelings,and took refuge in praising Rachel, and explaining why she thoughther plan might be a good one.
　　"True," said Willoughby when she had done. "The social conditionsare bound to be primitive. I should be out a good deal. I agreedbecause she wished it. And of course I have complete confidencein you. . . . You see, Helen," he continued, becoming confidential,"I want to bring her up as her mother would have wished. I don'thold with these modern views--any more than you do, eh? She's a nicequiet girl, devoted to her music--a little less of _that_ woulddo no harm. Still, it's kept her happy, and we lead a very quietlife at Richmond. I should like her to begin to see more people.
　　I want to take her about with me when I get home. I've half a mindto rent a house in London, leaving my sisters at Richmond, and takeher to see one or two people who'd be kind to her for my sake.
　　I'm beginning to realise," he continued, stretching himself out,"that all this is tending to Parliament, Helen. It's the only wayto get things done as one wants them done. I talked to Dallowayabout it. In that case, of course, I should want Rachel to be ableto take more part in things. A certain amount of entertaining wouldbe necessary--dinners, an occasional evening party. One's constituentslike to be fed, I believe. In all these ways Rachel could beof great help to me. So," he wound up, "I should be very glad,if we arrange this visit (which must be upon a business footing,mind), if you could see your way to helping my girl, bringing her out--she's a little shy now,--making a woman of her, the kind of womanher mother would have liked her to be," he ended, jerking his head atthe photograph.
　　Willoughby's selfishness, though consistent as Helen saw with realaffection for his daughter, made her determined to have the girlto stay with her, even if she had to promise a complete courseof instruction in the feminine graces. She could not help laughingat the notion of it--Rachel a Tory hostess!--and marvelling as sheleft him at the astonishing ignorance of a father.
　　Rachel, when consulted, showed less enthusiasm than Helen couldhave wished. One moment she was eager, the next doubtful. Visions ofa great river, now blue, now yellow in the tropical sun and crossedby bright birds, now white in the moon, now deep in shade with movingtrees and canoes sliding out from the tangled banks, beset her.
　　Helen promised a river. Then she did not want to leave her father.
　　That feeling seemed genuine too, but in the end Helen prevailed,although when she had won her case she was beset by doubts,and more than once regretted the impulse which had entangled herwith the fortunes of another human being.
Chapter 7
    From a distance the _Euphrosyne_ looked very small. Glasses wereturned upon her from the decks of great liners, and she was pronounceda tramp, a cargo-boat, or one of those wretched little passengersteamers where people rolled about among the cattle on deck.
　　The insect-like figures of Dalloways, Ambroses, and Vinraces werealso derided, both from the extreme smallness of their personsand the doubt which only strong glasses could dispel as to whetherthey were really live creatures or only lumps on the rigging.
　　Mr. Pepper with all his learning had been mistaken for a cormorant,and then, as unjustly, transformed into a cow. At night,indeed, when the waltzes were swinging in the saloon, and giftedpassengers reciting, the little ship--shrunk to a few beads of lightout among the dark waves, and one high in air upon the mast-head--seemed something mysterious and impressive to heated partnersresting from the dance. She became a ship passing in the night--an emblem of the loneliness of human life, an occasion for queerconfidences and sudden appeals for sympathy.
　　On and on she went, by day and by night, following her path, until onemorning broke and showed the land. Losing its shadow-like appearanceit became first cleft and mountainous, next coloured grey and purple,next scattered with white blocks which gradually separated themselves,and then, as the progress of the ship acted upon the view like afield-glass of increasing power, became streets of houses. By nineo'clock the _Euphrosyne_ had taken up her position in the middleof a great bay; she dropped her anchor; immediately, as if she werea recumbent giant requiring examination, small boats came swarmingabout her. She rang with cries; men jumped on to her; her deckwas thumped by feet. The lonely little island was invaded from allquarters at once, and after four weeks of silence it was bewilderingto hear human speech. Mrs. Ambrose alone heeded none of this stir.
　　She was pale with suspense while the boat with mail bags was makingtowards them. Absorbed in her letters she did not notice that shehad left the _Euphrosyne_, and felt no sadness when the ship liftedup her voice and bellowed thrice like a cow separated from its calf.
　　"The children are well!" she exclaimed. Mr. Pepper, who sat opposite witha great mound of bag and rug upon his knees, said, "Gratifying." Rachel,to whom the end of the voyage meant a complete change of perspective,was too much bewildered by the approach of the shore to realisewhat children were well or why it was gratifying. Helen went on reading.
　　Moving very slowly, and rearing absurdly high over each wave,the little boat was now approaching a white crescent of sand.
　　Behind this was a deep green valley, with distinct hills on either side.
　　On the slope of the right-hand hill white houses with brown roofswere settled, like nesting sea-birds, and at intervals cypressesstriped the hill with black bars. Mountains whose sides wereflushed with red, but whose crowns were bald, rose as a pinnacle,half-concealing another pinnacle behind it. The hour beingstill early, the whole view was exquisitely light and airy;the blues and greens of sky and tree were intense but not sultry.
　　As they drew nearer and could distinguish details, the effect ofthe earth with its minute objects and colours and different formsof life was overwhelming after four weeks of the sea, and keptthem silent.
　　"Three hundred years odd," said Mr. Pepper meditatively at length.
　　As nobody said, "What?" he merely extracted a bottle and swalloweda pill. The piece of information that died within him was to the effectthat three hundred years ago five Elizabethan barques had anchoredwhere the _Euphrosyne_ now floated. Half-drawn up upon the beachlay an equal number of Spanish galleons, unmanned, for the countrywas still a virgin land behind a veil. Slipping across the water,the English sailors bore away bars of silver, bales of linen,timbers of cedar wood, golden crucifixes knobbed with emeralds.
　　When the Spaniards came down from their drinking, a fight ensued,the two parties churning up the sand, and driving each other intothe surf. The Spaniards, bloated with fine living upon the fruitsof the miraculous land, fell in heaps; but the hardy Englishmen,tawny with sea-voyaging, hairy for lack of razors, with muscleslike wire, fangs greedy for flesh, and fingers itching for gold,despatched the wounded, drove the dying into the sea, and soonreduced the natives to a state of superstitious wonderment.
　　Here a settlement was made; women were imported; children grew.
　　All seemed to favour the expansion of the British Empire, and hadthere been men like Richard Dalloway in the time of Charles the First,the map would undoubtedly be red where it is now an odious green.
　　But it must be supposed that the political mind of that age lackedimagination, and, merely for want of a few thousand pounds and a fewthousand men, the spark died that should have been a conflagration.
　　From the interior came Indians with subtle poisons, naked bodies,and painted idols; from the sea came vengeful Spaniards and rapaciousPortuguese; exposed to all these enemies (though the climate provedwonderfully kind and the earth abundant) the English dwindled awayand all but disappeared. Somewhere about the middle of the seventeenthcentury a single sloop watched its season and slipped out by night,bearing within it all that was left of the great British colony,a few men, a few women, and perhaps a dozen dusky children.
　　English history then denies all knowledge of the place. Owing toone cause and another civilisation shifted its centre to a spotsome four or five hundred miles to the south, and to-day SantaMarina is not much larger than it was three hundred years ago.
　　In population it is a happy compromise, for Portuguese fathers wedIndian mothers, and their children intermarry with the Spanish.
　　Although they get their ploughs from Manchester, they make theircoats from their own sheep, their silk from their own worms,and their furniture from their own cedar trees, so that in artsand industries the place is still much where it was in Elizabethandays.
　　The reasons which had drawn the English across the sea to founda small colony within the last ten years are not so easily described,and will never perhaps be recorded in history books. Granted facilityof travel, peace, good trade, and so on, there was besides a kindof dissatisfaction among the English with the older countriesand the enormous accumulations of carved stone, stained glass,and rich brown painting which they offered to the tourist.
　　The movement in search of something new was of course infinitely small,affecting only a handful of well-to-do people. It began by a fewschoolmasters serving their passage out to South America as the pursersof tramp steamers. They returned in time for the summer term,when their stories of the splendours and hardships of life at sea,the humours of sea-captains, the wonders of night and dawn, and themarvels of the place delighted outsiders, and sometimes found their wayinto print. The country itself taxed all their powers of description,for they said it was much bigger than Italy, and really noblerthan Greece. Again, they declared that the natives were strangelybeautiful, very big in stature, dark, passionate, and quick to seizethe knife. The place seemed new and full of new forms of beauty,in proof of which they showed handkerchiefs which the women had wornround their heads, and primitive carvings coloured bright greensand blues. Somehow or other, as fashions do, the fashion spread;an old monastery was quickly turned into a hotel, while a famousline of steamships altered its route for the convenience of passengers.
　　Oddly enough it happened that the least satisfactory of HelenAmbrose's brothers had been sent out years before to make his fortune,at any rate to keep clear of race-horses, in the very spotwhich had now become so popular. Often, leaning upon the columnin the verandah, he had watched the English ships with Englishschoolmasters for pursers steaming into the bay. Having at lengthearned enough to take a holiday, and being sick of the place,he proposed to put his villa, on the slope of the mountain,at his sister's disposal. She, too, had been a little stirred bythe talk of a new world, where there was always sun and never a fog,which went on around her, and the chance, when they were planningwhere to spend the winter out of England, seemed too good to be missed.
　　For these reasons she determined to accept Willoughby's offerof free passages on his ship, to place the children with theirgrand-parents, and to do the thing thoroughly while she was about it.
　　Taking seats in a carriage drawn by long-tailed horses with pheasants'
　　feathers erect between their ears, the Ambroses, Mr. Pepper,and Rachel rattled out of the harbour. The day increased in heatas they drove up the hill. The road passed through the town,where men seemed to be beating brass and crying "Water," wherethe passage was blocked by mules and cleared by whips and curses,where the women walked barefoot, their heads balancing baskets,and cripples hastily displayed mutilated members; it issued amongsteep green fields, not so green but that the earth showed through.
　　Great trees now shaded all but the centre of the road, and amountain stream, so shallow and so swift that it plaited itselfinto strands as it ran, raced along the edge. Higher they went,until Ridley and Rachel walked behind; next they turned alonga lane scattered with stones, where Mr. Pepper raised his stick andsilently indicated a shrub, bearing among sparse leaves a voluminouspurple blossom; and at a rickety canter the last stage of the waywas accomplished.
　　The villa was a roomy white house, which, as is the case with mostcontinental houses, looked to an English eye frail, ramshackle,and absurdly frivolous, more like a pagoda in a tea-garden than aplace where one slept. The garden called urgently for the servicesof gardener. Bushes waved their branches across the paths,and the blades of grass, with spaces of earth between them,could be counted. In the circular piece of ground in front ofthe verandah were two cracked vases, from which red flowers drooped,with a stone fountain between them, now parched in the sun.
　　The circular garden led to a long garden, where the gardener'sshears had scarcely been, unless now and then, when he cut a boughof blossom for his beloved. A few tall trees shaded it, and roundbushes with wax-like flowers mobbed their heads together in a row.
　　A garden smoothly laid with turf, divided by thick hedges, with raisedbeds of bright flowers, such as we keep within walls in England,would have been out of place upon the side of this bare hill.
　　There was no ugliness to shut out, and the villa looked straightacross the shoulder of a slope, ribbed with olive trees, to the sea.
　　The indecency of the whole place struck Mrs. Chailey forcibly.
　　There were no blinds to shut out the sun, nor was there any furnitureto speak of for the sun to spoil. Standing in the bare stone hall,and surveying a staircase of superb breadth, but cracked and carpetless,she further ventured the opinion that there were rats, as largeas terriers at home, and that if one put one's foot down with anyforce one would come through the floor. As for hot water--at thispoint her investigations left her speechless.
　　"Poor creature!" she murmured to the sallow Spanish servant-girlwho came out with the pigs and hens to receive them, "no wonder youhardly look like a human being!" Maria accepted the complimentwith an exquisite Spanish grace. In Chailey's opinion they wouldhave done better to stay on board an English ship, but none knewbetter than she that her duty commanded her to stay.
　　When they were settled in, and in train to find daily occupation,there was some speculation as to the reasons which inducedMr. Pepper to stay, taking up his lodging in the Ambroses' house.
　　Efforts had been made for some days before landing to impressupon him the advantages of the Amazons.
　　"That great stream!" Helen would begin, gazing as if she sawa visionary cascade, "I've a good mind to go with you myself,Willoughby--only I can't. Think of the sunsets and the moonrises--I believe the colours are unimaginable.""There are wild peacocks," Rachel hazarded.
　　"And marvellous creatures in the water," Helen asserted.
　　"One might discover a new reptile," Rachel continued.
　　"There's certain to be a revolution, I'm told," Helen urged.
　　The effect of these subterfuges was a little dashed by Ridley, who,after regarding Pepper for some moments, sighed aloud, "Poor fellow!"and inwardly speculated upon the unkindness of women.
　　He stayed, however, in apparent contentment for six days,playing with a microscope and a notebook in one of the many sparselyfurnished sitting-rooms, but on the evening of the seventh day,as they sat at dinner, he appeared more restless than usual.
　　The dinner-table was set between two long windows which were leftuncurtained by Helen's orders. Darkness fell as sharply as a knifein this climate, and the town then sprang out in circles and linesof bright dots beneath them. Buildings which never showed by dayshowed by night, and the sea flowed right over the land judgingby the moving lights of the steamers. The sight fulfilled the samepurpose as an orchestra in a London restaurant, and silencehad its setting. William Pepper observed it for some time;he put on his spectacles to contemplate the scene.
　　"I've identified the big block to the left," he observed, and pointedwith his fork at a square formed by several rows of lights.
　　"One should infer that they can cook vegetables," he added.
　　"An hotel?" said Helen.
　　"Once a monastery," said Mr. Pepper.
　　Nothing more was said then, but, the day after, Mr. Pepper returnedfrom a midday walk, and stood silently before Helen who was readingin the verandah.
　　"I've taken a room over there," he said.
　　"You're not going?" she exclaimed.
　　"On the whole--yes," he remarked. "No private cook _can_ cook vegetables."Knowing his dislike of questions, which she to some extent shared,Helen asked no more. Still, an uneasy suspicion lurked in her mindthat William was hiding a wound. She flushed to think that her words,or her husband's, or Rachel's had penetrated and stung. She washalf-moved to cry, "Stop, William; explain!" and would have returnedto the subject at luncheon if William had not shown himself inscrutableand chill, lifting fragments of salad on the point of his fork,with the gesture of a man pronging seaweed, detecting gravel,suspecting germs.
　　"If you all die of typhoid I won't be responsible!" he snapped.
　　"If you die of dulness, neither will I," Helen echoed in her heart.
　　She reflected that she had never yet asked him whether he had beenin love. They had got further and further from that subject insteadof drawing nearer to it, and she could not help feeling it a reliefwhen William Pepper, with all his knowledge, his microscope,his note-books, his genuine kindliness and good sense, but a certaindryness of soul, took his departure. Also she could not helpfeeling it sad that friendships should end thus, although in thiscase to have the room empty was something of a comfort, and shetried to console herself with the reflection that one never knowshow far other people feel the things they might be supposed to feel.
Chapter 8
    The next few months passed away, as many years can pass away,without definite events, and yet, if suddenly disturbed, it wouldbe seen that such months or years had a character unlike others.
　　The three months which had passed had brought them to the beginningof March. The climate had kept its promise, and the changeof season from winter to spring had made very little difference,so that Helen, who was sitting in the drawing-room with a pen inher hand, could keep the windows open though a great fire of logsburnt on one side of her. Below, the sea was still blue and theroofs still brown and white, though the day was fading rapidly.
　　It was dusk in the room, which, large and empty at all times,now appeared larger and emptier than usual. Her own figure, as shesat writing with a pad on her knee, shared the general effect of sizeand lack of detail, for the flames which ran along the branches,suddenly devouring little green tufts, burnt intermittently and sentirregular illuminations across her face and the plaster walls.
　　There were no pictures on the walls but here and there boughsladen with heavy-petalled flowers spread widely against them.
　　Of the books fallen on the bare floor and heaped upon the large table,it was only possible in this light to trace the outline.
　　Mrs. Ambrose was writing a very long letter. Beginning "Dear Bernard,"it went on to describe what had been happening in the Villa SanGervasio during the past three months, as, for instance, that theyhad had the British Consul to dinner, and had been taken over a Spanishman-of-war, and had seen a great many processions and religious festivals,which were so beautiful that Mrs. Ambrose couldn't conceive why,if people must have a religion, they didn't all become Roman Catholics.
　　They had made several expeditions though none of any length. It wasworth coming if only for the sake of the flowering trees which grewwild quite near the house, and the amazing colours of sea and earth.
　　The earth, instead of being brown, was red, purple, green. "You won'tbelieve me," she added, "there is no colour like it in England."She adopted, indeed, a condescending tone towards that poor island,which was now advancing chilly crocuses and nipped violets in nooks,in copses, in cosy corners, tended by rosy old gardeners in mufflers,who were always touching their hats and bobbing obsequiously.
　　She went on to deride the islanders themselves. Rumours of London allin a ferment over a General Election had reached them even out here.
　　"It seems incredible," she went on, "that people should care whetherAsquith is in or Austen Chamberlin out, and while you scream yourselveshoarse about politics you let the only people who are trying forsomething good starve or simply laugh at them. When have you everencouraged a living artist? Or bought his best work? Why are youall so ugly and so servile? Here the servants are human beings.
　　They talk to one as if they were equals. As far as I can tell thereare no aristocrats."Perhaps it was the mention of aristocrats that reminded her ofRichard Dalloway and Rachel, for she ran on with the same penfulto describe her niece.
　　"It's an odd fate that has put me in charge of a girl," she wrote,"considering that I have never got on well with women, or had muchto do with them. However, I must retract some of the things that Ihave said against them. If they were properly educated I don't seewhy they shouldn't be much the same as men--as satisfactory I mean;though, of course, very different. The question is, how shouldone educate them. The present method seems to me abominable.
　　This girl, though twenty-four, had never heard that men desired women,and, until I explained it, did not know how children were born.
　　Her ignorance upon other matters as important" (here Mrs. Ambrose'sletter may not be quoted) . . ."was complete. It seems to me notmerely foolish but criminal to bring people up like that. Let alonethe suffering to them, it explains why women are what they are--the wonder is they're no worse. I have taken it upon myselfto enlighten her, and now, though still a good deal prejudiced andliable to exaggerate, she is more or less a reasonable human being.
　　Keeping them ignorant, of course, defeats its own object, and whenthey begin to understand they take it all much too seriously.
　　My brother-in-law really deserved a catastrophe--which he won't get.
　　I now pray for a young man to come to my help; some one, I mean,who would talk to her openly, and prove how absurd most of her ideasabout life are. Unluckily such men seem almost as rare as the women.
　　The English colony certainly doesn't provide one; artists, merchants,cultivated people--they are stupid, conventional, and flirtatious.
　　. . ." She ceased, and with her pen in her hand sat looking intothe fire, making the logs into caves and mountains, for it had growntoo dark to go on writing. Moreover, the house began to stir asthe hour of dinner approached; she could hear the plates being chinkedin the dining-room next door, and Chailey instructing the Spanishgirl where to put things down in vigorous English. The bell rang;she rose, met Ridley and Rachel outside, and they all went into dinner.
　　Three months had made but little difference in the appearance eitherof Ridley or Rachel; yet a keen observer might have thought that the girlwas more definite and self-confident in her manner than before.
　　Her skin was brown, her eyes certainly brighter, and she attendedto what was said as though she might be going to contradict it.
　　The meal began with the comfortable silence of people who are quiteat their ease together. Then Ridley, leaning on his elbow and lookingout of the window, observed that it was a lovely night.
　　"Yes," said Helen. She added, "The season's begun," looking atthe lights beneath them. She asked Maria in Spanish whether the hotelwas not filling up with visitors. Maria informed her with pridethat there would come a time when it was positively difficultto buy eggs--the shopkeepers would not mind what prices they asked;they would get them, at any rate, from the English.
　　"That's an English steamer in the bay," said Rachel, looking ata triangle of lights below. "She came in early this morning.""Then we may hope for some letters and send ours back," said Helen.
　　For some reason the mention of letters always made Ridley groan,and the rest of the meal passed in a brisk argument between husbandand wife as to whether he was or was not wholly ignored by the entirecivilised world.
　　"Considering the last batch," said Helen, "you deserve beating.
　　You were asked to lecture, you were offered a degree, and some sillywoman praised not only your books but your beauty--she said he was whatShelley would have been if Shelley had lived to fifty-five and growna beard. Really, Ridley, I think you're the vainest man I know,"she ended, rising from the table, "which I may tell you is sayinga good deal."Finding her letter lying before the fire she added a few lines to it,and then announced that she was going to take the letters now--Ridley must bring his--and Rachel?
　　"I hope you've written to your Aunts? It's high time."The women put on cloaks and hats, and after inviting Ridley to comewith them, which he emphatically refused to do, exclaiming thatRachel he expected to be a fool, but Helen surely knew better,they turned to go. He stood over the fire gazing into the depthsof the looking-glass, and compressing his face into the likenessof a commander surveying a field of battle, or a martyr watchingthe flames lick his toes, rather than that of a secluded Professor.
　　Helen laid hold of his beard.
　　"Am I a fool?" she said.
　　"Let me go, Helen.""Am I a fool?" she repeated.
　　"Vile woman!" he exclaimed, and kissed her.
　　"We'll leave you to your vanities," she called back as they wentout of the door.
　　It was a beautiful evening, still light enough to see a long waydown the road, though the stars were coming out. The pillar-boxwas let into a high yellow wall where the lane met the road,and having dropped the letters into it, Helen was for turning back.
　　"No, no," said Rachel, taking her by the wrist. "We're goingto see life. You promised.""Seeing life" was the phrase they used for their habit of strollingthrough the town after dark. The social life of Santa Marinawas carried on almost entirely by lamp-light, which the warmth ofthe nights and the scents culled from flowers made pleasant enough.
　　The young women, with their hair magnificently swept in coils,a red flower behind the ear, sat on the doorsteps, or issued outon to balconies, while the young men ranged up and down beneath,shouting up a greeting from time to time and stopping here and thereto enter into amorous talk. At the open windows merchants couldbe seen making up the day's account, and older women lifting jarsfrom shelf to shelf. The streets were full of people, men for themost part, who interchanged their views of the world as they walked,or gathered round the wine-tables at the street corner, where an oldcripple was twanging his guitar strings, while a poor girl criedher passionate song in the gutter. The two Englishwomen excitedsome friendly curiosity, but no one molested them.
　　Helen sauntered on, observing the different people in their shabbyclothes, who seemed so careless and so natural, with satisfaction.
　　"Just think of the Mall to-night!" she exclaimed at length.
　　"It's the fifteenth of March. Perhaps there's a Court."She thought of the crowd waiting in the cold spring air to seethe grand carriages go by. "It's very cold, if it's not raining,"she said. "First there are men selling picture postcards; then thereare wretched little shop-girls with round bandboxes; then thereare bank clerks in tail coats; and then--any number of dressmakers.
　　People from South Kensington drive up in a hired fly; officials havea pair of bays; earls, on the other hand, are allowed one footmanto stand up behind; dukes have two, royal dukes--so I was told--have three; the king, I suppose, can have as many as he likes.
　　And the people believe in it!"Out here it seemed as though the people of England must beshaped in the body like the kings and queens, knights and pawnsof the chessboard, so strange were their differences, so markedand so implicitly believed in.
　　They had to part in order to circumvent a crowd.
　　"They believe in God," said Rachel as they regained each other.
　　She meant that the people in the crowd believed in Him; for sheremembered the crosses with bleeding plaster figures that stoodwhere foot-paths joined, and the inexplicable mystery of a servicein a Roman Catholic church.
　　"We shall never understand!" she sighed.
　　They had walked some way and it was now night, but they could seea large iron gate a little way farther down the road on their left.
　　"Do you mean to go right up to the hotel?" Helen asked.
　　Rachel gave the gate a push; it swung open, and, seeing no oneabout and judging that nothing was private in this country,they walked straight on. An avenue of trees ran along the road,which was completely straight. The trees suddenly came to an end;the road turned a corner, and they found themselves confronted bya large square building. They had come out upon the broad terracewhich ran round the hotel and were only a few feet distant fromthe windows. A row of long windows opened almost to the ground.
　　They were all of them uncurtained, and all brilliantly lighted,so that they could see everything inside. Each window revealeda different section of the life of the hotel. They drew into oneof the broad columns of shadow which separated the windows andgazed in. They found themselves just outside the dining-room. Itwas being swept; a waiter was eating a bunch of grapes with his legacross the corner of a table. Next door was the kitchen, where theywere washing up; white cooks were dipping their arms into cauldrons,while the waiters made their meal voraciously off broken meats,sopping up the gravy with bits of crumb. Moving on, they became lostin a plantation of bushes, and then suddenly found themselves outsidethe drawing-room, where the ladies and gentlemen, having dined well,lay back in deep arm-chairs, occasionally speaking or turning overthe pages of magazines. A thin woman was flourishing up and downthe piano.
　　"What is a dahabeeyah, Charles?" the distinct voice of a widow,seated in an arm-chair by the window, asked her son.
　　It was the end of the piece, and his answer was lost in the generalclearing of throats and tapping of knees.
　　"They're all old in this room," Rachel whispered.
　　Creeping on, they found that the next window revealed two menin shirt-sleeves playing billiards with two young ladies.
　　"He pinched my arm!" the plump young woman cried, as she missedher stroke.
　　"Now you two--no ragging," the young man with the red facereproved them, who was marking.
　　"Take care or we shall be seen," whispered Helen, plucking Rachelby the arm. Incautiously her head had risen to the middle of the window.
　　Turning the corner they came to the largest room in the hotel,which was supplied with four windows, and was called the Lounge,although it was really a hall. Hung with armour and native embroideries,furnished with divans and screens, which shut off convenient corners,the room was less formal than the others, and was evidently the hauntof youth. Signor Rodriguez, whom they knew to be the managerof the hotel, stood quite near them in the doorway surveyingthe scene--the gentlemen lounging in chairs, the couples leaningover coffee-cups, the game of cards in the centre under profuseclusters of electric light. He was congratulating himself uponthe enterprise which had turned the refectory, a cold stone roomwith pots on trestles, into the most comfortable room in the house.
　　The hotel was very full, and proved his wisdom in decreeingthat no hotel can flourish without a lounge.
　　The people were scattered about in couples or parties of four,and either they were actually better acquainted, or the informalroom made their manners easier. Through the open window camean uneven humming sound like that which rises from a flock of sheeppent within hurdles at dusk. The card-party occupied the centreof the foreground.
　　Helen and Rachel watched them play for some minutes without being ableto distinguish a word. Helen was observing one of the men intently.
　　He was a lean, somewhat cadaverous man of about her own age,whose profile was turned to them, and he was the partnerof a highly-coloured girl, obviously English by birth.
　　Suddenly, in the strange way in which some words detach themselvesfrom the rest, they heard him say quite distinctly:--"All you want is practice, Miss Warrington; courage and practice--one's no good without the other.""Hughling Elliot! Of course!" Helen exclaimed. She duckedher head immediately, for at the sound of his name he looked up.
　　The game went on for a few minutes, and was then broken up bythe approach of a wheeled chair, containing a voluminous old ladywho paused by the table and said:--"Better luck to-night, Susan?""All the luck's on our side," said a young man who until now had kepthis back turned to the window. He appeared to be rather stout,and had a thick crop of hair.
　　"Luck, Mr. Hewet?" said his partner, a middle-aged lady with spectacles.
　　"I assure you, Mrs. Paley, our success is due solely to our brilliant play.""Unless I go to bed early I get practically no sleep at all,"Mrs. Paley was heard to explain, as if to justify her seizure of Susan,who got up and proceeded to wheel the chair to the door.
　　"They'll get some one else to take my place," she said cheerfully.
　　But she was wrong. No attempt was made to find another player,and after the young man had built three stories of a card-house,which fell down, the players strolled off in different directions.
　　Mr. Hewet turned his full face towards the window. They couldsee that he had large eyes obscured by glasses; his complexionwas rosy, his lips clean-shaven; and, seen among ordinary people,it appeared to be an interesting face. He came straight towards them,but his eyes were fixed not upon the eavesdroppers but upon a spotwhere the curtain hung in folds.
　　"Asleep?" he said.
　　Helen and Rachel started to think that some one had been sitting nearto them unobserved all the time. There were legs in the shadow.
　　A melancholy voice issued from above them.
　　"Two women," it said.
　　A scuffling was heard on the gravel. The women had fled. They didnot stop running until they felt certain that no eye could penetratethe darkness and the hotel was only a square shadow in the distance,with red holes regularly cut in it.
Chapter 9
    An hour passed, and the downstairs rooms at the hotel grew dimand were almost deserted, while the little box-like squares abovethem were brilliantly irradiated. Some forty or fifty peoplewere going to bed. The thump of jugs set down on the floor abovecould be heard and the clink of china, for there was not as thicka partition between the rooms as one might wish, so Miss Allan,the elderly lady who had been playing bridge, determined, givingthe wall a smart rap with her knuckles. It was only matchboard,she decided, run up to make many little rooms of one large one.
　　Her grey petticoats slipped to the ground, and, stooping, she foldedher clothes with neat, if not loving fingers, screwed her hair intoa plait, wound her father's great gold watch, and opened the completeworks of Wordsworth. She was reading the "Prelude," partly because shealways read the "Prelude" abroad, and partly because she was engagedin writing a short _Primer_ _of_ _English_ _Literature_--_Beowulf__to_ _Swinburne_--which would have a paragraph on Wordsworth.
　　She was deep in the fifth book, stopping indeed to pencil a note,when a pair of boots dropped, one after another, on the floorabove her. She looked up and speculated. Whose boots were they,she wondered. She then became aware of a swishing sound next door--a woman, clearly, putting away her dress. It was succeeded by a gentletapping sound, such as that which accompanies hair-dressing. Itwas very difficult to keep her attention fixed upon the "Prelude."Was it Susan Warrington tapping? She forced herself, however, to readto the end of the book, when she placed a mark between the pages,sighed contentedly, and then turned out the light.
　　Very different was the room through the wall, though as like inshape as one egg-box is like another. As Miss Allan read her book,Susan Warrington was brushing her hair. Ages have consecratedthis hour, and the most majestic of all domestic actions, to talkof love between women; but Miss Warrington being alone could not talk;she could only look with extreme solicitude at her own face inthe glass. She turned her head from side to side, tossing heavylocks now this way now that; and then withdrew a pace or two,and considered herself seriously.
　　"I'm nice-looking," she determined. "Not pretty--possibly," she drewherself up a little. "Yes--most people would say I was handsome."She was really wondering what Arthur Venning would say she was.
　　Her feeling about him was decidedly queer. She would not admit toherself that she was in love with him or that she wanted to marry him,yet she spent every minute when she was alone in wondering what hethought of her, and in comparing what they had done to-day withwhat they had done the day before.
　　"He didn't ask me to play, but he certainly followed me into the hall,"she meditated, summing up the evening. She was thirty years of age,and owing to the number of her sisters and the seclusion of lifein a country parsonage had as yet had no proposal of marriage.
　　The hour of confidences was often a sad one, and she had been knownto jump into bed, treating her hair unkindly, feeling herself overlookedby life in comparison with others. She was a big, well-made woman,the red lying upon her cheeks in patches that were too well defined,but her serious anxiety gave her a kind of beauty.
　　She was just about to pull back the bed-clothes when she exclaimed,"Oh, but I'm forgetting," and went to her writing-table. Abrown volume lay there stamped with the figure of the year.
　　She proceeded to write in the square ugly hand of a mature child,as she wrote daily year after year, keeping the diaries, though sheseldom looked at them.
　　"A.M.--Talked to Mrs. H. Elliot about country neighbours. She knowsthe Manns; also the Selby-Carroways. How small the world is!
　　Like her. Read a chapter of _Miss_ _Appleby's_ _Adventure_ to AuntE. P.M.--Played lawn-tennis with Mr. Perrott and Evelyn M. Don't_like_ Mr. P. Have a feeling that he is not 'quite,' thoughclever certainly. Beat them. Day splendid, view wonderful.
　　One gets used to no trees, though much too bare at first.
　　Cards after dinner. Aunt E. cheerful, though twingy, she says.
　　Mem.: _ask_ _about_ _damp_ _sheets_."She knelt in prayer, and then lay down in bed, tucking the blanketscomfortably about her, and in a few minutes her breathing showed that shewas asleep. With its profoundly peaceful sighs and hesitations it resembledthat of a cow standing up to its knees all night through in the long grass.
　　A glance into the next room revealed little more than a nose,prominent above the sheets. Growing accustomed to the darkness,for the windows were open and showed grey squares with splintersof starlight, one could distinguish a lean form, terribly likethe body of a dead person, the body indeed of William Pepper,asleep too. Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight--here were threePortuguese men of business, asleep presumably, since a snore camewith the regularity of a great ticking clock. Thirty-nine was acorner room, at the end of the passage, but late though it was--"One"struck gently downstairs--a line of light under the door showedthat some one was still awake.
　　"How late you are, Hugh!" a woman, lying in bed, said in a peevishbut solicitous voice. Her husband was brushing his teeth,and for some moments did not answer.
　　"You should have gone to sleep," he replied. "I was talkingto Thornbury.""But you know that I never can sleep when I'm waiting for you,"she said.
　　To that he made no answer, but only remarked, "Well then, we'll turnout the light." They were silent.
　　The faint but penetrating pulse of an electric bell could now be heardin the corridor. Old Mrs. Paley, having woken hungry but withouther spectacles, was summoning her maid to find the biscuit-box. Themaid having answered the bell, drearily respectful even at this hourthough muffled in a mackintosh, the passage was left in silence.
　　Downstairs all was empty and dark; but on the upper floor a light stillburnt in the room where the boots had dropped so heavily above MissAllan's head. Here was the gentleman who, a few hours previously,in the shade of the curtain, had seemed to consist entirely of legs.
　　Deep in an arm-chair he was reading the third volume of Gibbon's_History_ _of_ _the_ _Decline_ _and_ _Fall_ _of_ _Rome_ by candle-light.
　　As he read he knocked the ash automatically, now and again,from his cigarette and turned the page, while a whole processionof splendid sentences entered his capacious brow and went marchingthrough his brain in order. It seemed likely that this processmight continue for an hour or more, until the entire regiment hadshifted its quarters, had not the door opened, and the young man,who was inclined to be stout, come in with large naked feet.
　　"Oh, Hirst, what I forgot to say was--""Two minutes," said Hirst, raising his finger.
　　He safely stowed away the last words of the paragraph.
　　"What was it you forgot to say?" he asked.
　　"D'you think you _do_ make enough allowance for feelings?"asked Mr. Hewet. He had again forgotten what he had meant to say.
　　After intense contemplation of the immaculate Gibbon Mr. Hirstsmiled at the question of his friend. He laid aside his bookand considered.
　　"I should call yours a singularly untidy mind," he observed.
　　"Feelings? Aren't they just what we do allow for? We put loveup there, and all the rest somewhere down below." With his lefthand he indicated the top of a pyramid, and with his right the base.
　　"But you didn't get out of bed to tell me that," he added severely.
　　"I got out of bed," said Hewet vaguely, "merely to talk I suppose.""Meanwhile I shall undress," said Hirst. When naked of all buthis shirt, and bent over the basin, Mr. Hirst no longer impressedone with the majesty of his intellect, but with the pathos of hisyoung yet ugly body, for he stooped, and he was so thin that therewere dark lines between the different bones of his neck and shoulders.
　　"Women interest me," said Hewet, who, sitting on the bed with hischin resting on his knees, paid no attention to the undressingof Mr. Hirst.
　　"They're so stupid," said Hirst. "You're sitting on my pyjamas.""I suppose they _are_ stupid?" Hewet wondered.
　　"There can't be two opinions about that, I imagine," said Hirst,hopping briskly across the room, "unless you're in love--that fatwoman Warrington?" he enquired.
　　"Not one fat woman--all fat women," Hewet sighed.
　　"The women I saw to-night were not fat," said Hirst, who was takingadvantage of Hewet's company to cut his toe-nails.
　　"Describe them," said Hewet.
　　"You know I can't describe things!" said Hirst. "They were muchlike other women, I should think. They always are.""No; that's where we differ," said Hewet. "I say everything's different.
　　No two people are in the least the same. Take you and me now.""So I used to think once," said Hirst. "But now they're all types.
　　Don't take us,--take this hotel. You could draw circles roundthe whole lot of them, and they'd never stray outside."("You can kill a hen by doing that"), Hewet murmured.
　　"Mr. Hughling Elliot, Mrs. Hughling Elliot, Miss Allan, Mr. andMrs. Thornbury--one circle," Hirst continued. "Miss Warrington,Mr. Arthur Venning, Mr. Perrott, Evelyn M. another circle;then there are a whole lot of natives; finally ourselves.""Are we all alone in our circle?" asked Hewet.
　　"Quite alone," said Hirst. "You try to get out, but you can't.
　　You only make a mess of things by trying.""I'm not a hen in a circle," said Hewet. "I'm a dove on a tree-top.""I wonder if this is what they call an ingrowing toe-nail?"said Hirst, examining the big toe on his left foot.
　　"I flit from branch to branch," continued Hewet. "The worldis profoundly pleasant." He lay back on the bed, upon his arms.
　　"I wonder if it's really nice to be as vague as you are?" asked Hirst,looking at him. "It's the lack of continuity--that's what'sso odd bout you," he went on. "At the age of twenty-seven,which is nearly thirty, you seem to have drawn no conclusions.
　　A party of old women excites you still as though you were three."Hewet contemplated the angular young man who was neatly brushingthe rims of his toe-nails into the fire-place in silence for a moment.
　　"I respect you, Hirst," he remarked.
　　"I envy you--some things," said Hirst. "One: your capacityfor not thinking; two: people like you better than they like me.
　　Women like you, I suppose.""I wonder whether that isn't really what matters most?" said Hewet.
　　Lying now flat on the bed he waved his hand in vague circlesabove him.
　　"Of course it is," said Hirst. "But that's not the difficulty.
　　The difficulty is, isn't it, to find an appropriate object?""There are no female hens in your circle?" asked Hewet.
　　"Not the ghost of one," said Hirst.
　　Although they had known each other for three years Hirst had neveryet heard the true story of Hewet's loves. In general conversationit was taken for granted that they were many, but in privatethe subject was allowed to lapse. The fact that he had money enoughto do no work, and that he had left Cambridge after two termsowing to a difference with the authorities, and had then travelledand drifted, made his life strange at many points where his friends'
　　lives were much of a piece.
　　"I don't see your circles--I don't see them," Hewet continued.
　　"I see a thing like a teetotum spinning in and out--knocking into things--dashing from side to side--collecting numbers--more and more and more,till the whole place is thick with them. Round and round they go--out there, over the rim--out of sight."His fingers showed that the waltzing teetotums had spun over the edgeof the counterpane and fallen off the bed into infinity.
　　"Could you contemplate three weeks alone in this hotel?" asked Hirst,after a moment's pause.
　　Hewet proceeded to think.
　　"The truth of it is that one never is alone, and one never isin company," he concluded.
　　"Meaning?" said Hirst.
　　"Meaning? Oh, something about bubbles--auras--what d'you call 'em?
　　You can't see my bubble; I can't see yours; all we see of eachother is a speck, like the wick in the middle of that flame.
　　The flame goes about with us everywhere; it's not ourselves exactly,but what we feel; the world is short, or people mainly; all kindsof people.""A nice streaky bubble yours must be!" said Hirst.
　　"And supposing my bubble could run into some one else's bubble--""And they both burst?" put in Hirst.
　　"Then--then--then--" pondered Hewet, as if to himself, "it would bean e-nor-mous world," he said, stretching his arms to their full width,as though even so they could hardly clasp the billowy universe,for when he was with Hirst he always felt unusually sanguineand vague.
　　"I don't think you altogether as foolish as I used to, Hewet,"said Hirst. "You don't know what you mean but you try to say it.""But aren't you enjoying yourself here?" asked Hewet.
　　"On the whole--yes," said Hirst. "I like observing people.
　　I like looking at things. This country is amazingly beautiful.
　　Did you notice how the top of the mountain turned yellow to-night?
　　Really we must take our lunch and spend the day out. You're gettingdisgustingly fat." He pointed at the calf of Hewet's bare leg.
　　"We'll get up an expedition," said Hewet energetically. "We'll askthe entire hotel. We'll hire donkeys and--""Oh, Lord!" said Hirst, "do shut it! I can see Miss Warringtonand Miss Allan and Mrs. Elliot and the rest squatting on the stonesand quacking, 'How jolly!'""We'll ask Venning and Perrott and Miss Murgatroyd--every one we canlay hands on," went on Hewet. "What's the name of the little oldgrasshopper with the eyeglasses? Pepper?--Pepper shall lead us.""Thank God, you'll never get the donkeys," said Hirst.
　　"I must make a note of that," said Hewet, slowly dropping his feetto the floor. "Hirst escorts Miss Warrington; Pepper advances alone ona white ass; provisions equally distributed--or shall we hire a mule?
　　The matrons--there's Mrs. Paley, by Jove!--share a carriage.""That's where you'll go wrong," said Hirst. "Putting virginsamong matrons.""How long should you think that an expedition like thatwould take, Hirst?" asked Hewet.
　　"From twelve to sixteen hours I would say," said Hirst. "The timeusually occupied by a first confinement.""It will need considerable organisation," said Hewet. He wasnow padding softly round the room, and stopped to stir the bookson the table. They lay heaped one upon another.
　　"We shall want some poets too," he remarked. "Not Gibbon; no;d'you happen to have _Modern_ _Love_ or _John_ _Donne_? You see,I contemplate pauses when people get tired of looking at the view,and then it would be nice to read something rather difficult aloud.""Mrs. Paley _will_ enjoy herself," said Hirst.
　　"Mrs. Paley will enjoy it certainly," said Hewet. "It's one of thesaddest things I know--the way elderly ladies cease to read poetry.
　　And yet how appropriate this is:
　　I speak as one who plumbsLife's dim profound,One who at length can soundClear views and certain.
　　But--after love what comes?
　　A scene that lours,A few sad vacant hours,And then, the Curtain.
　　I daresay Mrs. Paley is the only one of us who can really understand that.""We'll ask her," said Hirst. "Please, Hewet, if you must go to bed,draw my curtain. Few things distress me more than the moonlight."Hewet retreated, pressing the poems of Thomas Hardy beneath his arm,and in their beds next door to each other both the young men weresoon asleep.
　　Between the extinction of Hewet's candle and the rising of a duskySpanish boy who was the first to survey the desolation of the hotelin the early morning, a few hours of silence intervened. One couldalmost hear a hundred people breathing deeply, and however wakefuland restless it would have been hard to escape sleep in the middleof so much sleep. Looking out of the windows, there was onlydarkness to be seen. All over the shadowed half of the worldpeople lay prone, and a few flickering lights in empty streetsmarked the places where their cities were built. Red and yellowomnibuses were crowding each other in Piccadilly; sumptuous womenwere rocking at a standstill; but here in the darkness an owl flittedfrom tree to tree, and when the breeze lifted the branches the moonflashed as if it were a torch. Until all people should awakeagain the houseless animals were abroad, the tigers and the stags,and the elephants coming down in the darkness to drink at pools.
　　The wind at night blowing over the hills and woods was purerand fresher than the wind by day, and the earth, robbed of detail,more mysterious than the earth coloured and divided by roadsand fields. For six hours this profound beauty existed, and thenas the east grew whiter and whiter the ground swam to the surface,the roads were revealed, the smoke rose and the people stirred,and the sun shone upon the windows of the hotel at Santa Marina untilthey were uncurtained, and the gong blaring all through the housegave notice of breakfast.
　　Directly breakfast was over, the ladies as usual circled vaguely,picking up papers and putting them down again, about the hall.
　　"And what are you going to do to-day?" asked Mrs. Elliot driftingup against Miss Warrington.
　　Mrs. Elliot, the wife of Hughling the Oxford Don, was a short woman,whose expression was habitually plaintive. Her eyes moved from thingto thing as though they never found anything sufficiently pleasantto rest upon for any length of time.
　　"I'm going to try to get Aunt Emma out into the town," said Susan.
　　"She's not seen a thing yet.""I call it so spirited of her at her age," said Mrs. Elliot,"coming all this way from her own fireside.""Yes, we always tell her she'll die on board ship," Susan replied.
　　"She was born on one," she added.
　　"In the old days," said Mrs. Elliot, "a great many people were.
　　I always pity the poor women so! We've got a lot to complain of!"She shook her head. Her eyes wandered about the table, and sheremarked irrelevantly, "The poor little Queen of Holland!
　　Newspaper reporters practically, one may say, at her bedroom door!""Were you talking of the Queen of Holland?" said the pleasant voiceof Miss Allan, who was searching for the thick pages of _The__Times_ among a litter of thin foreign sheets.
　　"I always envy any one who lives in such an excessively flat country,"she remarked.
　　"How very strange!" said Mrs. Elliot. "I find a flat countryso depressing.""I'm afraid you can't be very happy here then, Miss Allan,"said Susan.
　　"On the contrary," said Miss Allan, "I am exceedingly fond of mountains."Perceiving _The_ _Times_ at some distance, she moved off to secure it.
　　"Well, I must find my husband," said Mrs. Elliot, fidgeting away.
　　"And I must go to my aunt," said Miss Warrington, and taking upthe duties of the day they moved away.
　　Whether the flimsiness of foreign sheets and the coarseness oftheir type is any proof of frivolity and ignorance, there is nodoubt that English people scarce consider news read there as news,any more than a programme bought from a man in the street inspiresconfidence in what it says. A very respectable elderly pair,having inspected the long tables of newspapers, did not think itworth their while to read more than the headlines.
　　"The debate on the fifteenth should have reached us by now,"Mrs. Thornbury murmured. Mr. Thornbury, who was beautifully cleanand had red rubbed into his handsome worn face like traces of painton a weather-beaten wooden figure, looked over his glasses and sawthat Miss Allan had _The_ _Times_.
　　The couple therefore sat themselves down in arm-chairs and waited.
　　"Ah, there's Mr. Hewet," said Mrs. Thornbury. "Mr. Hewet,"she continued, "do come and sit by us. I was telling my husbandhow much you reminded me of a dear old friend of mine--Mary Umpleby.
　　She was a most delightful woman, I assure you. She grew roses.
　　We used to stay with her in the old days.""No young man likes to have it said that he resemblesan elderly spinster," said Mr. Thornbury.
　　"On the contrary," said Mr. Hewet, "I always think it a complimentto remind people of some one else. But Miss Umpleby--why did shegrow roses?""Ah, poor thing," said Mrs. Thornbury, "that's a long story.
　　She had gone through dreadful sorrows. At one time I think shewould have lost her senses if it hadn't been for her garden.
　　The soil was very much against her--a blessing in disguise;she had to be up at dawn--out in all weathers. And then thereare creatures that eat roses. But she triumphed. She always did.
　　She was a brave soul." She sighed deeply but at the same timewith resignation.
　　"I did not realise that I was monopolising the paper," said Miss Allan,coming up to them.
　　"We were so anxious to read about the debate," said Mrs. Thornbury,accepting it on behalf of her husband.
　　"One doesn't realise how interesting a debate can be until one hassons in the navy. My interests are equally balanced, though; I havesons in the army too; and one son who makes speeches at the Union--my baby!""Hirst would know him, I expect," said Hewet.
　　"Mr. Hirst has such an interesting face," said Mrs. Thornbury.
　　"But I feel one ought to be very clever to talk to him.
　　Well, William?" she enquired, for Mr. Thornbury grunted.
　　"They're making a mess of it," said Mr. Thornbury. He had reachedthe second column of the report, a spasmodic column, for the Irishmembers had been brawling three weeks ago at Westminster over aquestion of naval efficiency. After a disturbed paragraph or two,the column of print once more ran smoothly.
　　"You have read it?" Mrs. Thornbury asked Miss Allan.
　　"No, I am ashamed to say I have only read about the discoveriesin Crete," said Miss Allan.
　　"Oh, but I would give so much to realise the ancient world!"cried Mrs. Thornbury. "Now that we old people are alone,--we're on oursecond honeymoon,--I am really going to put myself to school again.
　　After all we are _founded_ on the past, aren't we, Mr. Hewet?
　　My soldier son says that there is still a great deal to be learntfrom Hannibal. One ought to know so much more than one does.
　　Somehow when I read the paper, I begin with the debates first, and,before I've done, the door always opens--we're a very large partyat home--and so one never does think enough about the ancientsand all they've done for us. But _you_ begin at the beginning,Miss Allan.""When I think of the Greeks I think of them as naked black men,"said Miss Allan, "which is quite incorrect, I'm sure.""And you, Mr. Hirst?" said Mrs. Thornbury, perceiving that the gauntyoung man was near. "I'm sure you read everything.""I confine myself to cricket and crime," said Hirst. "The worstof coming from the upper classes," he continued, "is that one'sfriends are never killed in railway accidents."Mr. Thornbury threw down the paper, and emphatically droppedhis eyeglasses. The sheets fell in the middle of the group,and were eyed by them all.
　　"It's not gone well?" asked his wife solicitously.
　　Hewet picked up one sheet and read, "A lady was walking yesterdayin the streets of Westminster when she perceived a cat in the windowof a deserted house. The famished animal--""I shall be out of it anyway," Mr. Thornbury interrupted peevishly.
　　"Cats are often forgotten," Miss Allan remarked.
　　"Remember, William, the Prime Minister has reserved his answer,"said Mrs. Thornbury.
　　"At the age of eighty, Mr. Joshua Harris of Eeles Park, Brondesbury,has had a son," said Hirst.
　　". . . The famished animal, which had been noticed by workmenfor some days, was rescued, but--by Jove! it bit the man's handto pieces!""Wild with hunger, I suppose," commented Miss Allan.
　　"You're all neglecting the chief advantage of being abroad,"said Mr. Hughling Elliot, who had joined the group. "You mightread your news in French, which is equivalent to reading no newsat all."Mr. Elliot had a profound knowledge of Coptic, which he concealedas far as possible, and quoted French phrases so exquisitely that itwas hard to believe that he could also speak the ordinary tongue.
　　He had an immense respect for the French.
　　"Coming?" he asked the two young men. "We ought to start beforeit's really hot.""I beg of you not to walk in the heat, Hugh," his wife pleaded,giving him an angular parcel enclosing half a chicken and some raisins.
　　"Hewet will be our barometer," said Mr. Elliot. "He will meltbefore I shall." Indeed, if so much as a drop had melted off hisspare ribs, the bones would have lain bare. The ladies were leftalone now, surrounding _The_ _Times_ which lay upon the floor.
　　Miss Allan looked at her father's watch.
　　"Ten minutes to eleven," she observed.
　　"Work?" asked Mrs. Thornbury.
　　"Work," replied Miss Allan.
　　"What a fine creature she is!" murmured Mrs. Thornbury, as the squarefigure in its manly coat withdrew.
　　"And I'm sure she has a hard life," sighed Mrs. Elliot.
　　"Oh, it _is_ a hard life," said Mrs. Thornbury. "Unmarried women--earning their livings--it's the hardest life of all.""Yet she seems pretty cheerful," said Mrs. Elliot.
　　"It must be very interesting," said Mrs. Thornbury. "I envy herher knowledge.""But that isn't what women want," said Mrs. Elliot.
　　"I'm afraid it's all a great many can hope to have," sighedMrs. Thornbury. "I believe that there are more of us than ever now.
　　Sir Harley Lethbridge was telling me only the other day how difficultit is to find boys for the navy--partly because of their teeth,it is true. And I have heard young women talk quite openly of--""Dreadful, dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. "The crown, as one maycall it, of a woman's life. I, who know what it is to be childless--"she sighed and ceased.
　　"But we must not be hard," said Mrs. Thornbury. "The conditionsare so much changed since I was a young woman.""Surely _maternity_ does not change," said Mrs. Elliot.
　　"In some ways we can learn a great deal from the young,"said Mrs. Thornbury. "I learn so much from my own daughters.""I believe that Hughling really doesn't mind," said Mrs. Elliot.
　　"But then he has his work.""Women without children can do so much for the children of others,"observed Mrs. Thornbury gently.
　　"I sketch a great deal," said Mrs. Elliot, "but that isn't reallyan occupation. It's so disconcerting to find girls just beginningdoing better than one does oneself! And nature's difficult--very difficult!""Are there not institutions--clubs--that you could help?"asked Mrs. Thornbury.
　　"They are so exhausting," said Mrs. Elliot. "I look strong,because of my colour; but I'm not; the youngest of eleven never is.""If the mother is careful before," said Mrs. Thornbury judicially,"there is no reason why the size of the family should makeany difference. And there is no training like the trainingthat brothers and sisters give each other. I am sure of that.
　　I have seen it with my own children. My eldest boy Ralph, for instance--"But Mrs. Elliot was inattentive to the elder lady's experience,and her eyes wandered about the hall.
　　"My mother had two miscarriages, I know," she said suddenly.
　　"The first because she met one of those great dancing bears--they shouldn't be allowed; the other--it was a horrid story--our cookhad a child and there was a dinner party. So I put my dyspepsiadown to that.""And a miscarriage is so much worse than a confinement,"Mrs. Thornbury murmured absentmindedly, adjusting her spectaclesand picking up _The_ _Times_. Mrs. Elliot rose and fluttered away.
　　When she had heard what one of the million voices speaking inthe paper had to say, and noticed that a cousin of hers had marrieda clergyman at Minehead--ignoring the drunken women, the goldenanimals of Crete, the movements of battalions, the dinners,the reforms, the fires, the indignant, the learned and benevolent,Mrs. Thornbury went upstairs to write a letter for the mail.
　　The paper lay directly beneath the clock, the two together seemingto represent stability in a changing world. Mr. Perrott passed through;Mr. Venning poised for a second on the edge of a table. Mrs. Paleywas wheeled past. Susan followed. Mr. Venning strolled after her.
　　Portuguese military families, their clothes suggesting late risingin untidy bedrooms, trailed across, attended by confidential nursescarrying noisy children. As midday drew on, and the sun beat straightupon the roof, an eddy of great flies droned in a circle; iced drinkswere served under the palms; the long blinds were pulled down witha shriek, turning all the light yellow. The clock now had a silenthall to tick in, and an audience of four or five somnolent merchants.
　　By degrees white figures with shady hats came in at the door,admitting a wedge of the hot summer day, and shutting it out again.
　　After resting in the dimness for a minute, they went upstairs.
　　Simultaneously, the clock wheezed one, and the gong sounded,beginning softly, working itself into a frenzy, and ceasing.
　　There was a pause. Then all those who had gone upstairs came down;cripples came, planting both feet on the same step lest theyshould slip; prim little girls came, holding the nurse's finger;fat old men came still buttoning waistcoats. The gong had beensounded in the garden, and by degrees recumbent figures rose andstrolled in to eat, since the time had come for them to feed again.
　　There were pools and bars of shade in the garden even at midday,where two or three visitors could lie working or talking attheir ease.
　　Owing to the heat of the day, luncheon was generally a silent meal,when people observed their neighbors and took stock of any new facesthere might be, hazarding guesses as to who they were and what they did.
　　Mrs. Paley, although well over seventy and crippled in the legs,enjoyed her food and the peculiarities of her fellow-beings. Shewas seated at a small table with Susan.
　　"I shouldn't like to say what _she_ is!" she chuckled, surveying a tall womandressed conspicuously in white, with paint in the hollows of her cheeks,who was always late, and always attended by a shabby female follower,at which remark Susan blushed, and wondered why her aunt said such things.
　　Lunch went on methodically, until each of the seven courses was leftin fragments and the fruit was merely a toy, to be peeled and slicedas a child destroys a daisy, petal by petal. The food served as anextinguisher upon any faint flame of the human spirit that mightsurvive the midday heat, but Susan sat in her room afterwards,turning over and over the delightful fact that Mr. Venning had cometo her in the garden, and had sat there quite half an hour while sheread aloud to her aunt. Men and women sought different cornerswhere they could lie unobserved, and from two to four it might besaid without exaggeration that the hotel was inhabited by bodieswithout souls. Disastrous would have been the result if a fireor a death had suddenly demanded something heroic of human nature,but tragedies come in the hungry hours. Towards four o'clockthe human spirit again began to lick the body, as a flame licksa black promontory of coal. Mrs. Paley felt it unseemly to open hertoothless jaw so widely, though there was no one near, and Mrs. Elliotsurveyed her found flushed face anxiously in the looking-glass.
　　Half an hour later, having removed the traces of sleep, they meteach other in the hall, and Mrs. Paley observed that she was goingto have her tea.
　　"You like your tea too, don't you?" she said, and invited Mrs. Elliot,whose husband was still out, to join her at a special table whichshe had placed for her under a tree.
　　"A little silver goes a long way in this country," she chuckled.
　　She sent Susan back to fetch another cup.
　　"They have such excellent biscuits here," she said, contemplatinga plateful. "Not sweet biscuits, which I don't like--dry biscuits. . . Have you been sketching?""Oh, I've done two or three little daubs," said Mrs. Elliot, speakingrather louder than usual. "But it's so difficult after Oxfordshire,where there are so many trees. The light's so strong here.
　　Some people admire it, I know, but I find it very fatiguing.""I really don't need cooking, Susan," said Mrs. Paley, when herniece returned. "I must trouble you to move me." Everything hadto be moved. Finally the old lady was placed so that the lightwavered over her, as though she were a fish in a net. Susan pouredout tea, and was just remarking that they were having hot weatherin Wiltshire too, when Mr. Venning asked whether he might join them.
　　"It's so nice to find a young man who doesn't despise tea,"said Mrs. Paley, regaining her good humour. "One of my nephewsthe other day asked for a glass of sherry--at five o'clock! Itold him he could get it at the public house round the corner,but not in my drawing room.""I'd rather go without lunch than tea," said Mr. Venning.
　　"That's not strictly true. I want both."Mr. Venning was a dark young man, about thirty-two years of age,very slapdash and confident in his manner, although at this momentobviously a little excited. His friend Mr. Perrott was a barrister,and as Mr. Perrott refused to go anywhere without Mr. Venning itwas necessary, when Mr. Perrott came to Santa Marina about a Company,for Mr. Venning to come too. He was a barrister also, but heloathed a profession which kept him indoors over books, and directlyhis widowed mother died he was going, so he confided to Susan,to take up flying seriously, and become partner in a large businessfor making aeroplanes. The talk rambled on. It dealt, of course,with the beauties and singularities of the place, the streets,the people, and the quantities of unowned yellow dogs.
　　"Don't you think it dreadfully cruel the way they treat dogsin this country?" asked Mrs. Paley.
　　"I'd have 'em all shot," said Mr. Venning.
　　"Oh, but the darling puppies," said Susan.
　　"Jolly little chaps," said Mr. Venning. "Look here, you've gotnothing to eat." A great wedge of cake was handed Susan on the pointof a trembling knife. Her hand trembled too as she took it.
　　"I have such a dear dog at home," said Mrs. Elliot.
　　"My parrot can't stand dogs," said Mrs. Paley, with the airof one making a confidence. "I always suspect that he (or she)was teased by a dog when I was abroad.""You didn't get far this morning, Miss Warrington," said Mr. Venning.
　　"It was hot," she answered. Their conversation became private,owing to Mrs. Paley's deafness and the long sad historywhich Mrs. Elliot had embarked upon of a wire-haired terrier,white with just one black spot, belonging to an uncle of hers,which had committed suicide. "Animals do commit suicide,"she sighed, as if she asserted a painful fact.
　　"Couldn't we explore the town this evening?" Mr. Venning suggested.
　　"My aunt--" Susan began.
　　"You deserve a holiday," he said. "You're always doing thingsfor other people.""But that's my life," she said, under cover of refilling the teapot.
　　"That's no one's life," he returned, "no young person's. You'll come?""I should like to come," she murmured.
　　At this moment Mrs. Elliot looked up and exclaimed, "Oh, Hugh!
　　He's bringing some one," she added.
　　"He would like some tea," said Mrs. Paley. "Susan, run and getsome cups--there are the two young men.""We're thirsting for tea," said Mr. Elliot. "You knowMr. Ambrose, Hilda? We met on the hill.""He dragged me in," said Ridley, "or I should have been ashamed.
　　I'm dusty and dirty and disagreeable." He pointed to his bootswhich were white with dust, while a dejected flower drooping inhis buttonhole, like an exhausted animal over a gate, added to theeffect of length and untidiness. He was introduced to the others.
　　Mr. Hewet and Mr. Hirst brought chairs, and tea began again,Susan pouring cascades of water from pot to pot, always cheerfully,and with the competence of long use.
　　"My wife's brother," Ridley explained to Hilda, whom hefailed to remember, "has a house here, which he has lent us.
　　I was sitting on a rock thinking of nothing at all when Elliotstarted up like a fairy in a pantomime.""Our chicken got into the salt," Hewet said dolefully to Susan.
　　"Nor is it true that bananas include moisture as well as sustenance.
　　Hirst was already drinking.
　　"We've been cursing you," said Ridley in answer to Mrs. Elliot'skind enquiries about his wife. "You tourists eat up all the eggs,Helen tells me. That's an eye-sore too"--he nodded his headat the hotel. "Disgusting luxury, I call it. We live with pigsin the drawing-room.""The food is not at all what it ought to be, considering the price,"said Mrs. Paley seriously. "But unless one goes to a hotel where isone to go to?""Stay at home," said Ridley. "I often wish I had! Everyone oughtto stay at home. But, of course, they won't."Mrs. Paley conceived a certain grudge against Ridley, who seemedto be criticising her habits after an acquaintance of five minutes.
　　"I believe in foreign travel myself," she stated, "if one knows one'snative land, which I think I can honestly say I do. I should notallow any one to travel until they had visited Kent and Dorsetshire--Kent for the hops, and Dorsetshire for its old stone cottages.
　　There is nothing to compare with them here.""Yes--I always think that some people like the flat and other peoplelike the downs," said Mrs. Elliot rather vaguely.
　　Hirst, who had been eating and drinking without interruption,now lit a cigarette, and observed, "Oh, but we're all agreedby this time that nature's a mistake. She's either very ugly,appallingly uncomfortable, or absolutely terrifying. I don't know whichalarms me most--a cow or a tree. I once met a cow in a field by night.
　　The creature looked at me. I assure you it turned my hair grey.
　　It's a disgrace that the animals should be allowed to go at large.""And what did the cow think of _him_?" Venning mumbled to Susan,who immediately decided in her own mind that Mr. Hirst was a dreadfulyoung man, and that although he had such an air of being clever heprobably wasn't as clever as Arthur, in the ways that really matter.
　　"Wasn't it Wilde who discovered the fact that nature makes noallowance for hip-bones?" enquired Hughling Elliot. He knew by thistime exactly what scholarships and distinction Hirst enjoyed,and had formed a very high opinion of his capacities.
　　But Hirst merely drew his lips together very tightly and madeno reply.
　　Ridley conjectured that it was now permissible for him to takehis leave. Politeness required him to thank Mrs. Elliot for his tea,and to add, with a wave of his hand, "You must come up and see us."The wave included both Hirst and Hewet, and Hewet answered,"I should like it immensely."The party broke up, and Susan, who had never felt so happy in her life,was just about to start for her walk in the town with Arthur,when Mrs. Paley beckoned her back. She could not understandfrom the book how Double Demon patience is played; and suggestedthat if they sat down and worked it out together it would fillup the time nicely before dinner.
Chapter 10
    Among the promises which Mrs. Ambrose had made her niece should shestay was a room cut off from the rest of the house, large, private--a room in which she could play, read, think, defy the world, a fortressas well as a sanctuary. Rooms, she knew, became more like worldsthan rooms at the age of twenty-four. Her judgment was correct,and when she shut the door Rachel entered an enchanted place,where the poets sang and things fell into their right proportions.
　　Some days after the vision of the hotel by night she was sitting alone,sunk in an arm-chair, reading a brightly-covered red volume letteredon the back _Works_ _of_ _Henrik_ _Ibsen_. Music was open onthe piano, and books of music rose in two jagged pillars on the floor;but for the moment music was deserted.
　　Far from looking bored or absent-minded, her eyes were concentratedalmost sternly upon the page, and from her breathing, which was slowbut repressed, it could be seen that her whole body was constrainedby the working of her mind. At last she shut the book sharply,lay back, and drew a deep breath, expressive of the wonder which alwaysmarks the transition from the imaginary world to the real world.
　　"What I want to know," she said aloud, "is this: What is the truth?
　　What's the truth of it all?" She was speaking partly as herself,and partly as the heroine of the play she had just read.
　　The landscape outside, because she had seen nothing but printfor the space of two hours, now appeared amazingly solid and clear,but although there were men on the hill washing the trunks of olivetrees with a white liquid, for the moment she herself was the mostvivid thing in it--an heroic statue in the middle of the foreground,dominating the view. Ibsen's plays always left her in that condition.
　　She acted them for days at a time, greatly to Helen's amusement;and then it would be Meredith's turn and she became Diana ofthe Crossways. But Helen was aware that it was not all acting,and that some sort of change was taking place in the human being.
　　When Rachel became tired of the rigidity of her pose on the backof the chair, she turned round, slid comfortably down into it,and gazed out over the furniture through the window opposite whichopened on the garden. (Her mind wandered away from Nora, but shewent on thinking of things that the book suggested to her, of womenand life.)During the three months she had been here she had made up considerably,as Helen meant she should, for time spent in interminable walksround sheltered gardens, and the household gossip of her aunts.
　　But Mrs. Ambrose would have been the first to disclaim any influence,or indeed any belief that to influence was within her power.
　　She saw her less shy, and less serious, which was all to the good,and the violent leaps and the interminable mazes which had ledto that result were usually not even guessed at by her. Talk wasthe medicine she trusted to, talk about everything, talk thatwas free, unguarded, and as candid as a habit of talking with menmade natural in her own case. Nor did she encourage those habitsof unselfishness and amiability founded upon insincerity which areput at so high a value in mixed households of men and women.
　　She desired that Rachel should think, and for this reason offeredbooks and discouraged too entire a dependence upon Bach and Beethovenand Wagner. But when Mrs. Ambrose would have suggested Defoe,Maupassant, or some spacious chronicle of family life, Rachel chosemodern books, books in shiny yellow covers, books with a great dealof gilding on the back, which were tokens in her aunt's eyes of harshwrangling and disputes about facts which had no such importanceas the moderns claimed for them. But she did not interfere.
　　Rachel read what she chose, reading with the curious literalnessof one to whom written sentences are unfamiliar, and handling wordsas though they were made of wood, separately of great importance,and possessed of shapes like tables or chairs. In this wayshe came to conclusions, which had to be remodelled accordingto the adventures of the day, and were indeed recast as liberallyas any one could desire, leaving always a small grain of beliefbehind them.
　　Ibsen was succeeded by a novel such as Mrs. Ambrose detested,whose purpose was to distribute the guilt of a woman's downfallupon the right shoulders; a purpose which was achieved, if thereader's discomfort were any proof of it. She threw the book down,looked out of the window, turned away from the window, and relapsedinto an arm-chair.
　　The morning was hot, and the exercise of reading left her mindcontracting and expanding like the main-spring of a clock,and the small noises of midday, which one can ascribe to nodefinite cause, in a regular rhythm. It was all very real, very big,very impersonal, and after a moment or two she began to raise herfirst finger and to let it fall on the arm of her chair so as tobring back to herself some consciousness of her own existence.
　　She was next overcome by the unspeakable queerness of the factthat she should be sitting in an arm-chair, in the morning,in the middle of the world. Who were the people moving in the house--moving things from one place to another? And life, what was that?
　　It was only a light passing over the surface and vanishing,as in time she would vanish, though the furniture in the roomwould remain. Her dissolution became so complete that shecould not raise her finger any more, and sat perfectly still,listening and looking always at the same spot. It became strangerand stranger. She was overcome with awe that things should existat all. . . . She forgot that she had any fingers to raise.
　　. . . The things that existed were so immense and so desolate.
　　. . . She continued to be conscious of these vast masses of substancefor a long stretch of time, the clock still ticking in the midstof the universal silence.
　　"Come in," she said mechanically, for a string in her brain seemedto be pulled by a persistent knocking at the door. With greatslowness the door opened and a tall human being came towards her,holding out her arm and saying:
　　"What am I to say to this?"The utter absurdity of a woman coming into a room with a pieceof paper in her hand amazed Rachel.
　　"I don't know what to answer, or who Terence Hewet is," Helen continued,in the toneless voice of a ghost. She put a paper before Rachelon which were written the incredible words:
　　DEAR MRS. AMBROSE--I am getting up a picnic for next Friday,when we propose to start at eleven-thirty if the weather is fine,and to make the ascent of Monte Rosa. It will take some time,but the view should be magnificent. It would give me great pleasureif you and Miss Vinrace would consent to be of the party.--Yours sincerely, TERENCE HEWETRachel read the words aloud to make herself believe in them.
　　For the same reason she put her hand on Helen's shoulder.
　　"Books--books--books," said Helen, in her absent-minded way.
　　"More new books--I wonder what you find in them. . . ."For the second time Rachel read the letter, but to herself.
　　This time, instead of seeming vague as ghosts, each word wasastonishingly prominent; they came out as the tops of mountainscome through a mist. _Friday_--_eleven-thirty_--_Miss_ _Vinrace_.
　　The blood began to run in her veins; she felt her eyes brighten.
　　"We must go," she said, rather surprising Helen by her decision.
　　"We must certainly go"--such was the relief of finding that thingsstill happened, and indeed they appeared the brighter for the mistsurrounding them.
　　"Monte Rosa--that's the mountain over there, isn't it?" said Helen;"but Hewet--who's he? One of the young men Ridley met, I suppose.
　　Shall I say yes, then? It may be dreadfully dull."She took the letter back and went, for the messenger was waitingfor her answer.
　　The party which had been suggested a few nights ago in Mr. Hirst'sbedroom had taken shape and was the source of great satisfactionto Mr. Hewet, who had seldom used his practical abilities, and waspleased to find them equal to the strain. His invitations had beenuniversally accepted, which was the more encouraging as they hadbeen issued against Hirst's advice to people who were very dull,not at all suited to each other, and sure not to come.
　　"Undoubtedly," he said, as he twirled and untwirled a note signedHelen Ambrose, "the gifts needed to make a great commander havebeen absurdly overrated. About half the intellectual effortwhich is needed to review a book of modern poetry has enabledme to get together seven or eight people, of opposite sexes,at the same spot at the same hour on the same day. What elseis generalship, Hirst? What more did Wellington do on the fieldof Waterloo? It's like counting the number of pebbles of a path,tedious but not difficult."He was sitting in his bedroom, one leg over the arm of the chair,and Hirst was writing a letter opposite. Hirst was quick to pointout that all the difficulties remained.
　　"For instance, here are two women you've never seen. Suppose oneof them suffers from mountain-sickness, as my sister does,and the other--""Oh, the women are for you," Hewet interrupted. "I asked them solelyfor your benefit. What you want, Hirst, you know, is the society ofyoung women of your own age. You don't know how to get on with women,which is a great defect, considering that half the world consists of women."Hirst groaned that he was quite aware of that.
　　But Hewet's complacency was a little chilled as he walked withHirst to the place where a general meeting had been appointed.
　　He wondered why on earth he had asked these people, and what onereally expected to get from bunching human beings up together.
　　"Cows," he reflected, "draw together in a field; ships in a calm;and we're just the same when we've nothing else to do. But why do wedo it?--is it to prevent ourselves from seeing to the bottom of things"(he stopped by a stream and began stirring it with his walking-stickand clouding the water with mud), "making cities and mountainsand whole universes out of nothing, or do we really love each other,or do we, on the other hand, live in a state of perpetual uncertainty,knowing nothing, leaping from moment to moment as from world to world?--which is, on the whole, the view _I_ incline to."He jumped over the stream; Hirst went round and joined him,remarking that he had long ceased to look for the reason of anyhuman action.
　　Half a mile further, they came to a group of plane trees and thesalmon-pink farmhouse standing by the stream which had been chosenas meeting-place. It was a shady spot, lying conveniently just wherethe hill sprung out from the flat. Between the thin stems of the planetrees the young men could see little knots of donkeys pasturing,and a tall woman rubbing the nose of one of them, while anotherwoman was kneeling by the stream lapping water out of her palms.
　　As they entered the shady place, Helen looked up and then heldout her hand.
　　"I must introduce myself," she said. "I am Mrs. Ambrose."Having shaken hands, she said, "That's my niece."Rachel approached awkwardly. She held out her hand, but withdrew it.
　　"It's all wet," she said.
　　Scarcely had they spoken, when the first carriage drew up.
　　The donkeys were quickly jerked into attention, and the secondcarriage arrived. By degrees the grove filled with people--the Elliots, the Thornburys, Mr. Venning and Susan, Miss Allan,Evelyn Murgatroyd, and Mr. Perrott. Mr. Hirst acted the part ofhoarse energetic sheep-dog. By means of a few words of caustic Latinhe had the animals marshalled, and by inclining a sharp shoulder helifted the ladies. "What Hewet fails to understand," he remarked,"is that we must break the back of the ascent before midday."He was assisting a young lady, by name Evelyn Murgatroyd, as he spoke.
　　She rose light as a bubble to her seat. With a feather droopingfrom a broad-brimmed hat, in white from top to toe, she looked likea gallant lady of the time of Charles the First leading royalisttroops into action.
　　"Ride with me," she commanded; and, as soon as Hirst had swunghimself across a mule, the two started, leading the cavalcade.
　　"You're not to call me Miss Murgatroyd. I hate it," she said.
　　"My name's Evelyn. What's yours?""St. John," he said.
　　"I like that," said Evelyn. "And what's your friend's name?""His initials being R. S. T., we call him Monk," said Hirst.
　　"Oh, you're all too clever," she said. "Which way?" Pick me a branch.
　　Let's canter."She gave her donkey a sharp cut with a switch and started forward.
　　The full and romantic career of Evelyn Murgatroyd is best hit offby her own words, "Call me Evelyn and I'll call you St. John."She said that on very slight provocation--her surname was enough--but although a great many young men had answered her alreadywith considerable spirit she went on saying it and making choiceof none. But her donkey stumbled to a jog-trot, and she had toride in advance alone, for the path when it began to ascend oneof the spines of the hill became narrow and scattered with stones.
　　The cavalcade wound on like a jointed caterpillar, tufted with thewhite parasols of the ladies, and the panama hats of the gentlemen.
　　At one point where the ground rose sharply, Evelyn M. jumped off,threw her reins to the native boy, and adjured St. John Hirst todismount too. Their example was followed by those who felt the needof stretching.
　　"I don't see any need to get off," said Miss Allan to Mrs. Elliotjust behind her, "considering the difficulty I had getting on.""These little donkeys stand anything, _n'est-ce_ _pas_?"Mrs. Elliot addressed the guide, who obligingly bowed his head.
　　"Flowers," said Helen, stooping to pick the lovely little brightflowers which grew separately here and there. "You pinch their leavesand then they smell," she said, laying one on Miss Allan's knee.
　　"Haven't we met before?" asked Miss Allan, looking at her.
　　"I was taking it for granted," Helen laughed, for in the confusionof meeting they had not been introduced.
　　"How sensible!" chirped Mrs. Elliot. "That's just what one wouldalways like--only unfortunately it's not possible." "Not possible?"said Helen. "Everything's possible. Who knows what mayn't happenbefore night-fall?" she continued, mocking the poor lady's timidity,who depended implicitly upon one thing following another that the mereglimpse of a world where dinner could be disregarded, or the tablemoved one inch from its accustomed place, filled her with fearsfor her own stability.
　　Higher and higher they went, becoming separated from the world.
　　The world, when they turned to look back, flattened itself out,and was marked with squares of thin green and grey.
　　"Towns are very small," Rachel remarked, obscuring the wholeof Santa Marina and its suburbs with one hand. The sea filledin all the angles of the coast smoothly, breaking in a white frill,and here and there ships were set firmly in the blue. The seawas stained with purple and green blots, and there was a glitteringline upon the rim where it met the sky. The air was very clear andsilent save for the sharp noise of grasshoppers and the hum of bees,which sounded loud in the ear as they shot past and vanished.
　　The party halted and sat for a time in a quarry on the hillside.
　　"Amazingly clear," exclaimed St. John, identifying one cleftin the land after another.
　　Evelyn M. sat beside him, propping her chin on her hand.
　　She surveyed the view with a certain look of triumph.
　　"D'you think Garibaldi was ever up here?" she asked Mr. Hirst.
　　Oh, if she had been his bride! If, instead of a picnic party,this was a party of patriots, and she, red-shirted like the rest,had lain among grim men, flat on the turf, aiming her gun at the whiteturrets beneath them, screening her eyes to pierce through the smoke!
　　So thinking, her foot stirred restlessly, and she exclaimed:
　　"I don't call this _life_, do you?""What do you call life?" said St. John.
　　"Fighting--revolution," she said, still gazing at the doomed city.
　　"You only care for books, I know.""You're quite wrong," said St. John.
　　"Explain," she urged, for there were no guns to be aimed at bodies,and she turned to another kind of warfare.
　　"What do I care for? People," he said.
　　"Well, I _am_ surprised!" she exclaimed. "You look so awfully serious.
　　Do let's be friends and tell each other what we're like. I hatebeing cautious, don't you?"But St. John was decidedly cautious, as she could see by the suddenconstriction of his lips, and had no intention of revealing hissoul to a young lady. "The ass is eating my hat," he remarked,and stretched out for it instead of answering her. Evelyn blushedvery slightly and then turned with some impetuosity upon Mr. Perrott,and when they mounted again it was Mr. Perrott who lifted her toher seat.
　　"When one has laid the eggs one eatsthe omelette," said Hughling Elliot, exquisitelyin French, a hint to the rest of them that it was time to ride on again.
　　The midday sun which Hirst had foretold was beginning to beatdown hotly. The higher they got the more of the sky appeared,until the mountain was only a small tent of earth against an enormousblue background. The English fell silent; the natives who walkedbeside the donkeys broke into queer wavering songs and tossed jokesfrom one to the other. The way grew very steep, and each rider kepthis eyes fixed on the hobbling curved form of the rider and donkeydirectly in front of him. Rather more strain was being put upontheir bodies than is quite legitimate in a party of pleasure,and Hewet overheard one or two slightly grumbling remarks.
　　"Expeditions in such heat are perhaps a little unwise," Mrs. Elliotmurmured to Miss Allan.
　　But Miss Allan returned, "I always like to get to the top";and it was true, although she was a big woman, stiff in the joints,and unused to donkey-riding, but as her holidays were few she madethe most of them.
　　The vivacious white figure rode well in front; she had somehow possessedherself of a leafy branch and wore it round her hat like a garland.
　　They went on for a few minutes in silence.
　　"The view will be wonderful," Hewet assured them, turning roundin his saddle and smiling encouragement. Rachel caught his eye andsmiled too. They struggled on for some time longer, nothing beingheard but the clatter of hooves striving on the loose stones.
　　Then they saw that Evelyn was off her ass, and that Mr. Perrottwas standing in the attitude of a statesman in Parliament Square,stretching an arm of stone towards the view. A little to the leftof them was a low ruined wall, the stump of an Elizabethan watch-tower.
　　"I couldn't have stood it much longer," Mrs. Elliot confided toMrs. Thornbury, but the excitement of being at the top in anothermoment and seeing the view prevented any one from answering her.
　　One after another they came out on the flat space at the top and stoodovercome with wonder. Before them they beheld an immense space--grey sands running into forest, and forest merging in mountains,and mountains washed by air, the infinite distances of South America.
　　A river ran across the plain, as flat as the land, and appearingquite as stationary. The effect of so much space was at firstrather chilling. They felt themselves very small, and for sometime no one said anything. Then Evelyn exclaimed, "Splendid!"She took hold of the hand that was next her; it chanced to be MissAllan's hand.
　　"North--South--East--West," said Miss Allan, jerking her headslightly towards the points of the compass.
　　Hewet, who had gone a little in front, looked up at his guestsas if to justify himself for having brought them. He observedhow strangely the people standing in a row with their figures bentslightly forward and their clothes plastered by the wind to the shapeof their bodies resembled naked statues. On their pedestal of earththey looked unfamiliar and noble, but in another moment they hadbroken their rank, and he had to see to the laying out of food.
　　Hirst came to his help, and they handed packets of chicken and breadfrom one to another.
　　As St. John gave Helen her packet she looked him full in the faceand said:
　　"Do you remember--two women?"He looked at her sharply.
　　"I do," he answered.
　　"So you're the two women!" Hewet exclaimed, looking from Helento Rachel.
　　"Your lights tempted us," said Helen. "We watched you playing cards,but we never knew that we were being watched.""It was like a thing in a play," Rachel added.
　　"And Hirst couldn't describe you," said Hewet.
　　It was certainly odd to have seen Helen and to find nothing to sayabout her.
　　Hughling Elliot put up his eyeglass and grasped the situation.
　　"I don't know of anything more dreadful," he said, pulling at the jointof a chicken's leg, "than being seen when one isn't conscious of it.
　　One feels sure one has been caught doing something ridiculous--looking at one's tongue in a hansom, for instance."Now the others ceased to look at the view, and drawing togethersat down in a circle round the baskets.
　　"And yet those little looking-glasses in hansoms have afascination of their own," said Mrs. Thornbury. "One's featureslook so different when one can only see a bit of them.""There will soon be very few hansom cabs left," said Mrs. Elliot.
　　"And four-wheeled cabs--I assure you even at Oxford it's almostimpossible to get a four-wheeled cab.""I wonder what happens to the horses," said Susan.
　　"Veal pie," said Arthur.
　　"It's high time that horses should become extinct anyhow," said Hirst.
　　"They're distressingly ugly, besides being vicious."But Susan, who had been brought up to understand that the horseis the noblest of God's creatures, could not agree, and Venningthought Hirst an unspeakable ass, but was too polite not to continuethe conversation.
　　"When they see us falling out of aeroplanes they get some of theirown back, I expect," he remarked.
　　"You fly?" said old Mr. Thornbury, putting on his spectacles to lookat him.
　　"I hope to, some day," said Arthur.
　　Here flying was discussed at length, and Mrs. Thornbury deliveredan opinion which was almost a speech to the effect that it wouldbe quite necessary in time of war, and in England we were terriblybehind-hand. "If I were a young fellow," she concluded, "I shouldcertainly qualify." It was odd to look at the little elderly lady,in her grey coat and skirt, with a sandwich in her hand, her eyes lightingup with zeal as she imagined herself a young man in an aeroplane.
　　For some reason, however, the talk did not run easily after this,and all they said was about drink and salt and the view.
　　Suddenly Miss Allan, who was seated with her back to the ruined wall,put down her sandwich, picked something off her neck, and remarked,"I'm covered with little creatures." It was true, and the discoverywas very welcome. The ants were pouring down a glacier of looseearth heaped between the stones of the ruin--large brown antswith polished bodies. She held out one on the back of her handfor Helen to look at.
　　"Suppose they sting?" said Helen.
　　"They will not sting, but they may infest the victuals," said Miss Allan,and measures were taken at once to divert the ants from their course.
　　At Hewet's suggestion it was decided to adopt the methods of modernwarfare against an invading army. The table-cloth representedthe invaded country, and round it they built barricades of baskets,set up the wine bottles in a rampart, made fortifications of breadand dug fosses of salt. When an ant got through it was exposed toa fire of bread-crumbs, until Susan pronounced that that was cruel,and rewarded those brave spirits with spoil in the shape of tongue.
　　Playing this game they lost their stiffness, and even becameunusually daring, for Mr. Perrott, who was very shy, said, "Permit me,"and removed an ant from Evelyn's neck.
　　"It would be no laughing matter really," said Mrs. Elliot confidentiallyto Mrs. Thornbury, "if an ant did get between the vest and the skin."The noise grew suddenly more clamorous, for it was discovered thata long line of ants had found their way on to the table-cloth by aback entrance, and if success could be gauged by noise, Hewet hadevery reason to think his party a success. Nevertheless he became,for no reason at all, profoundly depressed.
　　"They are not satisfactory; they are ignoble," he thought, surveying hisguests from a little distance, where he was gathering together the plates.
　　He glanced at them all, stooping and swaying and gesticulating roundthe table-cloth. Amiable and modest, respectable in many ways,lovable even in their contentment and desire to be kind, how mediocrethey all were, and capable of what insipid cruelty to one another!
　　There was Mrs. Thornbury, sweet but trivial in her maternal egoism;Mrs. Elliot, perpetually complaining of her lot; her husband a merepea in a pod; and Susan--she had no self, and counted neither one waynor the other; Venning was as honest and as brutal as a schoolboy;poor old Thornbury merely trod his round like a horse in a mill;and the less one examined into Evelyn's character the better,he suspected. Yet these were the people with money, and to themrather than to others was given the management of the world.
　　Put among them some one more vital, who cared for life or for beauty,and what an agony, what a waste would they inflict on him if he triedto share with them and not to scourge!
　　"There's Hirst," he concluded, coming to the figure of his friend;with his usual little frown of concentration upon his forehead hewas peeling the skin off a banana. "And he's as ugly as sin."For the ugliness of St. John Hirst, and the limitations that wentwith it, he made the rest in some way responsible. It was theirfault that he had to live alone. Then he came to Helen, attracted toher by the sound of her laugh. She was laughing at Miss Allan.
　　"You wear combinations in this heat?" she said in a voice whichwas meant to be private. He liked the look of her immensely,not so much her beauty, but her largeness and simplicity,which made her stand out from the rest like a great stone woman,and he passed on in a gentler mood. His eye fell upon Rachel.
　　She was lying back rather behind the others resting on one elbow;she might have been thinking precisely the same thoughts as Hewet himself.
　　Her eyes were fixed rather sadly but not intently upon the rowof people opposite her. Hewet crawled up to her on his knees,with a piece of bread in his hand.
　　"What are you looking at?" he asked.
　　She was a little startled, but answered directly, "Human beings."
Chapter 11
    One after another they rose and stretched themselves, and in a fewminutes divided more or less into two separate parties. One of theseparties was dominated by Hughling Elliot and Mrs. Thornbury, who,having both read the same books and considered the same questions,were now anxious to name the places beneath them and to hang upon themstores of information about navies and armies, political parties,natives and mineral products--all of which combined, they said,to prove that South America was the country of the future.
　　Evelyn M. listened with her bright blue eyes fixed upon the oracles.
　　"How it makes one long to be a man!" she exclaimed.
　　Mr. Perrott answered, surveying the plain, that a country witha future was a very fine thing.
　　"If I were you," said Evelyn, turning to him and drawing her glovevehemently through her fingers, "I'd raise a troop and conquer somegreat territory and make it splendid. You'd want women for that.
　　I'd love to start life from the very beginning as it ought to be--nothing squalid--but great halls and gardens and splendid men and women.
　　But you--you only like Law Courts!""And would you really be content without pretty frocks and sweetsand all the things young ladies like?" asked Mr. Perrott,concealing a certain amount of pain beneath his ironical manner.
　　"I'm not a young lady," Evelyn flashed; she bit her underlip.
　　"Just because I like splendid things you laugh at me. Why are thereno men like Garibaldi now?" she demanded.
　　"Look here," said Mr. Perrott, "you don't give me a chance.
　　You think we ought to begin things fresh. Good. But I don'tsee precisely--conquer a territory? They're all conquered already,aren't they?""It's not any territory in particular," Evelyn explained.
　　"It's the idea, don't you see? We lead such tame lives. And Ifeel sure you've got splendid things in you."Hewet saw the scars and hollows in Mr. Perrott's sagacious facerelax pathetically. He could imagine the calculations which eventhen went on within his mind, as to whether he would be justifiedin asking a woman to marry him, considering that he made no morethan five hundred a year at the Bar, owned no private means,and had an invalid sister to support. Mr. Perrott again knewthat he was not "quite," as Susan stated in her diary; not quitea gentleman she meant, for he was the son of a grocer in Leeds,had started life with a basket on his back, and now, though practicallyindistinguishable from a born gentleman, showed his origin to keeneyes in an impeccable neatness of dress, lack of freedom in manner,extreme cleanliness of person, and a certain indescribable timidityand precision with his knife and fork which might be the relic of dayswhen meat was rare, and the way of handling it by no means gingerly.
　　The two parties who were strolling about and losing their unitynow came together, and joined each other in a long stare overthe yellow and green patches of the heated landscape below.
　　The hot air danced across it, making it impossible to see the roofsof a village on the plain distinctly. Even on the top of the mountainwhere a breeze played lightly, it was very hot, and the heat, the food,the immense space, and perhaps some less well-defined cause produceda comfortable drowsiness and a sense of happy relaxation in them.
　　They did not say much, but felt no constraint in being silent.
　　"Suppose we go and see what's to be seen over there?" said Arthurto Susan, and the pair walked off together, their departure certainlysending some thrill of emotion through the rest.
　　"An odd lot, aren't they?" said Arthur. "I thought we shouldnever get 'em all to the top. But I'm glad we came, by Jove!
　　I wouldn't have missed this for something.""I don't _like_ Mr. Hirst," said Susan inconsequently. "I supposehe's very clever, but why should clever people be so--I expecthe's awfully nice, really," she added, instinctively qualifyingwhat might have seemed an unkind remark.
　　"Hirst? Oh, he's one of these learned chaps," said Arthur indifferently.
　　"He don't look as if he enjoyed it. You should hear him talkingto Elliot. It's as much as I can do to follow 'em at all.
　　. . . I was never good at my books."With these sentences and the pauses that came between them theyreached a little hillock, on the top of which grew several slim trees.
　　"D'you mind if we sit down here?" said Arthur, looking about him.
　　"It's jolly in the shade--and the view--" They sat down, and lookedstraight ahead of them in silence for some time.
　　"But I do envy those clever chaps sometimes," Arthur remarked.
　　"I don't suppose they ever . . ." He did not finish his sentence.
　　"I can't see why you should envy them," said Susan, with great sincerity.
　　"Odd things happen to one," said Arthur. "One goes along smoothly enough,one thing following another, and it's all very jolly and plain sailing,and you think you know all about it, and suddenly one doesn't knowwhere one is a bit, and everything seems different from what itused to seem. Now to-day, coming up that path, riding behind you,I seemed to see everything as if--" he paused and plucked a pieceof grass up by the roots. He scattered the little lumps of earthwhich were sticking to the roots--"As if it had a kind of meaning.
　　You've made the difference to me," he jerked out, "I don't seewhy I shouldn't tell you. I've felt it ever since I knew you.
　　. . . It's because I love you."Even while they had been saying commonplace things Susan had beenconscious of the excitement of intimacy, which seemed not only to laybare something in her, but in the trees and the sky, and the progressof his speech which seemed inevitable was positively painful to her,for no human being had ever come so close to her before.
　　She was struck motionless as his speech went on, and her heart gavegreat separate leaps at the last words. She sat with her fingerscurled round a stone, looking straight in front of her down themountain over the plain. So then, it had actually happened to her,a proposal of marriage.
　　Arthur looked round at her; his face was oddly twisted. She wasdrawing her breath with such difficulty that she could hardly answer.
　　"You might have known." He seized her in his arms; again and againand again they clasped each other, murmuring inarticulately.
　　"Well," sighed Arthur, sinking back on the ground, "that's the mostwonderful thing that's ever happened to me." He looked as if hewere trying to put things seen in a dream beside real things.
　　There was a long silence.
　　"It's the most perfect thing in the world," Susan stated, very gentlyand with great conviction. It was no longer merely a proposalof marriage, but of marriage with Arthur, with whom she was in love.
　　In the silence that followed, holding his hand tightly in hers,she prayed to God that she might make him a good wife.
　　"And what will Mr. Perrott say?" she asked at the end of it.
　　"Dear old fellow," said Arthur who, now that the first shock was over,was relaxing into an enormous sense of pleasure and contentment.
　　"We must be very nice to him, Susan."He told her how hard Perrott's life had been, and how absurdlydevoted he was to Arthur himself. He went on to tell her abouthis mother, a widow lady, of strong character. In return Susansketched the portraits of her own family--Edith in particular,her youngest sister, whom she loved better than any one else,"except you, Arthur. . . . Arthur," she continued, "what was itthat you first liked me for?""It was a buckle you wore one night at sea," said Arthur,after due consideration. "I remember noticing--it's an absurdthing to notice!--that you didn't take peas, because I don't either."From this they went on to compare their more serious tastes, or ratherSusan ascertained what Arthur cared about, and professed herselfvery fond of the same thing. They would live in London, perhaps havea cottage in the country near Susan's family, for they would findit strange without her at first. Her mind, stunned to begin with,now flew to the various changes that her engagement would make--how delightful it would be to join the ranks of the married women--no longer to hang on to groups of girls much younger than herself--to escape the long solitude of an old maid's life. Now and then heramazing good fortune overcame her, and she turned to Arthur with anexclamation of love.
　　They lay in each other's arms and had no notion that they were observed.
　　Yet two figures suddenly appeared among the trees above them.
　　"Here's shade," began Hewet, when Rachel suddenly stopped dead.
　　They saw a man and woman lying on the ground beneath them, rollingslightly this way and that as the embrace tightened and slackened.
　　The man then sat upright and the woman, who now appeared to be SusanWarrington, lay back upon the ground, with her eyes shut and an absorbedlook upon her face, as though she were not altogether conscious.
　　Nor could you tell from her expression whether she was happy, or hadsuffered something. When Arthur again turned to her, butting heras a lamb butts a ewe, Hewet and Rachel retreated without a word.
　　Hewet felt uncomfortably shy.
　　"I don't like that," said Rachel after a moment.
　　"I can remember not liking it either," said Hewet. "I can remember--"but he changed his mind and continued in an ordinary tone of voice,"Well, we may take it for granted that they're engaged. D'you thinkhe'll ever fly, or will she put a stop to that?"But Rachel was still agitated; she could not get away from the sightthey had just seen. Instead of answering Hewet she persisted.
　　"Love's an odd thing, isn't it, making one's heart beat.""It's so enormously important, you see," Hewet replied.
　　"Their lives are now changed for ever.""And it makes one sorry for them too," Rachel continued, as thoughshe were tracing the course of her feelings. "I don't know eitherof them, but I could almost burst into tears. That's silly,isn't it?""Just because they're in love," said Hewet. "Yes," he added aftera moment's consideration, "there's something horribly patheticabout it, I agree."And now, as they had walked some way from the grove of trees,and had come to a rounded hollow very tempting to the back,they proceeded to sit down, and the impression of the loverslost some of its force, though a certain intensity of vision,which was probably the result of the sight, remained with them.
　　As a day upon which any emotion has been repressed is differentfrom other days, so this day was now different, merely because theyhad seen other people at a crisis of their lives.
　　"A great encampment of tents they might be," said Hewet, looking infront of him at the mountains. "Isn't it like a water-colour too--you know the way water-colours dry in ridges all across the paper--I've been wondering what they looked like."His eyes became dreamy, as though he were matching things,and reminded Rachel in their colour of the green flesh of a snail.
　　She sat beside him looking at the mountains too. When it becamepainful to look any longer, the great size of the view seeming toenlarge her eyes beyond their natural limit, she looked at the ground;it pleased her to scrutinise this inch of the soil of SouthAmerica so minutely that she noticed every grain of earth and madeit into a world where she was endowed with the supreme power.
　　She bent a blade of grass, and set an insect on the utmost tasselof it, and wondered if the insect realised his strange adventure,and thought how strange it was that she should have bent that tasselrather than any other of the million tassels.
　　"You've never told me you name," said Hewet suddenly.
　　"Miss Somebody Vinrace. . . . I like to know people's Christian names.""Rachel," she replied.
　　"Rachel," he repeated. "I have an aunt called Rachel, who putthe life of Father Damien into verse. She is a religious fanatic--the result of the way she was brought up, down in Northamptonshire,never seeing a soul. Have you any aunts?""I live with them," said Rachel.
　　"And I wonder what they're doing now?" Hewet enquired.
　　"They are probably buying wool," Rachel determined. She triedto describe them. "They are small, rather pale women," she began,"very clean. We live in Richmond. They have an old dog, too,who will only eat the marrow out of bones. . . . They arealways going to church. They tidy their drawers a good deal."But here she was overcome by the difficulty of describing people.
　　"It's impossible to believe that it's all going on still!"she exclaimed.
　　The sun was behind them and two long shadows suddenly lay upon theground in front of them, one waving because it was made by a skirt,and the other stationary, because thrown by a pair of legs in trousers.
　　"You look very comfortable!" said Helen's voice above them.
　　"Hirst," said Hewet, pointing at the scissorlike shadow; he thenrolled round to look up at them.
　　"There's room for us all here," he said.
　　When Hirst had seated himself comfortably, he said:
　　"Did you congratulate the young couple?"It appeared that, coming to the same spot a few minutes after Hewetand Rachel, Helen and Hirst had seen precisely the same thing.
　　"No, we didn't congratulate them," said Hewet. "They seemedvery happy.""Well," said Hirst, pursing up his lips, "so long as I needn'tmarry either of them--""We were very much moved," said Hewet.
　　"I thought you would be," said Hirst. "Which was it, Monk?
　　The thought of the immortal passions, or the thought of new-bornmales to keep the Roman Catholics out? I assure you," he saidto Helen, "he's capable of being moved by either."Rachel was a good deal stung by his banter, which she felt to bedirected equally against them both, but she could think of no repartee.
　　"Nothing moves Hirst," Hewet laughed; he did not seem to be stungat all. "Unless it were a transfinite number falling in love witha finite one--I suppose such things do happen, even in mathematics.""On the contrary," said Hirst with a touch of annoyance,"I consider myself a person of very strong passions."It was clear from the way he spoke that he meant it seriously;he spoke of course for the benefit of the ladies.
　　"By the way, Hirst," said Hewet, after a pause, "I have a terribleconfession to make. Your book--the poems of Wordsworth, which ifyou remember I took off your table just as we were starting,and certainly put in my pocket here--""Is lost," Hirst finished for him.
　　"I consider that there is still a chance," Hewet urged, slappinghimself to right and left, "that I never did take it after all.""No," said Hirst. "It is here." He pointed to his breast.
　　"Thank God," Hewet exclaimed. "I need no longer feel as thoughI'd murdered a child!""I should think you were always losing things," Helen remarked,looking at him meditatively.
　　"I don't lose things," said Hewet. "I mislay them. That was thereason why Hirst refused to share a cabin with me on the voyage out.""You came out together?" Helen enquired.
　　"I propose that each member of this party now gives a short biographicalsketch of himself or herself," said Hirst, sitting upright.
　　"Miss Vinrace, you come first; begin."Rachel stated that she was twenty-four years of age, the daughterof a ship-owner, that she had never been properly educated;played the piano, had no brothers or sisters, and lived at Richmondwith aunts, her mother being dead.
　　"Next," said Hirst, having taken in these facts; he pointed at Hewet.
　　"I am the son of an English gentleman. I am twenty-seven,"Hewet began. "My father was a fox-hunting squire. He died when Iwas ten in the hunting field. I can remember his body coming home,on a shutter I suppose, just as I was going down to tea,and noticing that there was jam for tea, and wondering whether Ishould be allowed--""Yes; but keep to the facts," Hirst put in.
　　"I was educated at Winchester and Cambridge, which I had to leaveafter a time. I have done a good many things since--""Profession?""None--at least--""Tastes?""Literary. I'm writing a novel.""Brothers and sisters?""Three sisters, no brother, and a mother.""Is that all we're to hear about you?" said Helen. She statedthat she was very old--forty last October, and her father had beena solicitor in the city who had gone bankrupt, for which reason shehad never had much education--they lived in one place after another--but an elder brother used to lend her books.
　　"If I were to tell you everything--" she stopped and smiled.
　　"It would take too long," she concluded. "I married when I was thirty,and I have two children. My husband is a scholar. And now--it's your turn," she nodded at Hirst.
　　"You've left out a great deal," he reproved her. "My name isSt. John Alaric Hirst," he began in a jaunty tone of voice.
　　"I'm twenty-four years old. I'm the son of the ReverendSidney Hirst, vicar of Great Wappyng in Norfolk. Oh, I gotscholarships everywhere--Westminster--King's. I'm now a fellowof King's. Don't it sound dreary? Parents both alive (alas).
　　Two brothers and one sister. I'm a very distinguished young man," he added.
　　"One of the three, or is it five, most distinguished men in England,"Hewet remarked.
　　"Quite correct," said Hirst.
　　"That's all very interesting," said Helen after a pause.
　　"But of course we've left out the only questions that matter.
　　For instance, are we Christians?""I am not," "I am not," both the young men replied.
　　"I am," Rachel stated.
　　"You believe in a personal God?" Hirst demanded, turning roundand fixing her with his eyeglasses.
　　"I believe--I believe," Rachel stammered, "I believe there arethings we don't know about, and the world might change in a minuteand anything appear."At this Helen laughed outright. "Nonsense," she said. "You're nota Christian. You've never thought what you are.--And there arelots of other questions," she continued, "though perhaps we can'task them yet." Although they had talked so freely they were alluncomfortably conscious that they really knew nothing about each other.
　　"The important questions," Hewet pondered, "the really interesting ones.
　　I doubt that one ever does ask them."Rachel, who was slow to accept the fact that only a very few thingscan be said even by people who know each other well, insisted onknowing what he meant.
　　"Whether we've ever been in love?" she enquired. "Is that the kindof question you mean?"Again Helen laughed at her, benignantly strewing her with handfulsof the long tasselled grass, for she was so brave and so foolish.
　　"Oh, Rachel," she cried. "It's like having a puppy in the househaving you with one--a puppy that brings one's underclothes downinto the hall."But again the sunny earth in front of them was crossed by fantasticwavering figures, the shadows of men and women.
　　"There they are!" exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. There was a touch ofpeevishness in her voice. "And we've had _such_ a hunt to find you.
　　Do you know what the time is?"Mrs. Elliot and Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury now confronted them; Mrs. Elliotwas holding out her watch, and playfully tapping it upon the face.
　　Hewet was recalled to the fact that this was a party for which hewas responsible, and he immediately led them back to the watch-tower,where they were to have tea before starting home again. A brightcrimson scarf fluttered from the top of the wall, which Mr. Perrottand Evelyn were tying to a stone as the others came up. The heathad changed just so far that instead of sitting in the shadow theysat in the sun, which was still hot enough to paint their faces redand yellow, and to colour great sections of the earth beneath them.
　　"There's nothing half so nice as tea!" said Mrs. Thornbury,taking her cup.
　　"Nothing," said Helen. "Can't you remember as a child choppingup hay--" she spoke much more quickly than usual, and kept her eyefixed upon Mrs. Thornbury, "and pretending it was tea, and gettingscolded by the nurses--why I can't imagine, except that nursesare such brutes, won't allow pepper instead of salt though there'sno earthly harm in it. Weren't your nurses just the same?"During this speech Susan came into the group, and sat down byHelen's side. A few minutes later Mr. Venning strolled up fromthe opposite direction. He was a little flushed, and in the moodto answer hilariously whatever was said to him.
　　"What have you been doing to that old chap's grave?" he asked,pointing to the red flag which floated from the top of the stones.
　　"We have tried to make him forget his misfortune in having diedthree hundred years ago," said Mr. Perrott.
　　"It would be awful--to be dead!" ejaculated Evelyn M.
　　"To be dead?" said Hewet. "I don't think it would be awful.
　　It's quite easy to imagine. When you go to bed to-night fold yourhands so--breathe slower and slower--" He lay back with his handsclasped upon his breast, and his eyes shut, "Now," he murmured in aneven monotonous voice, "I shall never, never, never move again."His body, lying flat among them, did for a moment suggest death.
　　"This is a horrible exhibition, Mr. Hewet!" cried Mrs. Thornbury.
　　"More cake for us!" said Arthur.
　　"I assure you there's nothing horrible about it," said Hewet,sitting up and laying hands upon the cake.
　　"It's so natural," he repeated. "People with children should makethem do that exercise every night. . . . Not that I look forwardto being dead.""And when you allude to a grave," said Mr. Thornbury, who spoke almostfor the first time, "have you any authority for calling that ruin a grave?
　　I am quite with you in refusing to accept the common interpretationwhich declares it to be the remains of an Elizabethan watch-tower--any more than I believe that the circular mounds or barrowswhich we find on the top of our English downs were camps.
　　The antiquaries call everything a camp. I am always asking them,Well then, where do you think our ancestors kept their cattle?
　　Half the camps in England are merely the ancient pound or bartonas we call it in my part of the world. The argument that no onewould keep his cattle in such exposed and inaccessible spots hasno weight at all, if you reflect that in those days a man's cattlewere his capital, his stock-in-trade, his daughter's dowries.
　　Without cattle he was a serf, another man's man. . . ." His eyesslowly lost their intensity, and he muttered a few concluding wordsunder his breath, looking curiously old and forlorn.
　　Hughling Elliot, who might have been expected to engage the oldgentleman in argument, was absent at the moment. He now came upholding out a large square of cotton upon which a fine design wasprinted in pleasant bright colours that made his hand look pale.
　　"A bargain," he announced, laying it down on the cloth. "I've justbought it from the big man with the ear-rings. Fine, isn't it?
　　It wouldn't suit every one, of course, but it's just the thing--isn't it, Hilda?--for Mrs. Raymond Parry.""Mrs. Raymond Parry!" cried Helen and Mrs. Thornbury at the same moment.
　　They looked at each other as though a mist hitherto obscuringtheir faces had been blown away.
　　"Ah--you have been to those wonderful parties too?" Mrs. Elliotasked with interest.
　　Mrs. Parry's drawing-room, though thousands of miles away,behind a vast curve of water on a tiny piece of earth, came beforetheir eyes. They who had had no solidity or anchorage before seemedto be attached to it somehow, and at once grown more substantial.
　　Perhaps they had been in the drawing-room at the same moment;perhaps they had passed each other on the stairs; at any rate theyknew some of the same people. They looked one another up and downwith new interest. But they could do no more than look at each other,for there was no time to enjoy the fruits of the discovery.
　　The donkeys were advancing, and it was advisable to begin thedescent immediately, for the night fell so quickly that it wouldbe dark before they were home again.
　　Accordingly, remounting in order, they filed off down the hillside.
　　Scraps of talk came floating back from one to another. There werejokes to begin with, and laughter; some walked part of the way,and picked flowers, and sent stones bounding before them.
　　"Who writes the best Latin verse in your college, Hirst?" Mr. Elliotcalled back incongruously, and Mr. Hirst returned that he had no idea.
　　The dusk fell as suddenly as the natives had warned them, the hollowsof the mountain on either side filling up with darkness and the pathbecoming so dim that it was surprising to hear the donkeys' hooves stillstriking on hard rock. Silence fell upon one, and then upon another,until they were all silent, their minds spilling out into the deepblue air. The way seemed shorter in the dark than in the day;and soon the lights of the town were seen on the flat far beneath them.
　　Suddenly some one cried, "Ah!"In a moment the slow yellow drop rose again from the plain below;it rose, paused, opened like a flower, and fell in a shower of drops.
　　"Fireworks," they cried.
　　Another went up more quickly; and then another; they could almosthear it twist and roar.
　　"Some Saint's day, I suppose," said a voice. The rush and embraceof the rockets as they soared up into the air seemed like the fieryway in which lovers suddenly rose and united, leaving the crowdgazing up at them with strained white faces. But Susan and Arthur,riding down the hill, never said a word to each other, and keptaccurately apart.
　　Then the fireworks became erratic, and soon they ceased altogether,and the rest of the journey was made almost in darkness,the mountain being a great shadow behind them, and bushes and treeslittle shadows which threw darkness across the road. Among theplane-trees they separated, bundling into carriages and driving off,without saying good-night, or saying it only in a half-muffled way.
　　It was so late that there was no time for normal conversationbetween their arrival at the hotel and their retirement to bed.
　　But Hirst wandered into Hewet's room with a collar in his hand.
　　"Well, Hewet," he remarked, on the crest of a gigantic yawn,"that was a great success, I consider." He yawned. "But take careyou're not landed with that young woman. . . . I don't reallylike young women. . . ."Hewet was too much drugged by hours in the open air to make any reply.
　　In fact every one of the party was sound asleep within ten minutesor so of each other, with the exception of Susan Warrington.
　　She lay for a considerable time looking blankly at the wall opposite,her hands clasped above her heart, and her light burning by her side.
　　All articulate thought had long ago deserted her; her heart seemedto have grown to the size of a sun, and to illuminate her entire body,shedding like the sun a steady tide of warmth.
　　"I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy," she repeated. "I love every one.
　　I'm happy."
Chapter 12
    When Susan's engagement had been approved at home, and made publicto any one who took an interest in it at the hotel--and by this timethe society at the hotel was divided so as to point to invisiblechalk-marks such as Mr. Hirst had described, the news was felt tojustify some celebration--an expedition? That had been done already.
　　A dance then. The advantage of a dance was that it abolished oneof those long evenings which were apt to become tedious and leadto absurdly early hours in spite of bridge.
　　Two or three people standing under the erect body of the stuffedleopard in the hall very soon had the matter decided. Evelyn slida pace or two this way and that, and pronounced that the floorwas excellent. Signor Rodriguez informed them of an old Spaniardwho fiddled at weddings--fiddled so as to make a tortoise waltz;and his daughter, although endowed with eyes as black ascoal-scuttles, had the same power over the piano. If therewere any so sick or so surly as to prefer sedentary occupationson the night in question to spinning and watching others spin,the drawing-room and billiard-room were theirs. Hewet made ithis business to conciliate the outsiders as much as possible.
　　To Hirst's theory of the invisible chalk-marks he would pay noattention whatever. He was treated to a snub or two, but, in reward,found obscure lonely gentlemen delighted to have this opportunityof talking to their kind, and the lady of doubtful character showedevery symptom of confiding her case to him in the near future.
　　Indeed it was made quite obvious to him that the two or three hoursbetween dinner and bed contained an amount of unhappiness, which wasreally pitiable, so many people had not succeeded in making friends.
　　It was settled that the dance was to be on Friday, one week afterthe engagement, and at dinner Hewet declared himself satisfied.
　　"They're all coming!" he told Hirst. "Pepper!" he called,seeing William Pepper slip past in the wake of the soup witha pamphlet beneath his arm, "We're counting on you to open the ball.""You will certainly put sleep out of the question," Pepper returned.
　　"You are to take the floor with Miss Allan," Hewet continued,consulting a sheet of pencilled notes.
　　Pepper stopped and began a discourse upon round dances, country dances,morris dances, and quadrilles, all of which are entirely superiorto the bastard waltz and spurious polka which have ousted themmost unjustly in contemporary popularity--when the waiters gentlypushed him on to his table in the corner.
　　The dining-room at this moment had a certain fantastic resemblanceto a farmyard scattered with grain on which bright pigeonskept descending. Almost all the ladies wore dresses which theyhad not yet displayed, and their hair rose in waves and scrollsso as to appear like carved wood in Gothic churches ratherthan hair. The dinner was shorter and less formal than usual,even the waiters seeming to be affected with the general excitement.
　　Ten minutes before the clock struck nine the committee made a tourthrough the ballroom. The hall, when emptied of its furniture,brilliantly lit, adorned with flowers whose scent tinged the air,presented a wonderful appearance of ethereal gaiety.
　　"It's like a starlit sky on an absolutely cloudless night,"Hewet murmured, looking about him, at the airy empty room.
　　"A heavenly floor, anyhow," Evelyn added, taking a run and slidingtwo or three feet along.
　　"What about those curtains?" asked Hirst. The crimson curtainswere drawn across the long windows. "It's a perfect night outside.""Yes, but curtains inspire confidence," Miss Allan decided.
　　"When the ball is in full swing it will be time to draw them.
　　We might even open the windows a little. . . . If we do it now elderlypeople will imagine there are draughts.
　　Her wisdom had come to be recognised, and held in respect.
　　Meanwhile as they stood talking, the musicians were unwrappingtheir instruments, and the violin was repeating again and againa note struck upon the piano. Everything was ready to begin.
　　After a few minutes' pause, the father, the daughter, and theson-in-law who played the horn flourished with one accord.
　　Like the rats who followed the piper, heads instantly appearedin the doorway. There was another flourish; and then the triodashed spontaneously into the triumphant swing of the waltz.
　　It was as though the room were instantly flooded with water.
　　After a moment's hesitation first one couple, then another,leapt into mid-stream, and went round and round in the eddies.
　　The rhythmic swish of the dancers sounded like a swirling pool.
　　By degrees the room grew perceptibly hotter. The smell of kidgloves mingled with the strong scent of flowers. The eddiesseemed to circle faster and faster, until the music wrought itselfinto a crash, ceased, and the circles were smashed into littleseparate bits. The couples struck off in different directions,leaving a thin row of elderly people stuck fast to the walls,and here and there a piece of trimming or a handkerchief or aflower lay upon the floor. There was a pause, and then the musicstarted again, the eddies whirled, the couples circled round in them,until there was a crash, and the circles were broken up intoseparate pieces.
　　When this had happened about five times, Hirst, who leant againsta window-frame, like some singular gargoyle, perceived that HelenAmbrose and Rachel stood in the doorway. The crowd was suchthat they could not move, but he recognised them by a piece ofHelen's shoulder and a glimpse of Rachel's head turning round.
　　He made his way to them; they greeted him with relief.
　　"We are suffering the tortures of the damned," said Helen.
　　"This is my idea of hell," said Rachel.
　　Her eyes were bright and she looked bewildered.
　　Hewet and Miss Allan, who had been waltzing somewhat laboriously,paused and greeted the newcomers.
　　"This _is_ nice," said Hewet. "But where is Mr. Ambrose?""Pindar," said Helen. "May a married woman who was forty inOctober dance? I can't stand still." She seemed to fade into Hewet,and they both dissolved in the crowd.
　　"We must follow suit," said Hirst to Rachel, and he took herresolutely by the elbow. Rachel, without being expert, danced well,because of a good ear for rhythm, but Hirst had no taste for music,and a few dancing lessons at Cambridge had only put him into possessionof the anatomy of a waltz, without imparting any of its spirit.
　　A single turn proved to them that their methods were incompatible;instead of fitting into each other their bones seemed to jut outin angles making smooth turning an impossibility, and cutting,moreover, into the circular progress of the other dancers.
　　"Shall we stop?" said Hirst. Rachel gathered from his expressionthat he was annoyed.
　　They staggered to seats in the corner, from which they had a viewof the room. It was still surging, in waves of blue and yellow,striped by the black evening-clothes of the gentlemen.
　　"An amazing spectacle," Hirst remarked. "Do you dance muchin London?" They were both breathing fast, and both a little excited,though each was determined not to show any excitement at all.
　　"Scarcely ever. Do you?""My people give a dance every Christmas.""This isn't half a bad floor," Rachel said. Hirst did not attemptto answer her platitude. He sat quite silent, staring at the dancers.
　　After three minutes the silence became so intolerable to Rachelthat she was goaded to advance another commonplace about the beautyof the night. Hirst interrupted her ruthlessly.
　　"Was that all nonsense what you said the other day about beinga Christian and having no education?" he asked.
　　"It was practically true," she replied. "But I also play the pianovery well," she said, "better, I expect than any one in this room.
　　You are the most distinguished man in England, aren't you?"she asked shyly.
　　"One of the three," he corrected.
　　Helen whirling past here tossed a fan into Rachel's lap.
　　"She is very beautiful," Hirst remarked.
　　They were again silent. Rachel was wondering whether he thoughther also nice-looking; St. John was considering the immensedifficulty of talking to girls who had no experience of life.
　　Rachel had obviously never thought or felt or seen anything,and she might be intelligent or she might be just like all the rest.
　　But Hewet's taunt rankled in his mind--"you don't know how to geton with women," and he was determined to profit by this opportunity.
　　Her evening-clothes bestowed on her just that degree of unrealityand distinction which made it romantic to speak to her, and stirreda desire to talk, which irritated him because he did not knowhow to begin. He glanced at her, and she seemed to him veryremote and inexplicable, very young and chaste. He drew a sigh,and began.
　　"About books now. What have you read? Just Shakespeare and the Bible?""I haven't read many classics," Rachel stated. She was slightlyannoyed by his jaunty and rather unnatural manner, while his masculineacquirements induced her to take a very modest view of her own power.
　　"D'you mean to tell me you've reached the age of twenty-four withoutreading Gibbon?" he demanded.
　　"Yes, I have," she answered.
　　"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, throwing out his hands. "You must beginto-morrow. I shall send you my copy. What I want to know is--"he looked at her critically. "You see, the problem is, can onereally talk to you? Have you got a mind, or are you like the restof your sex? You seem to me absurdly young compared with menof your age."Rachel looked at him but said nothing.
　　"About Gibbon," he continued. "D'you think you'll be ableto appreciate him? He's the test, of course. It's awfullydifficult to tell about women," he continued, "how much, I mean,is due to lack of training, and how much is native incapacity.
　　I don't see myself why you shouldn't understand--only I suppose you'veled an absurd life until now--you've just walked in a crocodile,I suppose, with your hair down your back."The music was again beginning. Hirst's eye wandered about the roomin search of Mrs. Ambrose. With the best will in the world hewas conscious that they were not getting on well together.
　　"I'd like awfully to lend you books," he said, buttoning his gloves,and rising from his seat. "We shall meet again. "I'm going to leaveyou now."He got up and left her.
　　Rachel looked round. She felt herself surrounded, like a child ata party, by the faces of strangers all hostile to her, with hookednoses and sneering, indifferent eyes. She was by a window,she pushed it open with a jerk. She stepped out into the garden.
　　Her eyes swam with tears of rage.
　　"Damn that man!" she exclaimed, having acquired some of Helen's words.
　　"Damn his insolence!"She stood in the middle of the pale square of light which thewindow she had opened threw upon the grass. The forms of greatblack trees rose massively in front of her. She stood still,looking at them, shivering slightly with anger and excitement.
　　She heard the trampling and swinging of the dancers behind her,and the rhythmic sway of the waltz music.
　　"There are trees," she said aloud. Would the trees make upfor St. John Hirst? She would be a Persian princess farfrom civilisation, riding her horse upon the mountains alone,and making her women sing to her in the evening, far from all this,from the strife and men and women--a form came out of the shadow;a little red light burnt high up in its blackness.
　　"Miss Vinrace, is it?" said Hewet, peering at her. "You weredancing with Hirst?""He's made me furious!" she cried vehemently. "No one's any rightto be insolent!""Insolent?" Hewet repeated, taking his cigar from his mouthin surprise. "Hirst--insolent?""It's insolent to--" said Rachel, and stopped. She did not knowexactly why she had been made so angry. With a great effort shepulled herself together.
　　"Oh, well," she added, the vision of Helen and her mockery before her,"I dare say I'm a fool." She made as though she were going backinto the ballroom, but Hewet stopped her.
　　"Please explain to me," he said. "I feel sure Hirst didn't meanto hurt you."When Rachel tried to explain, she found it very difficult.
　　She could not say that she found the vision of herself walkingin a crocodile with her hair down her back peculiarly unjustand horrible, nor could she explain why Hirst's assumption ofthe superiority of his nature and experience had seemed to her notonly galling but terrible--as if a gate had clanged in her face.
　　Pacing up and down the terrace beside Hewet she said bitterly:
　　"It's no good; we should live separate; we cannot understand each other;we only bring out what's worst."Hewet brushed aside her generalisation as to the natures ofthe two sexes, for such generalisations bored him and seemedto him generally untrue. But, knowing Hirst, he guessed fairlyaccurately what had happened, and, though secretly much amused,was determined that Rachel should not store the incidentaway in her mind to take its place in the view she had of life.
　　"Now you'll hate him," he said, "which is wrong. Poor old Hirst--he can't help his method. And really, Miss Vinrace, he was doing his best;he was paying you a compliment--he was trying--he was trying--"he could not finish for the laughter that overcame him.
　　Rachel veered round suddenly and laughed out too. She saw that therewas something ridiculous about Hirst, and perhaps about herself.
　　"It's his way of making friends, I suppose," she laughed. "Well--Ishall do my part. I shall begin--'Ugly in body, repulsive in mindas you are, Mr. Hirst--""Hear, hear!" cried Hewet. "That's the way to treat him. You see,Miss Vinrace, you must make allowances for Hirst. He's lived allhis life in front of a looking-glass, so to speak, in a beautifulpanelled room, hung with Japanese prints and lovely old chairsand tables, just one splash of colour, you know, in the right place,--between the windows I think it is,--and there he sits hour afterhour with his toes on the fender, talking about philosophy andGod and his liver and his heart and the hearts of his friends.
　　They're all broken. You can't expect him to be at his best ina ballroom. He wants a cosy, smoky, masculine place, where he canstretch his legs out, and only speak when he's got something to say.
　　For myself, I find it rather dreary. But I do respect it.
　　They're all so much in earnest. They do take the serious thingsvery seriously."The description of Hirst's way of life interested Rachel so muchthat she almost forgot her private grudge against him, and herrespect revived.
　　"They are really very clever then?" she asked.
　　"Of course they are. So far as brains go I think it's true what hesaid the other day; they're the cleverest people in England. But--you ought to take him in hand," he added. "There's a great deal morein him than's ever been got at. He wants some one to laugh at him.
　　. . . The idea of Hirst telling you that you've had no experiences!
　　Poor old Hirst!"They had been pacing up and down the terrace while they talked, and nowone by one the dark windows were uncurtained by an invisible hand,and panes of light fell regularly at equal intervals upon the grass.
　　They stopped to look in at the drawing-room, and perceived Mr. Pepperwriting alone at a table.
　　"There's Pepper writing to his aunt," said Hewet. "She mustbe a very remarkable old lady, eighty-five he tells me, and hetakes her for walking tours in the New Forest. . . . Pepper!"he cried, rapping on the window. "Go and do your duty. Miss Allanexpects you."When they came to the windows of the ballroom, the swingof the dancers and the lilt of the music was irresistible.
　　"Shall we?" said Hewet, and they clasped hands and swept offmagnificently into the great swirling pool. Although this was onlythe second time they had met, the first time they had seen a manand woman kissing each other, and the second time Mr. Hewet had foundthat a young woman angry is very like a child. So that when theyjoined hands in the dance they felt more at their ease than is usual.
　　It was midnight and the dance was now at its height. Servants werepeeping in at the windows; the garden was sprinkled with the whiteshapes of couples sitting out. Mrs. Thornbury and Mrs. Elliotsat side by side under a palm tree, holding fans, handkerchiefs,and brooches deposited in their laps by flushed maidens.
　　Occasionally they exchanged comments.
　　"Miss Warrington _does_ look happy," said Mrs. Elliot; they both smiled;they both sighed.
　　"He has a great deal of character," said Mrs. Thornbury,alluding to Arthur.
　　"And character is what one wants," said Mrs. Elliot. "Now thatyoung man is _clever_ enough," she added, nodding at Hirst,who came past with Miss Allan on his arm.
　　"He does not look strong," said Mrs. Thornbury. "His complexion isnot good.--Shall I tear it off?" she asked, for Rachel had stopped,conscious of a long strip trailing behind her.
　　"I hope you are enjoying yourselves?" Hewet asked the ladies.
　　"This is a very familiar position for me!" smiled Mrs. Thornbury.
　　"I have brought out five daughters--and they all loved dancing!
　　You love it too, Miss Vinrace?" she asked, looking at Rachel withmaternal eyes. "I know I did when I was your age. How I used to begmy mother to let me stay--and now I sympathise with the poor mothers--but I sympathise with the daughters too!"She smiled sympathetically, and at the same time rather keenly,at Rachel.
　　"They seem to find a great deal to say to each other," said Mrs. Elliot,looking significantly at the backs of the couple as they turned away.
　　"Did you notice at the picnic? He was the only person who couldmake her utter.""Her father is a very interesting man," said Mrs. Thornbury.
　　"He has one of the largest shipping businesses in Hull. He madea very able reply, you remember, to Mr. Asquith at the last election.
　　It is so interesting to find that a man of his experience is astrong Protectionist."She would have liked to discuss politics, which interestedher more than personalities, but Mrs. Elliot would only talkabout the Empire in a less abstract form.
　　"I hear there are dreadful accounts from England about the rats,"she said. "A sister-in-law, who lives at Norwich, tells me ithas been quite unsafe to order poultry. The plague--you see.
　　It attacks the rats, and through them other creatures.""And the local authorities are not taking proper steps?"asked Mrs. Thornbury.
　　"That she does not say. But she describes the attitude of theeducated people--who should know better--as callous in the extreme.
　　Of course, my sister-in-law is one of those active modern women,who always takes things up, you know--the kind of woman one admires,though one does not feel, at least I do not feel--but then she hasa constitution of iron."Mrs. Elliot, brought back to the consideration of her own delicacy,here sighed.
　　"A very animated face," said Mrs. Thornbury, looking at Evelyn M. whohad stopped near them to pin tight a scarlet flower at her breast.
　　It would not stay, and, with a spirited gesture of impatience,she thrust it into her partner's button-hole. He was a tallmelancholy youth, who received the gift as a knight might receivehis lady's token.
　　"Very trying to the eyes," was Mrs. Eliot's next remark, after watchingthe yellow whirl in which so few of the whirlers had either nameor character for her, for a few minutes. Bursting out of the crowd,Helen approached them, and took a vacant chair.
　　"May I sit by you?" she said, smiling and breathing fast.
　　"I suppose I ought to be ashamed of myself," she went on, sitting down,"at my age."Her beauty, now that she was flushed and animated, was more expansivethan usual, and both the ladies felt the same desire to touch her.
　　"I _am_ enjoying myself," she panted. "Movement--isn't it amazing?""I have always heard that nothing comes up to dancing if one isa good dancer," said Mrs. Thornbury, looking at her with a smile.
　　Helen swayed slightly as if she sat on wires.
　　"I could dance for ever!" she said. "They ought to let themselvesgo more!" she exclaimed. "They ought to leap and swing. Look!
　　How they mince!""Have you seen those wonderful Russian dancers?" began Mrs. Elliot.
　　But Helen saw her partner coming and rose as the moon rises.
　　She was half round the room before they took their eyes off her,for they could not help admiring her, although they thought it a littleodd that a woman of her age should enjoy dancing.
　　Directly Helen was left alone for a minute she was joinedby St. John Hirst, who had been watching for an opportunity.
　　"Should you mind sitting out with me?" he asked. "I'm quiteincapable of dancing." He piloted Helen to a corner which wassupplied with two arm-chairs, and thus enjoyed the advantageof semi-privacy. They sat down, and for a few minutes Helenwas too much under the influence of dancing to speak.
　　"Astonishing!" she exclaimed at last. "What sort of shape canshe think her body is?" This remark was called forth by a ladywho came past them, waddling rather than walking, and leaningon the arm of a stout man with globular green eyes set in a fatwhite face. Some support was necessary, for she was very stout,and so compressed that the upper part of her body hung considerablyin advance of her feet, which could only trip in tiny steps,owing to the tightness of the skirt round her ankles.
　　The dress itself consisted of a small piece of shiny yellow satin,adorned here and there indiscriminately with round shields of blueand green beads made to imitate hues of a peacock's breast.
　　On the summit of a frothy castle of hair a purple plume stood erect,while her short neck was encircled by a black velvet ribbon knobbedwith gems, and golden bracelets were tightly wedged into the fleshof her fat gloved arms. She had the face of an impertinentbut jolly little pig, mottled red under a dusting of powder.
　　St. John could not join in Helen's laughter.
　　"It makes me sick," he declared. "The whole thing makes me sick.
　　. . . Consider the minds of those people--their feelings.
　　Don't you agree?""I always make a vow never to go to another party of any description,"Helen replied, "and I always break it."She leant back in her chair and looked laughingly at the young man.
　　She could see that he was genuinely cross, if at the same timeslightly excited.
　　"However," he said, resuming his jaunty tone, "I suppose one mustjust make up one's mind to it.""To what?""There never will be more than five people in the world worthtalking to."Slowly the flush and sparkle in Helen's face died away, and shelooked as quiet and as observant as usual.
　　"Five people?" she remarked. "I should say there were more than five.""You've been very fortunate, then," said Hirst. "Or perhaps I'vebeen very unfortunate." He became silent.
　　"Should you say I was a difficult kind of person to get on with?"he asked sharply.
　　"Most clever people are when they're young," Helen replied.
　　"And of course I am--immensely clever," said Hirst. "I'm infinitelycleverer than Hewet. It's quite possible," he continued in hiscuriously impersonal manner, "that I'm going to be one of the peoplewho really matter. That's utterly different from being clever,though one can't expect one's family to see it," he added bitterly.
　　Helen thought herself justified in asking, "Do you find your familydifficult to get on with?""Intolerable. . . . They want me to be a peer and a privy councillor.
　　I've come out here partly in order to settle the matter. It's got tobe settled. Either I must go to the bar, or I must stay on in Cambridge.
　　Of course, there are obvious drawbacks to each, but the argumentscertainly do seem to me in favour of Cambridge. This kind of thing!"he waved his hand at the crowded ballroom. "Repulsive. I'm consciousof great powers of affection too. I'm not susceptible, of course,in the way Hewet is. I'm very fond of a few people. I think,for example, that there's something to be said for my mother,though she is in many ways so deplorable. . . . At Cambridge,of course, I should inevitably become the most important manin the place, but there are other reasons why I dread Cambridge--"he ceased.
　　"Are you finding me a dreadful bore?" he asked. He changed curiouslyfrom a friend confiding in a friend to a conventional young manat a party.
　　"Not in the least," said Helen. "I like it very much.""You can't think," he exclaimed, speaking almost with emotion,"what a difference it makes finding someone to talk to!
　　Directly I saw you I felt you might possibly understand me.
　　I'm very fond of Hewet, but he hasn't the remotest idea what I'm like.
　　You're the only woman I've ever met who seems to have the faintestconception of what I mean when I say a thing."The next dance was beginning; it was the Barcarolle out of Hoffman,which made Helen beat her toe in time to it; but she felt thatafter such a compliment it was impossible to get up and go, and,besides being amused, she was really flattered, and the honestyof his conceit attracted her. She suspected that he was not happy,and was sufficiently feminine to wish to receive confidences.
　　"I'm very old," she sighed.
　　"The odd thing is that I don't find you old at all," he replied.
　　"I feel as though we were exactly the same age. Moreover--"here he hesitated, but took courage from a glance at her face,"I feel as if I could talk quite plainly to you as one does to a man--about the relations between the sexes, about . . . and . . ."In spite of his certainty a slight redness came into his face as hespoke the last two words.
　　She reassured him at once by the laugh with which she exclaimed,"I should hope so!"He looked at her with real cordiality, and the lines which weredrawn about his nose and lips slackened for the first time.
　　"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Now we can behave like civilisedhuman beings."Certainly a barrier which usually stands fast had fallen, and itwas possible to speak of matters which are generally only alludedto between men and women when doctors are present, or the shadowof death. In five minutes he was telling her the history of his life.
　　It was long, for it was full of extremely elaborate incidents,which led on to a discussion of the principles on which moralityis founded, and thus to several very interesting matters,which even in this ballroom had to be discussed in a whisper,lest one of the pouter pigeon ladies or resplendent merchants shouldoverhear them, and proceed to demand that they should leave the place.
　　When they had come to an end, or, to speak more accurately,when Helen intimated by a slight slackening of her attention thatthey had sat there long enough, Hirst rose, exclaiming, "So there'sno reason whatever for all this mystery!""None, except that we are English people," she answered. She took hisarm and they crossed the ball-room, making their way with difficultybetween the spinning couples, who were now perceptibly dishevelled,and certainly to a critical eye by no means lovely in their shapes.
　　The excitement of undertaking a friendship and the length oftheir talk, made them hungry, and they went in search of foodto the dining-room, which was now full of people eating at littleseparate tables. In the doorway they met Rachel, going up to danceagain with Arthur Venning. She was flushed and looked very happy,and Helen was struck by the fact that in this mood she wascertainly more attractive than the generality of young women.
　　She had never noticed it so clearly before.
　　"Enjoying yourself?" she asked, as they stopped for a second.
　　"Miss Vinrace," Arthur answered for her, "has just made a confession;she'd no idea that dances could be so delightful.""Yes!" Rachel exclaimed. "I've changed my view of life completely!""You don't say so!" Helen mocked. They passed on.
　　"That's typical of Rachel," she said. "She changes her view of lifeabout every other day. D'you know, I believe you're just the personI want," she said, as they sat down, "to help me complete her education?
　　She's been brought up practically in a nunnery. Her father's too absurd.
　　I've been doing what I can--but I'm too old, and I'm a woman.
　　Why shouldn't you talk to her--explain things to her--talk to her,I mean, as you talk to me?""I have made one attempt already this evening," said St. John.
　　"I rather doubt that it was successful. She seems to me so very youngand inexperienced. I have promised to lend her Gibbon.""It's not Gibbon exactly," Helen pondered. "It's the facts of life,I think--d'you see what I mean? What really goes on, what people feel,although they generally try to hide it? There's nothing to befrightened of. It's so much more beautiful than the pretences--always more interesting--always better, I should say, than _that_kind of thing."She nodded her head at a table near them, where two girls and two youngmen were chaffing each other very loudly, and carrying on an archinsinuating dialogue, sprinkled with endearments, about, it seemed,a pair of stockings or a pair of legs. One of the girls was flirtinga fan and pretending to be shocked, and the sight was very unpleasant,partly because it was obvious that the girls were secretly hostileto each other.
　　"In my old age, however," Helen sighed, "I'm coming to thinkthat it doesn't much matter in the long run what one does:
　　people always go their own way--nothing will ever influence them."She nodded her head at the supper party.
　　But St. John did not agree. He said that he thought one couldreally make a great deal of difference by one's point of view,books and so on, and added that few things at the present timemattered more than the enlightenment of women. He sometimes thoughtthat almost everything was due to education.
　　In the ballroom, meanwhile, the dancers were being formed intosquares for the lancers. Arthur and Rachel, Susan and Hewet,Miss Allan and Hughling Elliot found themselves together.
　　Miss Allan looked at her watch.
　　"Half-past one," she stated. "And I have to despatch AlexanderPope to-morrow.""Pope!" snorted Mr. Elliot. "Who reads Pope, I should like to know?
　　And as for reading about him--No, no, Miss Allan; be persuaded youwill benefit the world much more by dancing than by writing."It was one of Mr. Elliot's affectations that nothing in the worldcould compare with the delights of dancing--nothing in the worldwas so tedious as literature. Thus he sought pathetically enoughto ingratiate himself with the young, and to prove to them beyonda doubt that though married to a ninny of a wife, and rather paleand bent and careworn by his weight of learning, he was as much aliveas the youngest of them all.
　　"It's a question of bread and butter," said Miss Allan calmly.
　　"However, they seem to expect me." She took up her position andpointed a square black toe.
　　"Mr. Hewet, you bow to me." It was evident at once that Miss Allanwas the only one of them who had a thoroughly sound knowledgeof the figures of the dance.
　　After the lancers there was a waltz; after the waltz a polka;and then a terrible thing happened; the music, which had beensounding regularly with five-minute pauses, stopped suddenly.
　　The lady with the great dark eyes began to swathe her violinin silk, and the gentleman placed his horn carefully in its case.
　　They were surrounded by couples imploring them in English, in French,in Spanish, of one more dance, one only; it was still early.
　　But the old man at the piano merely exhibited his watch and shookhis head. He turned up the collar of his coat and produced a redsilk muffler, which completely dashed his festive appearance.
　　Strange as it seemed, the musicians were pale and heavy-eyed; they lookedbored and prosaic, as if the summit of their desire was cold meatand beer, succeeded immediately by bed.
　　Rachel was one of those who had begged them to continue. When theyrefused she began turning over the sheets of dance music which layupon the piano. The pieces were generally bound in coloured covers,with pictures on them of romantic scenes--gondoliers astrideon the crescent of the moon, nuns peering through the bars of aconvent window, or young women with their hair down pointing a gunat the stars. She remembered that the general effect of the musicto which they had danced so gaily was one of passionate regretfor dead love and the innocent years of youth; dreadful sorrowshad always separated the dancers from their past happiness.
　　"No wonder they get sick of playing stuff like this," she remarkedreading a bar or two; "they're really hymn tunes, played very fast,with bits out of Wagner and Beethoven.""Do you play? Would you play? Anything, so long as we candance to it!" From all sides her gift for playing the pianowas insisted upon, and she had to consent. As very soon shehad played the only pieces of dance music she could remember,she went on to play an air from a sonata by Mozart.
　　"But that's not a dance," said some one pausing by the piano.
　　"It is," she replied, emphatically nodding her head. "Invent the steps."Sure of her melody she marked the rhythm boldly so as to simplifythe way. Helen caught the idea; seized Miss Allan by the arm,and whirled round the room, now curtseying, now spinning round,now tripping this way and that like a child skipping through a meadow.
　　"This is the dance for people who don't know how to dance!"she cried. The tune changed to a minuet; St. John hopped withincredible swiftness first on his left leg, then on his right;the tune flowed melodiously; Hewet, swaying his arms and holdingout the tails of his coat, swam down the room in imitation of thevoluptuous dreamy dance of an Indian maiden dancing before her Rajah.
　　The tune marched; and Miss Allen advanced with skirts extendedand bowed profoundly to the engaged pair. Once their feet fellin with the rhythm they showed a complete lack of selfconsciousness.
　　From Mozart Rachel passed without stopping to old English hunting songs,carols, and hymn tunes, for, as she had observed, any good tune,with a little management, became a tune one could dance to.
　　By degrees every person in the room was tripping and turning in pairsor alone. Mr. Pepper executed an ingenious pointed step derivedfrom figure-skating, for which he once held some local championship;while Mrs. Thornbury tried to recall an old country dance which shehad seen danced by her father's tenants in Dorsetshire in the old days.
　　As for Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, they gallopaded round and round the roomwith such impetuosity that the other dancers shivered at their approach.
　　Some people were heard to criticise the performance as a romp;to others it was the most enjoyable part of the evening.
　　"Now for the great round dance!" Hewet shouted. Instantly a giganticcircle was formed, the dancers holding hands and shouting out,"D'you ken John Peel," as they swung faster and faster and faster,until the strain was too great, and one link of the chain--Mrs. Thornbury--gave way, and the rest went flying across the roomin all directions, to land upon the floor or the chairs or in eachother's arms as seemed most convenient.
　　Rising from these positions, breathless and unkempt, it struckthem for the first time that the electric lights pricked the airvery vainly, and instinctively a great many eyes turned tothe windows. Yes--there was the dawn. While they had been dancingthe night had passed, and it had come. Outside, the mountainsshowed very pure and remote; the dew was sparkling on the grass,and the sky was flushed with blue, save for the pale yellowsand pinks in the East. The dancers came crowding to the windows,pushed them open, and here and there ventured a foot upon the grass.
　　"How silly the poor old lights look!" said Evelyn M. in a curiouslysubdued tone of voice. "And ourselves; it isn't becoming."It was true; the untidy hair, and the green and yellow gems, which hadseemed so festive half an hour ago, now looked cheap and slovenly.
　　The complexions of the elder ladies suffered terribly, and, as ifconscious that a cold eye had been turned upon them, they beganto say good-night and to make their way up to bed.
　　Rachel, though robbed of her audience, had gone on playing to herself.
　　From John Peel she passed to Bach, who was at this time the subjectof her intense enthusiasm, and one by one some of the younger dancerscame in from the garden and sat upon the deserted gilt chairs roundthe piano, the room being now so clear that they turned out the lights.
　　As they sat and listened, their nerves were quieted; the heat andsoreness of their lips, the result of incessant talking and laughing,was smoothed away. They sat very still as if they saw a building withspaces and columns succeeding each other rising in the empty space.
　　Then they began to see themselves and their lives, and the wholeof human life advancing very nobly under the direction of the music.
　　They felt themselves ennobled, and when Rachel stopped playing theydesired nothing but sleep.
　　Susan rose. "I think this has been the happiest night of my life!"she exclaimed. "I do adore music," she said, as she thanked Rachel.
　　"It just seems to say all the things one can't say oneself."She gave a nervous little laugh and looked from one to another withgreat benignity, as though she would like to say something but couldnot find the words in which to express it. "Every one's been so kind--so very kind," she said. Then she too went to bed.
　　The party having ended in the very abrupt way in which partiesdo end, Helen and Rachel stood by the door with their cloaks on,looking for a carriage.
　　"I suppose you realise that there are no carriages left?"said St. John, who had been out to look. "You must sleep here.""Oh, no," said Helen; "we shall walk.""May we come too?" Hewet asked. "We can't go to bed. Imagine lyingamong bolsters and looking at one's washstand on a morning like this--Is that where you live?" They had begun to walk down the avenue,and he turned and pointed at the white and green villa on the hillside,which seemed to have its eyes shut.
　　"That's not a light burning, is it?" Helen asked anxiously.
　　"It's the sun," said St. John. The upper windows had each a spotof gold on them.
　　"I was afraid it was my husband, still reading Greek," she said.
　　"All this time he's been editing _Pindar_."They passed through the town and turned up the steep road,which was perfectly clear, though still unbordered by shadows.
　　Partly because they were tired, and partly because the early lightsubdued them, they scarcely spoke, but breathed in the deliciousfresh air, which seemed to belong to a different state of lifefrom the air at midday. When they came to the high yellow wall,where the lane turned off from the road, Helen was for dismissingthe two young men.
　　"You've come far enough," she said. "Go back to bed."But they seemed unwilling to move.
　　"Let's sit down a moment," said Hewet. He spread his coat onthe ground. "Let's sit down and consider." They sat down and lookedout over the bay; it was very still, the sea was rippling faintly,and lines of green and blue were beginning to stripe it. There wereno sailing boats as yet, but a steamer was anchored in the bay,looking very ghostly in the mist; it gave one unearthly cry,and then all was silent.
　　Rachel occupied herself in collecting one grey stone after anotherand building them into a little cairn; she did it very quietlyand carefully.
　　"And so you've changed your view of life, Rachel?" said Helen.
　　Rachel added another stone and yawned. "I don't remember," she said,"I feel like a fish at the bottom of the sea." She yawned again.
　　None of these people possessed any power to frighten her out here inthe dawn, and she felt perfectly familiar even with Mr. Hirst.
　　"My brain, on the contrary," said Hirst, "is in a conditionof abnormal activity." He sat in his favourite position with hisarms binding his legs together and his chin resting on the topof his knees. "I see through everything--absolutely everything.
　　Life has no more mysteries for me." He spoke with conviction,but did not appear to wish for an answer. Near though they sat,and familiar though they felt, they seemed mere shadows to each other.
　　"And all those people down there going to sleep," Hewet began dreamily,"thinking such different things,--Miss Warrington, I suppose,is now on her knees; the Elliots are a little startled, it's not often_they_ get out of breath, and they want to get to sleep as quicklyas possible; then there's the poor lean young man who danced all nightwith Evelyn; he's putting his flower in water and asking himself,'Is this love?'--and poor old Perrott, I daresay, can't get to sleepat all, and is reading his favourite Greek book to console himself--and the others--no, Hirst," he wound up, "I don't find it simpleat all.""I have a key," said Hirst cryptically. His chin was still uponhis knees and his eyes fixed in front of him.
　　A silence followed. Then Helen rose and bade them good-night.
　　"But," she said, "remember that you've got to come and see us."They waved good-night and parted, but the two young men did notgo back to the hotel; they went for a walk, during which theyscarcely spoke, and never mentioned the names of the two women,who were, to a considerable extent, the subject of their thoughts.
　　They did not wish to share their impressions. They returned tothe hotel in time for breakfast.
Chapter 13
    There were many rooms in the villa, but one room which possesseda character of its own because the door was always shut, and nosound of music or laughter issued from it. Every one in the housewas vaguely conscious that something went on behind that door,and without in the least knowing what it was, were influenced intheir own thoughts by the knowledge that if the passed it the doorwould be shut, and if they made a noise Mr. Ambrose inside wouldbe disturbed. Certain acts therefore possessed merit, and otherswere bad, so that life became more harmonious and less disconnectedthan it would have been had Mr. Ambrose given up editing _Pindar_,and taken to a nomad existence, in and out of every room in the house.
　　As it was, every one was conscious that by observing certain rules,such as punctuality and quiet, by cooking well, and performing othersmall duties, one ode after another was satisfactorily restoredto the world, and they shared the continuity of the scholar's life.
　　Unfortunately, as age puts one barrier between human beings,and learning another, and sex a third, Mr. Ambrose in his studywas some thousand miles distant from the nearest human being,who in this household was inevitably a woman. He sat hour after houramong white-leaved books, alone like an idol in an empty church,still except for the passage of his hand from one side of the sheetto another, silent save for an occasional choke, which drove himto extend his pipe a moment in the air. As he worked his wayfurther and further into the heart of the poet, his chair becamemore and more deeply encircled by books, which lay open on the floor,and could only be crossed by a careful process of stepping,so delicate that his visitors generally stopped and addressed himfrom the outskirts.
　　On the morning after the dance, however, Rachel came into heruncle's room and hailed him twice, "Uncle Ridley," before hepaid her any attention.
　　At length he looked over his spectacles.
　　"Well?" he asked.
　　"I want a book," she replied. "Gibbon's _History_ _of_ _the__Roman_ _Empire_. May I have it?"She watched the lines on her uncle's face gradually rearrange themselvesat her question. It had been smooth as a mask before she spoke.
　　"Please say that again," said her uncle, either because he hadnot heard or because he had not understood.
　　She repeated the same words and reddened slightly as she did so.
　　"Gibbon! What on earth d'you want him for?" he enquired.
　　"Somebody advised me to read it," Rachel stammered.
　　"But I don't travel about with a miscellaneous collectionof eighteenth-century historians!" her uncle exclaimed.
　　"Gibbon! Ten big volumes at least."Rachel said that she was sorry to interrupt, and was turning to go.
　　"Stop!" cried her uncle. He put down his pipe, placed his book on one side,and rose and led her slowly round the room, holding her by the arm.
　　"Plato," he said, laying one finger on the first of a row of smalldark books, "and Jorrocks next door, which is wrong. Sophocles, Swift.
　　You don't care for German commentators, I presume. French, then.
　　You read French? You should read Balzac. Then we come to Wordsworthand Coleridge, Pope, Johnson, Addison, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats.
　　One thing leads to another. Why is Marlowe here? Mrs. Chailey,I presume. But what's the use of reading if you don't read Greek?
　　After all, if you read Greek, you need never read anything else,pure waste of time--pure waste of time," thus speaking half to himself,with quick movements of his hands; they had come round againto the circle of books on the floor, and their progress was stopped.
　　"Well," he demanded, "which shall it be?""Balzac," said Rachel, "or have you the _Speech_ _on_ _the__American_ _Revolution_, Uncle Ridley?""_The_ _Speech_ _on_ _the_ _American_ _Revolution_?" he asked.
　　He looked at her very keenly again. "Another young man at the dance?""No. That was Mr. Dalloway," she confessed.
　　"Good Lord!" he flung back his head in recollection of Mr. Dalloway.
　　She chose for herself a volume at random, submitted it toher uncle, who, seeing that it was _La_ _Cousine_ _bette_,bade her throw it away if she found it too horrible, and wasabout to leave him when he demanded whether she had enjoyed her dance?
　　He then wanted to know what people did at dances, seeing that he hadonly been to one thirty-five years ago, when nothing had seemed to himmore meaningless and idiotic. Did they enjoy turning round and roundto the screech of a fiddle? Did they talk, and say pretty things,and if so, why didn't they do it, under reasonable conditions?
　　As for himself--he sighed and pointed at the signs of industrylying all about him, which, in spite of his sigh, filled his facewith such satisfaction that his niece thought good to leave.
　　On bestowing a kiss she was allowed to go, but not until she hadbound herself to learn at any rate the Greek alphabet, and to returnher French novel when done with, upon which something more suitablewould be found for her.
　　As the rooms in which people live are apt to give off somethingof the same shock as their faces when seen for the first time,Rachel walked very slowly downstairs, lost in wonder at her uncle,and his books, and his neglect of dances, and his queer,utterly inexplicable, but apparently satisfactory view of life,when her eye was caught by a note with her name on it lying in the hall.
　　The address was written in a small strong hand unknown to her,and the note, which had no beginning, ran:--I send the first volume of Gibbon as I promised. Personally I findlittle to be said for the moderns, but I'm going to send you Wedekindwhen I've done him. Donne? Have you read Webster and all that set?
　　I envy you reading them for the first time. Completely exhaustedafter last night. And you?
　　The flourish of initials which she took to be St. J. A. H., woundup the letter. She was very much flattered that Mr. Hirst shouldhave remembered her, and fulfilled his promise so quickly.
　　There was still an hour to luncheon, and with Gibbon in one hand,and Balzac in the other she strolled out of the gate and downthe little path of beaten mud between the olive trees on the slopeof the hill. It was too hot for climbing hills, but along the valleythere were trees and a grass path running by the river bed.
　　In this land where the population was centred in the towns itwas possible to lose sight of civilisation in a very short time,passing only an occasional farmhouse, where the women were handlingred roots in the courtyard; or a little boy lying on his elbows onthe hillside surrounded by a flock of black strong-smelling goats.
　　Save for a thread of water at the bottom, the river was merelya deep channel of dry yellow stones. On the bank grew those treeswhich Helen had said it was worth the voyage out merely to see.
　　April had burst their buds, and they bore large blossoms amongtheir glossy green leaves with petals of a thick wax-like substancecoloured an exquisite cream or pink or deep crimson. But filled withone of those unreasonable exultations which start generally from anunknown cause, and sweep whole countries and skies into their embrace,she walked without seeing. The night was encroaching upon the day.
　　Her ears hummed with the tunes she had played the night before;she sang, and the singing made her walk faster and faster.
　　She did not see distinctly where she was going, the trees andthe landscape appearing only as masses of green and blue, with anoccasional space of differently coloured sky. Faces of peopleshe had seen last night came before her; she heard their voices;she stopped singing, and began saying things over again or sayingthings differently, or inventing things that might have been said.
　　The constraint of being among strangers in a long silk dress made itunusually exciting to stride thus alone. Hewet, Hirst, Mr. Venning,Miss Allan, the music, the light, the dark trees in the garden,the dawn,--as she walked they went surging round in her head,a tumultuous background from which the present moment, with itsopportunity of doing exactly as she liked, sprung more wonderfullyvivid even than the night before.
　　So she might have walked until she had lost all knowledge of her way,had it not been for the interruption of a tree, which, although itdid not grow across her path, stopped her as effectively as ifthe branches had struck her in the face. It was an ordinary tree,but to her it appeared so strange that it might have been the only treein the world. Dark was the trunk in the middle, and the branchessprang here and there, leaving jagged intervals of light between themas distinctly as if it had but that second risen from the ground.
　　Having seen a sight that would last her for a lifetime, and fora lifetime would preserve that second, the tree once more sankinto the ordinary ranks of trees, and she was able to seat herselfin its shade and to pick the red flowers with the thin greenleaves which were growing beneath it. She laid them side by side,flower to flower and stalk to stalk, caressing them for walking alone.
　　Flowers and even pebbles in the earth had their own life and disposition,and brought back the feelings of a child to whom they were companions.
　　Looking up, her eye was caught by the line of the mountains flyingout energetically across the sky like the lash of a curling whip.
　　She looked at the pale distant sky, and the high bare places onthe mountain-tops lying exposed to the sun. When she sat down shehad dropped her books on to the earth at her feet, and now shelooked down on them lying there, so square in the grass, a tallstem bending over and tickling the smooth brown cover of Gibbon,while the mottled blue Balzac lay naked in the sun. With a feelingthat to open and read would certainly be a surprising experience,she turned the historian's page and read that--His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the reductionof Aethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a thousandmiles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the climatesoon repelled the invaders and protected the unwarlike nativesof those sequestered regions. . . . The northern countriesof Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labour of conquest.
　　The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy raceof barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from freedom.
　　Never had any words been so vivid and so beautiful--Arabia Felix--Aethiopia. But those were not more noble than the others,hardy barbarians, forests, and morasses. They seemed to driveroads back to the very beginning of the world, on either sideof which the populations of all times and countries stoodin avenues, and by passing down them all knowledge would be hers,and the book of the world turned back to the very first page.
　　Such was her excitement at the possibilities of knowledge now openingbefore her that she ceased to read, and a breeze turning the page,the covers of Gibbon gently ruffled and closed together. She thenrose again and walked on. Slowly her mind became less confused andsought the origins of her exaltation, which were twofold and couldbe limited by an effort to the persons of Mr. Hirst and Mr. Hewet.
　　Any clear analysis of them was impossible owing to the haze of wonderin which they were enveloped. She could not reason about themas about people whose feelings went by the same rule as her own did,and her mind dwelt on them with a kind of physical pleasure such asis caused by the contemplation of bright things hanging in the sun.
　　From them all life seemed to radiate; the very words of bookswere steeped in radiance. She then became haunted by a suspicionwhich she was so reluctant to face that she welcomed a trip andstumble over the grass because thus her attention was dispersed,but in a second it had collected itself again. Unconsciously she hadbeen walking faster and faster, her body trying to outrun her mind;but she was now on the summit of a little hillock of earth which roseabove the river and displayed the valley. She was no longer ableto juggle with several ideas, but must deal with the most persistent,and a kind of melancholy replaced her excitement. She sank downon to the earth clasping her knees together, and looking blanklyin front of her. For some time she observed a great yellow butterfly,which was opening and closing its wings very slowly on a little flat stone.
　　"What is it to be in love?" she demanded, after a long silence;each word as it came into being seemed to shove itself out intoan unknown sea. Hypnotised by the wings of the butterfly,and awed by the discovery of a terrible possibility in life,she sat for some time longer. When the butterfly flew away,she rose, and with her two books beneath her arm returned home again,much as a soldier prepared for battle.
Chapter 14
    The sun of that same day going down, dusk was saluted as usualat the hotel by an instantaneous sparkle of electric lights.
　　The hours between dinner and bedtime were always difficult enoughto kill, and the night after the dance they were further tarnishedby the peevishness of dissipation. Certainly, in the opinionof Hirst and Hewet, who lay back in long arm-chairs in the middleof the hall, with their coffee-cups beside them, and their cigarettesin their hands, the evening was unusually dull, the women unusuallybadly dressed, the men unusually fatuous. Moreover, when the mailhad been distributed half an hour ago there were no letters foreither of the two young men. As every other person, practically,had received two or three plump letters from England, which theywere now engaged in reading, this seemed hard, and promptedHirst to make the caustic remark that the animals had been fed.
　　Their silence, he said, reminded him of the silence in the lion-housewhen each beast holds a lump of raw meat in its paws. He went on,stimulated by this comparison, to liken some to hippopotamuses,some to canary birds, some to swine, some to parrots, and some toloathsome reptiles curled round the half-decayed bodies of sheep.
　　The intermittent sounds--now a cough, now a horrible wheezingor throat-clearing, now a little patter of conversation--were just,he declared, what you hear if you stand in the lion-house when thebones are being mauled. But these comparisons did not rouse Hewet,who, after a careless glance round the room, fixed his eyes upona thicket of native spears which were so ingeniously arrangedas to run their points at you whichever way you approached them.
　　He was clearly oblivious of his surroundings; whereupon Hirst,perceiving that Hewet's mind was a complete blank, fixed hisattention more closely upon his fellow-creatures. He was too farfrom them, however, to hear what they were saying, but it pleased himto construct little theories about them from their gestures and appearance.
　　Mrs. Thornbury had received a great many letters. She was completelyengrossed in them. When she had finished a page she handed itto her husband, or gave him the sense of what she was reading in aseries of short quotations linked together by a sound at the backof her throat. "Evie writes that George has gone to Glasgow.
　　'He finds Mr. Chadbourne so nice to work with, and we hope to spendChristmas together, but I should not like to move Betty and Alfredany great distance (no, quite right), though it is difficultto imagine cold weather in this heat. . . . Eleanor and Rogerdrove over in the new trap. . . . Eleanor certainly looked morelike herself than I've seen her since the winter. She has put Babyon three bottles now, which I'm sure is wise (I'm sure it is too),and so gets better nights. . . . My hair still falls out. I find iton the pillow! But I am cheered by hearing from Tottie Hall Green.
　　. . . Muriel is in Torquay enjoying herself greatly at dances.
　　She _is_ going to show her black put after all.' . . . A linefrom Herbert--so busy, poor fellow! Ah! Margaret says, 'Poor oldMrs. Fairbank died on the eighth, quite suddenly in the conservatory,only a maid in the house, who hadn't the presence of mind to lifther up, which they think might have saved her, but the doctor saysit might have come at any moment, and one can only feel thankfulthat it was in the house and not in the street (I should think so!).
　　The pigeons have increased terribly, just as the rabbits did fiveyears ago . . .'" While she read her husband kept nodding his headvery slightly, but very steadily in sign of approval.
　　Near by, Miss Allan was reading her letters too. They were notaltogether pleasant, as could be seen from the slight rigiditywhich came over her large fine face as she finished reading themand replaced them neatly in their envelopes. The lines of careand responsibility on her face made her resemble an elderly manrather than a woman. The letters brought her news of the failureof last year's fruit crop in New Zealand, which was a serious matter,for Hubert, her only brother, made his living on a fruit farm,and if it failed again, of course, he would throw up his place,come back to England, and what were they to do with him this time?
　　The journey out here, which meant the loss of a term's work,became an extravagance and not the just and wonderful holiday dueto her after fifteen years of punctual lecturing and correctingessays upon English literature. Emily, her sister, who was ateacher also, wrote: "We ought to be prepared, though I have nodoubt Hubert will be more reasonable this time." And then wenton in her sensible way to say that she was enjoying a very jollytime in the Lakes. "They are looking exceedingly pretty just now.
　　I have seldom seen the trees so forward at this time of year.
　　We have taken our lunch out several days. Old Alice is as young as ever,and asks after every one affectionately. The days pass very quickly,and term will soon be here. Political prospects _not_ good,I think privately, but do not like to damp Ellen's enthusiasm.
　　Lloyd George has taken the Bill up, but so have many before now,and we are where we are; but trust to find myself mistaken.
　　Anyhow, we have our work cut out for us. . . . Surely Meredithlacks the _human_ note one likes in W. W.?" she concluded, and wenton to discuss some questions of English literature which Miss Allanhad raised in her last letter.
　　At a little distance from Miss Allan, on a seat shaded and madesemi-private by a thick clump of palm trees, Arthur and Susanwere reading each other's letters. The big slashing manuscriptsof hockey-playing young women in Wiltshire lay on Arthur's knee,while Susan deciphered tight little legal hands which rarely filledmore than a page, and always conveyed the same impression of jocularand breezy goodwill.
　　"I do hope Mr. Hutchinson will like me, Arthur," she said, looking up.
　　"Who's your loving Flo?" asked Arthur.
　　"Flo Graves--the girl I told you about, who was engaged to thatdreadful Mr. Vincent," said Susan. "Is Mr. Hutchinson married?"she asked.
　　Already her mind was busy with benevolent plans for her friends,or rather with one magnificent plan--which was simple too--they were all to get married--at once--directly she got back.
　　Marriage, marriage that was the right thing, the only thing,the solution required by every one she knew, and a great part ofher meditations was spent in tracing every instance of discomfort,loneliness, ill-health, unsatisfied ambition, restlessness, eccentricity,taking things up and dropping them again, public speaking,and philanthropic activity on the part of men and particularlyon the part of women to the fact that they wanted to marry,were trying to marry, and had not succeeded in getting married.
　　If, as she was bound to own, these symptoms sometimes persistedafter marriage, she could only ascribe them to the unhappy lawof nature which decreed that there was only one Arthur Venning,and only one Susan who could marry him. Her theory, of course,had the merit of being fully supported by her own case. She hadbeen vaguely uncomfortable at home for two or three years now,and a voyage like this with her selfish old aunt, who paid her farebut treated her as servant and companion in one, was typical of thekind of thing people expected of her. Directly she became engaged,Mrs. Paley behaved with instinctive respect, positively protestedwhen Susan as usual knelt down to lace her shoes, and appeared reallygrateful for an hour of Susan's company where she had been used toexact two or three as her right. She therefore foresaw a life of fargreater comfort than she had been used to, and the change had alreadyproduced a great increase of warmth in her feelings towards other people.
　　It was close on twenty years now since Mrs. Paley had been ableto lace her own shoes or even to see them, the disappearance ofher feet having coincided more or less accurately with the deathof her husband, a man of business, soon after which event Mrs. Paleybegan to grow stout. She was a selfish, independent old woman,possessed of a considerable income, which she spent upon the upkeepof a house that needed seven servants and a charwoman in LancasterGate, and another with a garden and carriage-horses in Surrey.
　　Susan's engagement relieved her of the one great anxiety of her life--that her son Christopher should "entangle himself" with his cousin.
　　Now that this familiar source of interest was removed, she felta little low and inclined to see more in Susan than she used to.
　　She had decided to give her a very handsome wedding present, a chequefor two hundred, two hundred and fifty, or possibly, conceivably--it depended upon the under-gardener and Huths' bill for doing upthe drawing-room--three hundred pounds sterling.
　　She was thinking of this very question, revolving the figures,as she sat in her wheeled chair with a table spread with cardsby her side. The Patience had somehow got into a muddle, and shedid not like to call for Susan to help her, as Susan seemed to bebusy with Arthur.
　　"She's every right to expect a handsome present from me, of course,"she thought, looking vaguely at the leopard on its hind legs,"and I've no doubt she does! Money goes a long way with every one.
　　The young are very selfish. If I were to die, nobody would miss mebut Dakyns, and she'll be consoled by the will! However, I've gotno reason to complain. . . . I can still enjoy myself. I'm nota burden to any-one. . . . I like a great many things a good deal,in spite of my legs."Being slightly depressed, however, she went on to think of the onlypeople she had known who had not seemed to her at all selfishor fond of money, who had seemed to her somehow rather finer thanthe general run; people she willingly acknowledged, who were finerthan she was. There were only two of them. One was her brother,who had been drowned before her eyes, the other was a girl,her greatest friend, who had died in giving birth to her first child.
　　These things had happened some fifty years ago.
　　"They ought not to have died," she thought. "However, they did--and we selfish old creatures go on." The tears came to her eyes;she felt a genuine regret for them, a kind of respect for their youthand beauty, and a kind of shame for herself; but the tears did not fall;and she opened one of those innumerable novels which she usedto pronounce good or bad, or pretty middling, or really wonderful.
　　"I can't think how people come to imagine such things," she would say,taking off her spectacles and looking up with the old faded eyes,that were becoming ringed with white.
　　Just behind the stuffed leopard Mr. Elliot was playing chess withMr. Pepper. He was being defeated, naturally, for Mr. Pepper scarcelytook his eyes off the board, and Mr. Elliot kept leaning back in hischair and throwing out remarks to a gentleman who had only arrivedthe night before, a tall handsome man, with a head resembling the headof an intellectual ram. After a few remarks of a general naturehad passed, they were discovering that they knew some of the same people,as indeed had been obvious from their appearance directly they saw each other.
　　"Ah yes, old Truefit," said Mr. Elliot. "He has a son at Oxford.
　　I've often stayed with them. It's a lovely old Jacobean house.
　　Some exquisite Greuzes--one or two Dutch pictures which the oldboy kept in the cellars. Then there were stacks upon stacksof prints. Oh, the dirt in that house! He was a miser, you know.
　　The boy married a daughter of Lord Pinwells. I know them too.
　　The collecting mania tends to run in families. This chap collectsbuckles--men's shoe-buckles they must be, in use between the years1580 and 1660; the dates mayn't be right, but fact's as I say.
　　Your true collector always has some unaccountable fad of that kind.
　　On other points he's as level-headed as a breeder of shorthorns,which is what he happens to be. Then the Pinwells, as you probably know,have their share of eccentricity too. Lady Maud, for instance--"he was interrupted here by the necessity of considering hismove,--"Lady Maud has a horror of cats and clergymen, and peoplewith big front teeth. I've heard her shout across a table,'Keep your mouth shut, Miss Smith; they're as yellow as carrots!'
　　across a table, mind you. To me she's always been civility itself.
　　She dabbles in literature, likes to collect a few of us in herdrawing-room, but mention a clergyman, a bishop even, nay,the Archbishop himself, and she gobbles like a turkey-cock. I'vebeen told it's a family feud--something to do with an ancestor inthe reign of Charles the First. Yes," he continued, suffering checkafter check, "I always like to know something of the grandmothersof our fashionable young men. In my opinion they preserve allthat we admire in the eighteenth century, with the advantage,in the majority of cases, that they are personally clean. Not thatone would insult old Lady Barborough by calling her clean. How oftend'you think, Hilda," he called out to his wife, "her ladyship takesa bath?""I should hardly like to say, Hugh," Mrs. Elliot tittered,"but wearing puce velvet, as she does even on the hottest August day,it somehow doesn't show.""Pepper, you have me," said Mr. Elliot. "My chess is even worsethan I remembered." He accepted his defeat with great equanimity,because he really wished to talk.
　　He drew his chair beside Mr. Wilfrid Flushing, the newcomer.
　　"Are these at all in your line?" he asked, pointing at a case in frontof them, where highly polished crosses, jewels, and bits of embroidery,the work of the natives, were displayed to tempt visitors.
　　"Shams, all of them," said Mr. Flushing briefly. "This rug,now, isn't at all bad." He stopped and picked up a pieceof the rug at their feet. "Not old, of course, but the designis quite in the right tradition. Alice, lend me your brooch.
　　See the difference between the old work and the new."A lady, who was reading with great concentration, unfastened her broochand gave it to her husband without looking at him or acknowledgingthe tentative bow which Mr. Elliot was desirous of giving her.
　　If she had listened, she might have been amused by the reference to oldLady Barborough, her great-aunt, but, oblivious of her surroundings,she went on reading.
　　The clock, which had been wheezing for some minutes like an oldman preparing to cough, now struck nine. The sound slightlydisturbed certain somnolent merchants, government officials,and men of independent means who were lying back in their chairs,chatting, smoking, ruminating about their affairs, with their eyeshalf shut; they raised their lids for an instant at the sound and thenclosed them again. They had the appearance of crocodiles so fullygorged by their last meal that the future of the world gives themno anxiety whatever. The only disturbance in the placid brightroom was caused by a large moth which shot from light to light,whizzing over elaborate heads of hair, and causing several young womento raise their hands nervously and exclaim, "Some one ought to kill it!"Absorbed in their own thoughts, Hewet and Hirst had not spokenfor a long time.
　　When the clock struck, Hirst said:
　　"Ah, the creatures begin to stir. . . ." He watched themraise themselves, look about them, and settle down again.
　　"What I abhor most of all," he concluded, "is the female breast.
　　Imagine being Venning and having to get into bed with Susan!
　　But the really repulsive thing is that they feel nothing at all--about what I do when I have a hot bath. They're gross, they're absurd,they're utterly intolerable!"So saying, and drawing no reply from Hewet, he proceeded to thinkabout himself, about science, about Cambridge, about the Bar,about Helen and what she thought of him, until, being very tired,he was nodding off to sleep.
　　Suddenly Hewet woke him up.
　　"How d'you know what you feel, Hirst?""Are you in love?" asked Hirst. He put in his eyeglass.
　　"Don't be a fool," said Hewet.
　　"Well, I'll sit down and think about it," said Hirst. "One reallyought to. If these people would only think about things,the world would be a far better place for us all to live in.
　　Are you trying to think?"That was exactly what Hewet had been doing for the last half-hour,but he did not find Hirst sympathetic at the moment.
　　"I shall go for a walk," he said.
　　"Remember we weren't in bed last night," said Hirst with a prodigious yawn.
　　Hewet rose and stretched himself.
　　"I want to go and get a breath of air," he said.
　　An unusual feeling had been bothering him all the evening and forbiddinghim to settle into any one train of thought. It was precisely as if hehad been in the middle of a talk which interested him profoundly whensome one came up and interrupted him. He could not finish the talk,and the longer he sat there the more he wanted to finish it.
　　As the talk that had been interrupted was a talk with Rachel,he had to ask himself why he felt this, and why he wanted to go ontalking to her. Hirst would merely say that he was in love with her.
　　But he was not in love with her. Did love begin in that way,with the wish to go on talking? No. It always began in his case withdefinite physical sensations, and these were now absent, he did noteven find her physically attractive. There was something, of course,unusual about her--she was young, inexperienced, and inquisitive,they had been more open with each other than was usually possible.
　　He always found girls interesting to talk to, and surely thesewere good reasons why he should wish to go on talking to her;and last night, what with the crowd and the confusion, he hadonly been able to begin to talk to her. What was she doing now?
　　Lying on a sofa and looking at the ceiling, perhaps. He couldimagine her doing that, and Helen in an arm-chair, with her handson the arm of it, so--looking ahead of her, with her great big eyes--oh no, they'd be talking, of course, about the dance. But supposeRachel was going away in a day or two, suppose this was the endof her visit, and her father had arrived in one of the steamersanchored in the bay,--it was intolerable to know so little.
　　Therefore he exclaimed, "How d'you know what you feel, Hirst?" to stophimself from thinking.
　　But Hirst did not help him, and the other people with their aimlessmovements and their unknown lives were disturbing, so that he longedfor the empty darkness. The first thing he looked for when he steppedout of the hall door was the light of the Ambroses' villa. When hehad definitely decided that a certain light apart from the othershigher up the hill was their light, he was considerably reassured.
　　There seemed to be at once a little stability in all this incoherence.
　　Without any definite plan in his head, he took the turning to the rightand walked through the town and came to the wall by the meetingof the roads, where he stopped. The booming of the sea was audible.
　　The dark-blue mass of the mountains rose against the paler blueof the sky. There was no moon, but myriads of stars, and lightswere anchored up and down in the dark waves of earth all round him.
　　He had meant to go back, but the single light of the Ambroses'
　　villa had now become three separate lights, and he was tempted to go on.
　　He might as well make sure that Rachel was still there. Walking fast,he soon stood by the iron gate of their garden, and pushed it open;the outline of the house suddenly appeared sharply before his eyes,and the thin column of the verandah cutting across the palely litgravel of the terrace. He hesitated. At the back of the housesome one was rattling cans. He approached the front; the light onthe terrace showed him that the sitting-rooms were on that side.
　　He stood as near the light as he could by the corner of the house,the leaves of a creeper brushing his face. After a moment he couldhear a voice. The voice went on steadily; it was not talking,but from the continuity of the sound it was a voice reading aloud.
　　He crept a little closer; he crumpled the leaves together so as tostop their rustling about his ears. It might be Rachel's voice.
　　He left the shadow and stepped into the radius of the light, and thenheard a sentence spoken quite distinctly.
　　"And there we lived from the year 1860 to 1895, the happiest yearsof my parents' lives, and there in 1862 my brother Maurice was born,to the delight of his parents, as he was destined to be the delightof all who knew him."The voice quickened, and the tone became conclusive rising slightlyin pitch, as if these words were at the end of the chapter.
　　Hewet drew back again into the shadow. There was a long silence.
　　He could just hear chairs being moved inside. He had almost decidedto go back, when suddenly two figures appeared at the window, not sixfeet from him.
　　"It was Maurice Fielding, of course, that your mother was engaged to,"said Helen's voice. She spoke reflectively, looking out intothe dark garden, and thinking evidently as much of the lookof the night as of what she was saying.
　　"Mother?" said Rachel. Hewet's heart leapt, and he noticed the fact.
　　Her voice, though low, was full of surprise.
　　"You didn't know that?" said Helen.
　　"I never knew there'd been any one else," said Rachel. She wasclearly surprised, but all they said was said low and inexpressively,because they were speaking out into the cool dark night.
　　"More people were in love with her than with any one I've ever known,"Helen stated. She had that power--she enjoyed things. She wasn'tbeautiful, but--I was thinking of her last night at the dance.
　　She got on with every kind of person, and then she made it allso amazingly--funny."It appeared that Helen was going back into the past, choosing herwords deliberately, comparing Theresa with the people she had knownsince Theresa died.
　　"I don't know how she did it," she continued, and ceased, and therewas a long pause, in which a little owl called first here, then there,as it moved from tree to tree in the garden.
　　"That's so like Aunt Lucy and Aunt Katie," said Rachel at last.
　　"They always make out that she was very sad and very good.""Then why, for goodness' sake, did they do nothing but criticize herwhen she was alive?" said Helen. Very gentle their voices sounded,as if they fell through the waves of the sea.
　　"If I were to die to-morrow . . ." she began.
　　The broken sentences had an extraordinary beauty and detachmentin Hewet's ears, and a kind of mystery too, as though they werespoken by people in their sleep.
　　"No, Rachel," Helen's voice continued, "I'm not going to walkin the garden; it's damp--it's sure to be damp; besides, I seeat least a dozen toads.""Toads? Those are stones, Helen. Come out. It's nicer out.
　　The flowers smell," Rachel replied.
　　Hewet drew still farther back. His heart was beating very quickly.
　　Apparently Rachel tried to pull Helen out on to the terrace,and helen resisted. There was a certain amount of scuffling,entreating, resisting, and laughter from both of them. Then a man'sform appeared. Hewet could not hear what they were all saying.
　　In a minute they had gone in; he could hear bolts grating then;there was dead silence, and all the lights went out.
　　He turned away, still crumpling and uncrumpling a handful of leaveswhich he had torn from the wall. An exquisite sense of pleasureand relief possessed him; it was all so solid and peaceful afterthe ball at the hotel, whether he was in love with them or not,and he was not in love with them; no, but it was good that theyshould be alive.
　　After standing still for a minute or two he turned and began to walktowards the gate. With the movement of his body, the excitement,the romance and the richness of life crowded into his brain.
　　He shouted out a line of poetry, but the words escaped him, and hestumbled among lines and fragments of lines which had no meaningat all except for the beauty of the words. He shut the gate,and ran swinging from side to side down the hill, shouting anynonsense that came into his head. "Here am I," he cried rhythmically,as his feet pounded to the left and to the right, "plunging along,like an elephant in the jungle, stripping the branches as I go(he snatched at the twigs of a bush at the roadside), roaringinnumerable words, lovely words about innumerable things, runningdownhill and talking nonsense aloud to myself about roads and leavesand lights and women coming out into the darkness--about women--about Rachel, about Rachel." He stopped and drew a deep breath.
　　The night seemed immense and hospitable, and although so dark thereseemed to be things moving down there in the harbour and movement outat sea. He gazed until the darkness numbed him, and then he walkedon quickly, still murmuring to himself. "And I ought to be in bed,snoring and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. Dreams and realities,dreams and realities, dreams and realities," he repeated all the wayup the avenue, scarcely knowing what he said, until he reachedthe front door. Here he paused for a second, and collected himselfbefore he opened the door.
　　His eyes were dazed, his hands very cold, and his brain excitedand yet half asleep. Inside the door everything was as he had leftit except that the hall was now empty. There were the chairs turningin towards each other where people had sat talking, and the emptyglasses on little tables, and the newspapers scattered on the floor.
　　As he shut the door he felt as if he were enclosed in a square box,and instantly shrivelled up. It was all very bright and very small.
　　He stopped for a minute by the long table to find a paper which hehad meant to read, but he was still too much under the influenceof the dark and the fresh air to consider carefully which paper itwas or where he had seen it.
　　As he fumbled vaguely among the papers he saw a figure cross the tailof his eye, coming downstairs. He heard the swishing sound of skirts,and to his great surprise, Evelyn M. came up to him, laid her handon the table as if to prevent him from taking up a paper, and said:
　　"You're just the person I wanted to talk to." Her voice wasa little unpleasant and metallic, her eyes were very bright,and she kept them fixed upon him.
　　"To talk to me?" he repeated. "But I'm half asleep.""But I think you understand better than most people," she answered,and sat down on a little chair placed beside a big leather chairso that Hewet had to sit down beside her.
　　"Well?" he said. He yawned openly, and lit a cigarette.
　　He could not believe that this was really happening to him.
　　"What is it?""Are you really sympathetic, or is it just a pose?" she demanded.
　　"It's for you to say," he replied. "I'm interested, I think."He still felt numb all over and as if she was much too closeto him.
　　"Any one can be interested!" she cried impatiently. "Your friendMr. Hirst's interested, I daresay. however, I do believe in you.
　　You look as if you'd got a nice sister, somehow." She paused,picking at some sequins on her knees, and then, as if she had made upher mind, she started off, "Anyhow, I'm going to ask your advice.
　　D'you ever get into a state where you don't know your own mind?
　　That's the state I'm in now. You see, last night at the danceRaymond Oliver,--he's the tall dark boy who looks as if he had Indianblood in him, but he says he's not really,--well, we were sittingout together, and he told me all about himself, how unhappy he isat home, and how he hates being out here. They've put him into somebeastly mining business. He says it's beastly--I should like it,I know, but that's neither here nor there. And I felt awfully sorryfor him, one couldn't help being sorry for him, and when he asked meto let him kiss me, I did. I don't see any harm in that, do you?
　　And then this morning he said he'd thought I meant something more,and I wasn't the sort to let any one kiss me. And we talkedand talked. I daresay I was very silly, but one can't help likingpeople when one's sorry for them. I do like him most awfully--"She paused. "So I gave him half a promise, and then, you see,there's Alfred Perrott.""Oh, Perrott," said Hewet.
　　"We got to know each other on that picnic the other day," she continued.
　　"He seemed so lonely, especially as Arthur had gone off with Susan,and one couldn't help guessing what was in his mind. So we had quitea long talk when you were looking at the ruins, and he told me allabout his life, and his struggles, and how fearfully hard it had been.
　　D'you know, he was a boy in a grocer's shop and took parcels topeople's houses in a basket? That interested me awfully, because Ialways say it doesn't matter how you're born if you've got the rightstuff in you. And he told me about his sister who's paralysed,poor girl, and one can see she's a great trial, though he's evidentlyvery devoted to her. I must say I do admire people like that!
　　I don't expect you do because you're so clever. Well, last nightwe sat out in the garden together, and I couldn't help seeingwhat he wanted to say, and comforting him a little, and tellinghim I did care--I really do--only, then, there's Raymond Oliver.
　　What I want you to tell me is, can one be in love with two peopleat once, or can't one?"She became silent, and sat with her chin on her hands, looking very intent,as if she were facing a real problem which had to be discussed between them.
　　"I think it depends what sort of person you are," said Hewet.
　　He looked at her. She was small and pretty, aged perhapstwenty-eight or twenty-nine, but though dashing and sharply cut,her features expressed nothing very clearly, except a great dealof spirit and good health.
　　"Who are you, what are you; you see, I know nothing about you,"he continued.
　　"Well, I was coming to that," said Evelyn M. She continued torest her chin on her hands and to look intently ahead of her.
　　"I'm the daughter of a mother and no father, if that interests you,"she said. "It's not a very nice thing to be. It's what often happensin the country. She was a farmer's daughter, and he was rather a swell--the young man up at the great house. He never made things straight--never married her--though he allowed us quite a lot of money.
　　His people wouldn't let him. Poor father! I can't help liking him.
　　Mother wasn't the sort of woman who could keep him straight, anyhow.
　　He was killed in the war. I believe his men worshipped him.
　　They say great big troopers broke down and cried over his bodyon the battlefield. I wish I'd known him. Mother had all thelife crushed out of her. The world--" She clenched her fist.
　　"Oh, people can be horrid to a woman like that!" She turnedupon Hewet.
　　"Well," she said, "d'you want to know any more about me?""But you?" he asked, "Who looked after you?""I've looked after myself mostly," she laughed. "I've hadsplendid friends. I do like people! That's the trouble.
　　What would you do if you liked two people, both of them tremendously,and you couldn't tell which most?""I should go on liking them--I should wait and see. Why not?""But one has to make up one's mind," said Evelyn. "Or are youone of the people who doesn't believe in marriages and all that?
　　Look here--this isn't fair, I do all the telling, and you tell nothing.
　　Perhaps you're the same as your friend"--she looked at him suspiciously;"perhaps you don't like me?""I don't know you," said Hewet.
　　"I know when I like a person directly I see them! I knew I liked youthe very first night at dinner. Oh dear," she continued impatiently,"what a lot of bother would be saved if only people would say thethings they think straight out! I'm made like that. I can't help it.""But don't you find it leads to difficulties?" Hewet asked.
　　"That's men's fault," she answered. "They always drag it in-love,I mean.""And so you've gone on having one proposal after another,"said Hewet.
　　"I don't suppose I've had more proposals than most women,"said Evelyn, but she spoke without conviction.
　　"Five, six, ten?" Hewet ventured.
　　Evelyn seemed to intimate that perhaps ten was the right figure,but that it really was not a high one.
　　"I believe you're thinking me a heartless flirt," she protested.
　　"But I don't care if you are. I don't care what any one thinks of me.
　　Just because one's interested and likes to be friends with men,and talk to them as one talks to women, one's called a flirt.""But Miss Murgatroyd--""I wish you'd call me Evelyn," she interrupted.
　　"After ten proposals do you honestly think that men are the sameas women?""Honestly, honestly,--how I hate that word! It's always used by prigs,"cried Evelyn. "Honestly I think they ought to be. That's what'sso disappointing. Every time one thinks it's not going to happen,and every time it does.""The pursuit of Friendship," said Hewet. "The title of a comedy.""You're horrid," she cried. "You don't care a bit really.
　　You might be Mr. Hirst.""Well," said Hewet, "let's consider. Let us consider--" He paused,because for the moment he could not remember what it was that theyhad to consider. He was far more interested in her than in her story,for as she went on speaking his numbness had disappeared,and he was conscious of a mixture of liking, pity, and distrust.
　　"You've promised to marry both Oliver and Perrott?" he concluded.
　　"Not exactly promised," said Evelyn. "I can't make up my mind which Ireally like best. Oh how I detest modern life!" she flung off.
　　"It must have been so much easier for the Elizabethans! I thoughtthe other day on that mountain how I'd have liked to be one ofthose colonists, to cut down trees and make laws and all that,instead of fooling about with all these people who think one's justa pretty young lady. Though I'm not. I really might _do_ something."She reflected in silence for a minute. Then she said:
　　"I'm afraid right down in my heart that Alfred Perrot _won't_ do.
　　He's not strong, is he?""Perhaps he couldn't cut down a tree," said Hewet. "Have younever cared for anybody?" he asked.
　　"I've cared for heaps of people, but not to marry them," she said.
　　"I suppose I'm too fastidious. All my life I've wanted somebody Icould look up to, somebody great and big and splendid. Most men areso small.""What d'you mean by splendid?" Hewet asked. "People are--nothing more."Evelyn was puzzled.
　　"We don't care for people because of their qualities,"he tried to explain. "It's just them that we care for,"--he struck a match--"just that," he said, pointing to the flames.
　　"I see what you mean," she said, "but I don't agree. I do know whyI care for people, and I think I'm hardly ever wrong. I see at oncewhat they've got in them. Now I think you must be rather splendid;but not Mr. Hirst."Hewlet shook his head.
　　"He's not nearly so unselfish, or so sympathetic, or so big,or so understanding," Evelyn continued.
　　Hewet sat silent, smoking his cigarette.
　　"I should hate cutting down trees," he remarked.
　　"I'm not trying to flirt with you, though I suppose you think I am!"Evelyn shot out. "I'd never have come to you if I'd thought you'dmerely think odious things of me!" The tears came into her eyes.
　　"Do you never flirt?" he asked.
　　"Of course I don't," she protested. "Haven't I told you?
　　I want friendship; I want to care for some one greater and noblerthan I am, and if they fall in love with me it isn't my fault;I don't want it; I positively hate it."Hewet could see that there was very little use in going on withthe conversation, for it was obvious that Evelyn did not wish to sayanything in particular, but to impress upon him an image of herself,being, for some reason which she would not reveal, unhappy, or insecure.
　　He was very tired, and a pale waiter kept walking ostentatiouslyinto the middle of the room and looking at them meaningly.
　　"They want to shut up," he said. "My advice is that you should tellOliver and Perrott to-morrow that you've made up your mind that you don'tmean to marry either of them. I'm certain you don't. If you changeyour mind you can always tell them so. They're both sensible men;they'll understand. And then all this bother will be over."He got up.
　　But Evelyn did not move. She sat looking up at him with herbright eager eyes, in the depths of which he thought he detectedsome disappointment, or dissatisfaction.
　　"Good-night," he said.
　　"There are heaps of things I want to say to you still," she said.
　　"And I'm going to, some time. I suppose you must go to bed now?""Yes," said Hewet. "I'm half asleep." He left her still sittingby herself in the empty hall.
　　"Why is it that they _won't_ be honest?" he muttered to himself as hewent upstairs. Why was it that relations between different peoplewere so unsatisfactory, so fragmentary, so hazardous, and wordsso dangerous that the instinct to sympathise with another human beingwas an instinct to be examined carefully and probably crushed?
　　What had Evelyn really wished to say to him? What was she feeling leftalone in the empty hall? The mystery of life and the unreality evenof one's own sensations overcame him as he walked down the corridorwhich led to his room. It was dimly lighted, but sufficientlyfor him to see a figure in a bright dressing-gown pass swiftlyin front of him, the figure of a woman crossing from one room to another.
Chapter 15
    Whether too slight or too vague the ties that bind people casuallymeeting in a hotel at midnight, they possess one advantage at leastover the bonds which unite the elderly, who have lived togetheronce and so must live for ever. Slight they may be, but vividand genuine, merely because the power to break them is withinthe grasp of each, and there is no reason for continuance excepta true desire that continue they shall. When two people have beenmarried for years they seem to become unconscious of each other'sbodily presence so that they move as if alone, speak aloud thingswhich they do not expect to be answered, and in general seemto experience all the comfort of solitude without its loneliness.
　　The joint lives of Ridley and Helen had arrived at this stageof community, and it was often necessary for one or the other torecall with an effort whether a thing had been said or only thought,shared or dreamt in private. At four o'clock in the afternoon twoor three days later Mrs. Ambrose was standing brushing her hair,while her husband was in the dressing-room which opened out of her room,and occasionally, through the cascade of water--he was washinghis face--she caught exclamations, "So it goes on year after year;I wish, I wish, I wish I could make an end of it," to which shepaid no attention.
　　"It's white? Or only brown?" Thus she herself murmured,examining a hair which gleamed suspiciously among the brown.
　　She pulled it out and laid it on the dressing-table. She wascriticising her own appearance, or rather approving of it,standing a little way back from the glass and looking at her ownface with superb pride and melancholy, when her husband appearedin the doorway in his shirt sleeves, his face half obscured by a towel.
　　"You often tell me I don't notice things," he remarked.
　　"Tell me if this is a white hair, then?" she replied. She laidthe hair on his hand.
　　"There's not a white hair on your head," he exclaimed.
　　"Ah, Ridley, I begin to doubt," she sighed; and bowed her headunder his eyes so that he might judge, but the inspection producedonly a kiss where the line of parting ran, and husband and wifethen proceeded to move about the room, casually murmuring.
　　"What was that you were saying?" Helen remarked, after an intervalof conversation which no third person could have understood.
　　"Rachel--you ought to keep an eye upon Rachel," he observed significantly,and Helen, though she went on brushing her hair, looked at him.
　　His observations were apt to be true.
　　"Young gentlemen don't interest themselves in young women's educationwithout a motive," he remarked.
　　"Oh, Hirst," said Helen.
　　"Hirst and Hewet, they're all the same to me--all covered with spots,"he replied. "He advises her to read Gibbon. Did you know that?"Helen did not know that, but she would not allow herself inferiorto her husband in powers of observation. She merely said:
　　"Nothing would surprise me. Even that dreadful flying man we metat the dance--even Mr. Dalloway--even--""I advise you to be circumspect," said Ridley. "There's Willoughby,remember--Willoughby"; he pointed at a letter.
　　Helen looked with a sigh at an envelope which lay upon her dressing-table.
　　Yes, there lay Willoughby, curt, inexpressive, perpetually jocular,robbing a whole continent of mystery, enquiring after his daughter'smanners and morals--hoping she wasn't a bore, and bidding thempack her off to him on board the very next ship if she were--and then grateful and affectionate with suppressed emotion,and then half a page about his own triumphs over wretched littlenatives who went on strike and refused to load his ships, until heroared English oaths at them, "popping my head out of the windowjust as I was, in my shirt sleeves. The beggars had the sense to scatter.""If Theresa married Willoughby," she remarked, turning the pagewith a hairpin, "one doesn't see what's to prevent Rachel--"But Ridley was now off on grievances of his own connected withthe washing of his shirts, which somehow led to the frequent visitsof Hughling Elliot, who was a bore, a pedant, a dry stick of a man,and yet Ridley couldn't simply point at the door and tell him to go.
　　The truth of it was, they saw too many people. And so on and so on,more conjugal talk pattering softly and unintelligibly, until theywere both ready to go down to tea.
　　The first thing that caught Helen's eye as she came downstairswas a carriage at the door, filled with skirts and feathers noddingon the tops of hats. She had only time to gain the drawing-roombefore two names were oddly mispronounced by the Spanish maid,and Mrs. Thornbury came in slightly in advance of Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing.
　　"Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing," said Mrs. Thornbury, with a wave of her hand.
　　"A friend of our common friend Mrs. Raymond Parry."Mrs. Flushing shook hands energetically. She was a woman offorty perhaps, very well set up and erect, splendidly robust,though not as tall as the upright carriage of her body made her appear.
　　She looked Helen straight in the face and said, "You have a charmin' house."She had a strongly marked face, her eyes looked straight at you,and though naturally she was imperious in her manner she was nervousat the same time. Mrs. Thornbury acted as interpreter, making thingssmooth all round by a series of charming commonplace remarks.
　　"I've taken it upon myself, Mr. Ambrose," she said, "to promisethat you will be so kind as to give Mrs. Flushing the benefitof your experience. I'm sure no one here knows the country aswell as you do. No one takes such wonderful long walks. No one,I'm sure, has your encyclopaedic knowledge upon every subject.
　　Mr. Wilfrid Flushing is a collector. He has discovered really beautifulthings already. I had no notion that the peasants were so artistic--though of course in the past--""Not old things--new things," interrupted Mrs. Flushing curtly.
　　"That is, if he takes my advice."The Ambroses had not lived for many years in London without knowingsomething of a good many people, by name at least, and Helen rememberedhearing of the Flushings. Mr. Flushing was a man who kept an oldfurniture shop; he had always said he would not marry because mostwomen have red cheeks, and would not take a house because most houseshave narrow staircases, and would not eat meat because most animalsbleed when they are killed; and then he had married an eccentricaristocratic lady, who certainly was not pale, who looked as if sheate meat, who had forced him to do all the things he most disliked--and this then was the lady. Helen looked at her with interest.
　　They had moved out into the garden, where the tea was laid undera tree, and Mrs. Flushing was helping herself to cherry jam.
　　She had a peculiar jerking movement of the body when she spoke,which caused the canary-coloured plume on her hat to jerk too.
　　Her small but finely-cut and vigorous features, together with the deepred of lips and cheeks, pointed to many generations of well-trainedand well-nourished ancestors behind her.
　　"Nothin' that's more than twenty years old interests me,"she continued. "Mouldy old pictures, dirty old books, they stick'em in museums when they're only fit for burnin'.""I quite agree," Helen laughed. "But my husband spends his lifein digging up manuscripts which nobody wants." She was amusedby Ridley's expression of startled disapproval.
　　"There's a clever man in London called John who paints everso much better than the old masters," Mrs. Flushing continued.
　　"His pictures excite me--nothin' that's old excites me.""But even his pictures will become old," Mrs. Thornbury intervened.
　　"Then I'll have 'em burnt, or I'll put it in my will," said Mrs. Flushing.
　　"And Mrs. Flushing lived in one of the most beautiful old housesin England--Chillingley," Mrs. Thornbury explained to the restof them.
　　"If I'd my way I'd burn that to-morrow," Mrs. Flushing laughed.
　　She had a laugh like the cry of a jay, at once startling and joyless.
　　"What does any sane person want with those great big houses?"she demanded. "If you go downstairs after dark you're coveredwith black beetles, and the electric lights always goin' out.
　　What would you do if spiders came out of the tap when you turnedon the hot water?" she demanded, fixing her eye on Helen.
　　Mrs. Ambrose shrugged her shoulders with a smile.
　　"This is what I like," said Mrs. Flushing. She jerked her head atthe Villa. "A little house in a garden. I had one once in Ireland.
　　One could lie in bed in the mornin' and pick roses outside the windowwith one's toes.""And the gardeners, weren't they surprised?" Mrs. Thornbury enquired.
　　"There were no gardeners," Mrs. Flushing chuckled. "Nobody but meand an old woman without any teeth. You know the poor in Irelandlose their teeth after they're twenty. But you wouldn't expecta politician to understand that--Arthur Balfour wouldn't understand that."Ridley sighed that he never expected any one to understand anything,least of all politicians.
　　"However," he concluded, "there's one advantage I find in extremeold age--nothing matters a hang except one's food and one's digestion.
　　All I ask is to be left alone to moulder away in solitude. It's obviousthat the world's going as fast as it can to--the Nethermost Pit,and all I can do is to sit still and consume as much of my ownsmoke as possible." He groaned, and with a melancholy glance laidthe jam on his bread, for he felt the atmosphere of this abruptlady distinctly unsympathetic.
　　"I always contradict my husband when he says that," said Mrs. Thornburysweetly. "You men! Where would you be if it weren't for the women!""Read the _Symposium_," said Ridley grimly.
　　"_Symposium_?" cried Mrs. Flushing. "That's Latin or Greek?
　　Tell me, is there a good translation?""No," said Ridley. "You will have to learn Greek."Mrs. Flushing cried, "Ah, ah, ah! I'd rather break stones in the road.
　　I always envy the men who break stones and sit on those nice littleheaps all day wearin' spectacles. I'd infinitely rather breakstones than clean out poultry runs, or feed the cows, or--"Here Rachel came up from the lower garden with a book in her hand.
　　"What's that book?" said Ridley, when she had shaken hands.
　　"It's Gibbon," said Rachel as she sat down.
　　"_The_ _Decline_ _and_ _Fall_ _of_ _the_ _Roman_ _Empire_?"said Mrs. Thornbury. "A very wonderful book, I know. My dearfather was always quoting it at us, with the result that we resolvednever to read a line.""Gibbon the historian?" enquired Mrs. Flushing. "I connect himwith some of the happiest hours of my life. We used to lie in bedand read Gibbon--about the massacres of the Christians, I remember--when we were supposed to be asleep. It's no joke, I can tell you,readin' a great big book, in double columns, by a night-light,and the light that comes through a chink in the door. Then therewere the moths--tiger moths, yellow moths, and horrid cockchafers.
　　Louisa, my sister, would have the window open. I wanted it shut.
　　We fought every night of our lives over that window. Have you everseen a moth dyin' in a night-light?" she enquired.
　　Again there was an interruption. Hewet and Hirst appearedat the drawing-room window and came up to the tea-table.
　　Rachel's heart beat hard. She was conscious of an extraordinaryintensity in everything, as though their presence stripped some coveroff the surface of things; but the greetings were remarkably commonplace.
　　"Excuse me," said Hirst, rising from his chair directly hehad sat down. He went into the drawing-room, and returnedwith a cushion which he placed carefully upon his seat.
　　"Rheumatism," he remarked, as he sat down for the second time.
　　"The result of the dance?" Helen enquired.
　　"Whenever I get at all run down I tend to be rheumatic," Hirst stated.
　　He bent his wrist back sharply. "I hear little pieces of chalkgrinding together!"Rachel looked at him. She was amused, and yet she was respectful;if such a thing could be, the upper part of her face seemed to laugh,and the lower part to check its laughter.
　　Hewet picked up the book that lay on the ground.
　　"You like this?" he asked in an undertone.
　　"No, I don't like it," she replied. She had indeed been tryingall the afternoon to read it, and for some reason the glory whichshe had perceived at first had faded, and, read as she would,she could not grasp the meaning with her mind.
　　"It goes round, round, round, like a roll of oil-cloth," she hazarded.
　　Evidently she meant Hewet alone to hear her words, but Hirst demanded,"What d'you mean?"She was instantly ashamed of her figure of speech, for she couldnot explain it in words of sober criticism.
　　"Surely it's the most perfect style, so far as style goes, that's everbeen invented," he continued. "Every sentence is practically perfect,and the wit--""Ugly in body, repulsive in mind," she thought, instead of thinkingabout Gibbon's style. "Yes, but strong, searching, unyielding in mind."She looked at his big head, a disproportionate part of which wasoccupied by the forehead, and at the direct, severe eyes.
　　"I give you up in despair," he said. He meant it lightly, but shetook it seriously, and believed that her value as a human being waslessened because she did not happen to admire the style of Gibbon.
　　The others were talking now in a group about the native villageswhich Mrs. Flushing ought to visit.
　　"I despair too," she said impetuously. "How are you going to judgepeople merely by their minds?""You agree with my spinster Aunt, I expect," said St. John in hisjaunty manner, which was always irritating because it made the personhe talked to appear unduly clumsy and in earnest. "'Be good,sweet maid'--I thought Mr. Kingsley and my Aunt were now obsolete.""One can be very nice without having read a book," she asserted.
　　Very silly and simple her words sounded, and laid her opento derision.
　　"Did I ever deny it?" Hirst enquired, raising his eyebrows.
　　Most unexpectedly Mrs. Thornbury here intervened, either because itwas her mission to keep things smooth or because she had longwished to speak to Mr. Hirst, feeling as she did that young menwere her sons.
　　"I have lived all my life with people like your Aunt, Mr. Hirst,"she said, leaning forward in her chair. Her brown squirrel-likeeyes became even brighter than usual. "They have never heardof Gibbon. They only care for their pheasants and their peasants.
　　They are great big men who look so fine on horseback, as peoplemust have done, I think, in the days of the great wars. Say whatyou like against them--they are animal, they are unintellectual;they don't read themselves, and they don't want others to read,but they are some of the finest and the kindest human beings onthe face of the earth! You would be surprised at some of the storiesI could tell. You have never guessed, perhaps, at all the romancesthat go on in the heart of the country. There are the people, I feel,among whom Shakespeare will be born if he is ever born again.
　　In those old houses, up among the Downs--""My Aunt," Hirst interrupted, "spends her life in East Lambethamong the degraded poor. I only quoted my Aunt because she isinclined to persecute people she calls 'intellectual,' which iswhat I suspect Miss Vinrace of doing. It's all the fashion now.
　　If you're clever it's always taken for granted that you're completelywithout sympathy, understanding, affection--all the things thatreally matter. Oh, you Christians! You're the most conceited,patronising, hypocritical set of old humbugs in the kingdom! Of course,"he continued, "I'm the first to allow your country gentlemen great merits.
　　For one thing, they're probably quite frank about their passions,which we are not. My father, who is a clergyman in Norfolk,says that there is hardly a squire in the country who does not--""But about Gibbon?" Hewet interrupted. The look of nervous tensionwhich had come over every face was relaxed by the interruption.
　　"You find him monotonous, I suppose. But you know--" He openedthe book, and began searching for passages to read aloud, and ina little time he found a good one which he considered suitable.
　　But there was nothing in the world that bored Ridley more than beingread aloud to, and he was besides scrupulously fastidious as tothe dress and behaviour of ladies. In the space of fifteen minuteshe had decided against Mrs. Flushing on the ground that her orangeplume did not suit her complexion, that she spoke too loud, that shecrossed her legs, and finally, when he saw her accept a cigarettethat Hewet offered her, he jumped up, exclaiming something about"bar parlours," and left them. Mrs. Flushing was evidently relievedby his departure. She puffed her cigarette, stuck her legs out,and examined Helen closely as to the character and reputationof their common friend Mrs. Raymond Parry. By a series of littlestrategems she drove her to define Mrs. Parry as somewhat elderly,by no means beautiful, very much made up--an insolent old harridan,in short, whose parties were amusing because one met odd people;but Helen herself always pitied poor Mr. Parry, who was understoodto be shut up downstairs with cases full of gems, while hiswife enjoyed herself in the drawing-room. "Not that I believewhat people say against her--although she hints, of course--"Upon which Mrs. Flushing cried out with delight:
　　"She's my first cousin! Go on--go on!"When Mrs. Flushing rose to go she was obviously delighted withher new acquaintances. She made three or four different plansfor meeting or going on an expedition, or showing Helen the thingsthey had bought, on her way to the carriage. She included themall in a vague but magnificent invitation.
　　As Helen returned to the garden again, Ridley's words of warningcame into her head, and she hesitated a moment and looked at Rachelsitting between Hirst and Hewet. But she could draw no conclusions,for Hewet was still reading Gibbon aloud, and Rachel, for allthe expression she had, might have been a shell, and his wordswater rubbing against her ears, as water rubs a shell on the edgeof a rock.
　　Hewet's voice was very pleasant. When he reached the endof the period Hewet stopped, and no one volunteered any criticism.
　　"I do adore the aristocracy!" Hirst exclaimed after a moment's pause.
　　"They're so amazingly unscrupulous. None of us would dare to behaveas that woman behaves.""What I like about them," said Helen as she sat down, "is that they'reso well put together. Naked, Mrs. Flushing would be superb.
　　Dressed as she dresses, it's absurd, of course.""Yes," said Hirst. A shade of depression crossed his face.
　　"I've never weighed more than ten stone in my life," he said,"which is ridiculous, considering my height, and I've actuallygone down in weight since we came here. I daresay that accountsfor the rheumatism." Again he jerked his wrist back sharply,so that Helen might hear the grinding of the chalk stones.
　　She could not help smiling.
　　"It's no laughing matter for me, I assure you," he protested.
　　"My mother's a chronic invalid, and I'm always expecting to betold that I've got heart disease myself. Rheumatism always goesto the heart in the end.""For goodness' sake, Hirst," Hewet protested; "one might thinkyou were an old cripple of eighty. If it comes to that, I hadan aunt who died of cancer myself, but I put a bold face on it--"He rose and began tilting his chair backwards and forwardson its hind legs. "Is any one here inclined for a walk?"he said. "There's a magnificent walk, up behind the house.
　　You come out on to a cliff and look right down into the sea.
　　The rocks are all red; you can see them through the water.
　　The other day I saw a sight that fairly took my breath away--about twenty jelly-fish, semi-transparent, pink, with long streamers,floating on the top of the waves.""Sure they weren't mermaids?" said Hirst. "It's much too hotto climb uphill." He looked at Helen, who showed no signs of moving.
　　"Yes, it's too hot," Helen decided.
　　There was a short silence.
　　"I'd like to come," said Rachel.
　　"But she might have said that anyhow," Helen thought to herselfas Hewet and Rachel went away together, and Helen was left alonewith St. John, to St. John's obvious satisfaction.
　　He may have been satisfied, but his usual difficulty in decidingthat one subject was more deserving of notice than another preventedhim from speaking for some time. He sat staring intently at the headof a dead match, while Helen considered--so it seemed from the expressionof her eyes--something not closely connected with the present moment.
　　At last St. John exclaimed, "Damn! Damn everything! Damn everybody!"he added. "At Cambridge there are people to talk to.""At Cambridge there are people to talk to," Helen echoed him,rhythmically and absent-mindedly. Then she woke up. "By the way,have you settled what you're going to do--is it to be Cambridge orthe Bar?"He pursed his lips, but made no immediate answer, for Helen wasstill slightly inattentive. She had been thinking about Racheland which of the two young men she was likely to fall in love with,and now sitting opposite to Hirst she thought, "He's ugly.
　　It's a pity they're so ugly."She did not include Hewet in this criticism; she was thinkingof the clever, honest, interesting young men she knew, of whomHirst was a good example, and wondering whether it was necessarythat thought and scholarship should thus maltreat their bodies,and should thus elevate their minds to a very high tower from whichthe human race appeared to them like rats and mice squirming on the flat.
　　"And the future?" she reflected, vaguely envisaging a race of menbecoming more and more like Hirst, and a race of women becomingmore and more like Rachel. "Oh no," she concluded, glancing at him,"one wouldn't marry you. Well, then, the future of the raceis in the hands of Susan and Arthur; no--that's dreadful.
　　Of farm labourers; no--not of the English at all, but of Russiansand Chinese." This train of thought did not satisfy her, and wasinterrupted by St. John, who began again:
　　"I wish you knew Bennett. He's the greatest man in the world.""Bennett?" she enquired. Becoming more at ease, St. John droppedthe concentrated abruptness of his manner, and explained that Bennettwas a man who lived in an old windmill six miles out of Cambridge.
　　He lived the perfect life, according to St. John, very lonely,very simple, caring only for the truth of things, always ready to talk,and extraordinarily modest, though his mind was of the greatest.
　　"Don't you think," said St. John, when he had done describing him,"that kind of thing makes this kind of thing rather flimsy? Did younotice at tea how poor old Hewet had to change the conversation?
　　How they were all ready to pounce upon me because they thought Iwas going to say something improper? It wasn't anything, really.
　　If Bennett had been there he'd have said exactly what he meant to say,or he'd have got up and gone. But there's something rather bad forthe character in that--I mean if one hasn't got Bennett's character.
　　It's inclined to make one bitter. Should you say that I was bitter?"Helen did not answer, and he continued:
　　"Of course I am, disgustingly bitter, and it's a beastly thing to be.
　　But the worst of me is that I'm so envious. I envy every one.
　　I can't endure people who do things better than I do--perfectly absurdthings too--waiters balancing piles of plates--even Arthur,because Susan's in love with him. I want people to like me,and they don't. It's partly my appearance, I expect," he continued,"though it's an absolute lie to say I've Jewish blood in me--as a matter of fact we've been in Norfolk, Hirst of Hirstbourne Hall,for three centuries at least. It must be awfully soothing to be like you--every one liking one at once.""I assure you they don't," Helen laughed.
　　"They do," said Hirst with conviction. "In the first place,you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen; in the second,you have an exceptionally nice nature."If Hirst had looked at her instead of looking intently at his teacuphe would have seen Helen blush, partly with pleasure, partly withan impulse of affection towards the young man who had seemed,and would seem again, so ugly and so limited. She pitied him,for she suspected that he suffered, and she was interested in him,for many of the things he said seemed to her true; she admiredthe morality of youth, and yet she felt imprisoned. As if herinstinct were to escape to something brightly coloured and impersonal,which she could hold in her hands, she went into the house and returnedwith her embroidery. But he was not interested in her embroidery;he did not even look at it.
　　"About Miss Vinrace," he began,--"oh, look here, do let's be St. Johnand Helen, and Rachel and Terence--what's she like? Does she reason,does she feel, or is she merely a kind of footstool?""Oh no," said Helen, with great decision. From her observationsat tea she was inclined to doubt whether Hirst was the person toeducate Rachel. She had gradually come to be interested in her niece,and fond of her; she disliked some things about her very much,she was amused by others; but she felt her, on the whole, a liveif unformed human being, experimental, and not always fortunatein her experiments, but with powers of some kind, and a capacityfor feeling. Somewhere in the depths of her, too, she was boundto Rachel by the indestructible if inexplicable ties of sex.
　　"She seems vague, but she's a will of her own," she said, as if inthe interval she had run through her qualities.
　　The embroidery, which was a matter for thought, the design beingdifficult and the colours wanting consideration, brought lapsesinto the dialogue when she seemed to be engrossed in her skeinsof silk, or, with head a little drawn back and eyes narrowed,considered the effect of the whole. Thus she merely said, "Um-m-m" toSt. John's next remark, "I shall ask her to go for a walk with me."Perhaps he resented this division of attention. He sat silentwatching Helen closely.
　　"You're absolutely happy," he proclaimed at last.
　　"Yes?" Helen enquired, sticking in her needle.
　　"Marriage, I suppose," said St. John.
　　"Yes," said Helen, gently drawing her needle out.
　　"Children?" St. John enquired.
　　"Yes," said Helen, sticking her needle in again. "I don't know whyI'm happy," she suddenly laughed, looking him full in the face.
　　There was a considerable pause.
　　"There's an abyss between us," said St. John. His voice soundedas if it issued from the depths of a cavern in the rocks.
　　"You're infinitely simpler than I am. Women always are, of course.
　　That's the difficulty. One never knows how a woman gets there.
　　Supposing all the time you're thinking, 'Oh, what a morbidyoung man!'"Helen sat and looked at him with her needle in her hand.
　　From her position she saw his head in front of the dark pyramidof a magnolia-tree. With one foot raised on the rung of a chair,and her elbow out in the attitude for sewing, her own figure possessedthe sublimity of a woman's of the early world, spinning the threadof fate--the sublimity possessed by many women of the presentday who fall into the attitude required by scrubbing or sewing.
　　St. John looked at her.
　　"I suppose you've never paid any a compliment in the courseof your life," he said irrelevantly.
　　"I spoil Ridley rather," Helen considered.
　　"I'm going to ask you point blank--do you like me?"After a certain pause, she replied, "Yes, certainly.""Thank God!" he exclaimed. "That's one mercy. You see," he continuedwith emotion, "I'd rather you liked me than any one I've ever met.""What about the five philosophers?" said Helen, with a laugh,stitching firmly and swiftly at her canvas. "I wish you'ddescribe them."Hirst had no particular wish to describe them, but when he beganto consider them he found himself soothed and strengthened. Far awayto the other side of the world as they were, in smoky rooms, and greymedieval courts, they appeared remarkable figures, free-spoken menwith whom one could be at ease; incomparably more subtle in emotionthan the people here. They gave him, certainly, what no womancould give him, not Helen even. Warming at the thought of them,he went on to lay his case before Mrs. Ambrose. Should he stayon at Cambridge or should he go to the Bar? One day he thoughtone thing, another day another. Helen listened attentively.
　　At last, without any preface, she pronounced her decision.
　　"Leave Cambridge and go to the Bar," she said. He pressed herfor her reasons.
　　"I think you'd enjoy London more," she said. It did not seema very subtle reason, but she appeared to think it sufficient.
　　She looked at him against the background of flowering magnolia.
　　There was something curious in the sight. Perhaps it was that the heavywax-like flowers were so smooth and inarticulate, and his face--he had thrown his hat away, his hair was rumpled, he held hiseye-glasses in his hand, so that a red mark appeared on either sideof his nose--was so worried and garrulous. It was a beautiful bush,spreading very widely, and all the time she had sat there talking shehad been noticing the patches of shade and the shape of the leaves,and the way the great white flowers sat in the midst of the green.
　　She had noticed it half-consciously, nevertheless the pattern hadbecome part of their talk. She laid down her sewing, and began to walkup and down the garden, and Hirst rose too and paced by her side.
　　He was rather disturbed, uncomfortable, and full of thought.
　　Neither of them spoke.
　　The sun was beginning to go down, and a change had come over the mountains,as if they were robbed of their earthly substance, and composed merelyof intense blue mist. Long thin clouds of flamingo red, with edgeslike the edges of curled ostrich feathers, lay up and down the skyat different altitudes. The roofs of the town seemed to have sunklower than usual; the cypresses appeared very black between the roofs,and the roofs themselves were brown and white. As usual in the evening,single cries and single bells became audible rising from beneath.
　　St. John stopped suddenly.
　　"Well, you must take the responsibility," he said. "I've made upmy mind; I shall go to the Bar."His words were very serious, almost emotional; they recalled Helenafter a second's hesitation.
　　"I'm sure you're right," she said warmly, and shook the hand heheld out. "You'll be a great man, I'm certain."Then, as if to make him look at the scene, she swept her hand roundthe immense circumference of the view. From the sea, over the roofsof the town, across the crests of the mountains, over the riverand the plain, and again across the crests of the mountains itswept until it reached the villa, the garden, the magnolia-tree,and the figures of Hirst and herself standing together, when itdropped to her side.
Chapter 16
   Hewet and Rachel had long ago reached the particular place onthe edge of the cliff where, looking down into the sea, you mightchance on jelly-fish and dolphins. Looking the other way, the vastexpanse of land gave them a sensation which is given by no view,however extended, in England; the villages and the hills therehaving names, and the farthest horizon of hills as often as notdipping and showing a line of mist which is the sea; here the viewwas one of infinite sun-dried earth, earth pointed in pinnacles,heaped in vast barriers, earth widening and spreading away and awaylike the immense floor of the sea, earth chequered by day and by night,and partitioned into different lands, where famous cities were founded,and the races of men changed from dark savages to white civilised men,and back to dark savages again. Perhaps their English bloodmade this prospect uncomfortably impersonal and hostile to them,for having once turned their faces that way they next turned themto the sea, and for the rest of the time sat looking at the sea.
　　The sea, though it was a thin and sparkling water here, which seemedincapable of surge or anger, eventually narrowed itself, clouded itspure tint with grey, and swirled through narrow channels and dashedin a shiver of broken waters against massive granite rocks.
　　It was this sea that flowed up to the mouth of the Thames;and the Thames washed the roots of the city of London.
　　Hewet's thoughts had followed some such course as this, for thefirst thing he said as they stood on the edge of the cliff was--"I'd like to be in England!"Rachel lay down on her elbow, and parted the tall grasses which grewon the edge, so that she might have a clear view. The water wasvery calm; rocking up and down at the base of the cliff, and so clearthat one could see the red of the stones at the bottom of it.
　　So it had been at the birth of the world, and so it had remainedever since. Probably no human being had ever broken that waterwith boat or with body. Obeying some impulse, she determined to marthat eternity of peace, and threw the largest pebble she could find.
　　It struck the water, and the ripples spread out and out.
　　Hewet looked down too.
　　"It's wonderful," he said, as they widened and ceased. The freshnessand the newness seemed to him wonderful. He threw a pebble next.
　　There was scarcely any sound.
　　"But England," Rachel murmured in the absorbed tone of one whose eyesare concentrated upon some sight. "What d'you want with England?""My friends chiefly," he said, "and all the things one does."He could look at Rachel without her noticing it. She was stillabsorbed in the water and the exquisitely pleasant sensationswhich a little depth of the sea washing over rocks suggests.
　　He noticed that she was wearing a dress of deep blue colour, made ofa soft thin cotton stuff, which clung to the shape of her body.
　　It was a body with the angles and hollows of a young woman's bodynot yet developed, but in no way distorted, and thus interestingand even lovable. Raising his eyes Hewet observed her head;she had taken her hat off, and the face rested on her hand.
　　As she looked down into the sea, her lips were slightly parted.
　　The expression was one of childlike intentness, as if she werewatching for a fish to swim past over the clear red rocks.
　　Nevertheless her twenty-four years of life had given her a lookof reserve. Her hand, which lay on the ground, the fingers curlingslightly in, was well shaped and competent; the square-tippedand nervous fingers were the fingers of a musician. With somethinglike anguish Hewet realised that, far from being unattractive,her body was very attractive to him. She looked up suddenly.
　　Her eyes were full of eagerness and interest.
　　"You write novels?" she asked.
　　For the moment he could not think what he was saying. He wasovercome with the desire to hold her in his arms.
　　"Oh yes," he said. "That is, I want to write them."She would not take her large grey eyes off his face.
　　"Novels," she repeated. "Why do you write novels? You oughtto write music. Music, you see"--she shifted her eyes, and becameless desirable as her brain began to work, inflicting a certainchange upon her face--"music goes straight for things. It saysall there is to say at once. With writing it seems to me there'sso much"--she paused for an expression, and rubbed her fingersin the earth--"scratching on the matchbox. Most of the time when Iwas reading Gibbon this afternoon I was horribly, oh infernally,damnably bored!" She gave a shake of laughter, looking at Hewet,who laughed too.
　　"_I_ shan't lend you books," he remarked.
　　"Why is it," Rachel continued, "that I can laugh at Mr. Hirstto you, but not to his face? At tea I was completely overwhelmed,not by his ugliness--by his mind." She enclosed a circle in the airwith her hands. She realised with a great sense of comfort whoeasily she could talk to Hewet, those thorns or ragged cornerswhich tear the surface of some relationships being smoothed away.
　　"So I observed," said Hewet. "That's a thing that never ceasesto amaze me." He had recovered his composure to such an extentthat he could light and smoke a cigarette, and feeling her ease,became happy and easy himself.
　　"The respect that women, even well-educated, very able women,have for men," he went on. "I believe we must have the sort of powerover you that we're said to have over horses. They see us three timesas big as we are or they'd never obey us. For that very reason,I'm inclined to doubt that you'll ever do anything even when youhave the vote." He looked at her reflectively. She appeared verysmooth and sensitive and young. "It'll take at least six generationsbefore you're sufficiently thick-skinned to go into law courtsand business offices. Consider what a bully the ordinary man is,"he continued, "the ordinary hard-working, rather ambitious solicitoror man of business with a family to bring up and a certain positionto maintain. And then, of course, the daughters have to give wayto the sons; the sons have to be educated; they have to bully andshove for their wives and families, and so it all comes over again.
　　And meanwhile there are the women in the background. . . . Do youreally think that the vote will do you any good?""The vote?" Rachel repeated. She had to visualise it as a littlebit of paper which she dropped into a box before she understoodhis question, and looking at each other they smiled at somethingabsurd in the question.
　　"Not to me," she said. "But I play the piano. . . . Are men reallylike that?" she asked, returning to the question that interested her.
　　"I'm not afraid of you." She looked at him easily.
　　"Oh, I'm different," Hewet replied. "I've got between six and sevenhundred a year of my own. And then no one takes a novelist seriously,thank heavens. There's no doubt it helps to make up for the drudgeryof a profession if a man's taken very, very seriously by every one--if he gets appointments, and has offices and a title, and lotsof letters after his name, and bits of ribbon and degrees.
　　I don't grudge it 'em, though sometimes it comes over me--what anamazing concoction! What a miracle the masculine conception oflife is--judges, civil servants, army, navy, Houses of Parliament,lord mayors--what a world we've made of it! Look at Hirst now.
　　I assure you," he said, "not a day's passed since we came here withouta discussion as to whether he's to stay on at Cambridge or to goto the Bar. It's his career--his sacred career. And if I'veheard it twenty times, I'm sure his mother and sister have heardit five hundred times. Can't you imagine the family conclaves,and the sister told to run out and feed the rabbits because St. Johnmust have the school-room to himself--'St. John's working,' 'St. Johnwants his tea brought to him.' Don't you know the kind of thing?
　　No wonder that St. John thinks it a matter of considerable importance.
　　It is too. He has to earn his living. But St. John's sister--"Hewet puffed in silence. "No one takes her seriously, poor dear.
　　She feeds the rabbits.""Yes," said Rachel. "I've fed rabbits for twenty-four years; it seemsodd now." She looked meditative, and Hewet, who had been talkingmuch at random and instinctively adopting the feminine point of view,saw that she would now talk about herself, which was what he wanted,for so they might come to know each other.
　　She looked back meditatively upon her past life.
　　"How do you spend your day?" he asked.
　　She meditated still. When she thought of their day it seemedto her it was cut into four pieces by their meals. These divisionswere absolutely rigid, the contents of the day having to accommodatethemselves within the four rigid bars. Looking back at her life,that was what she saw.
　　"Breakfast nine; luncheon one; tea five; dinner eight," she said.
　　"Well," said Hewet, "what d'you do in the morning?""I need to play the piano for hours and hours.""And after luncheon?""Then I went shopping with one of my aunts. Or we went to see some one,or we took a message; or we did something that had to be done--the taps might be leaking. They visit the poor a good deal--old char-women with bad legs, women who want tickets for hospitals.
　　Or I used to walk in the park by myself. And after tea peoplesometimes called; or in summer we sat in the garden or played croquet;in winter I read aloud, while they worked; after dinner I playedthe piano and they wrote letters. If father was at home we had friendsof his to dinner, and about once a month we went up to the play.
　　Every now and then we dined out; sometimes I went to a dancein London, but that was difficult because of getting back.
　　The people we saw were old family friends, and relations, but wedidn't see many people. There was the clergyman, Mr. Pepper,and the Hunts. Father generally wanted to be quiet when hecame home, because he works very hard at Hull. Also my aunts aren'tvery strong. A house takes up a lot of time if you do it properly.
　　Our servants were always bad, and so Aunt Lucy used to do a good dealin the kitchen, and Aunt Clara, I think, spent most of the morningdusting the drawing-room and going through the linen and silver.
　　Then there were the dogs. They had to be exercised, besides beingwashed and brushed. Now Sandy's dead, but Aunt Clara has a veryold cockatoo that came from India. Everything in our house,"she exclaimed, "comes from somewhere! It's full of old furniture,not really old, Victorian, things mother's family had or father'sfamily had, which they didn't like to get rid of, I suppose,though we've really no room for them. It's rather a nice house,"she continued, "except that it's a little dingy--dull I should say."She called up before her eyes a vision of the drawing-room at home;it was a large oblong room, with a square window opening on the garden.
　　Green plush chairs stood against the wall; there was a heavy carvedbook-case, with glass doors, and a general impression of fadedsofa covers, large spaces of pale green, and baskets with piecesof wool-work dropping out of them. Photographs from old Italianmasterpieces hung on the walls, and views of Venetian bridges andSwedish waterfalls which members of the family had seen years ago.
　　There were also one or two portraits of fathers and grandmothers,and an engraving of John Stuart Mill, after the picture by Watts.
　　It was a room without definite character, being neither typicallyand openly hideous, nor strenuously artistic, nor really comfortable.
　　Rachel roused herself from the contemplation of this familiarpicture.
　　"But this isn't very interesting for you," she said, looking up.
　　"Good Lord!" Hewet exclaimed. "I've never been so much interestedin my life." She then realised that while she had been thinkingof Richmond, his eyes had never left her face. The knowledgeof this excited her.
　　"Go on, please go on," he urged. "Let's imagine it's a Wednesday.
　　You're all at luncheon. You sit there, and Aunt Lucy there,and Aunt Clara here"; he arranged three pebbles on the grassbetween them.
　　"Aunt Clara carves the neck of lamb," Rachel continued.
　　She fixed her gaze upon the pebbles. "There's a very ugly yellowchina stand in front of me, called a dumb waiter, on which arethree dishes, one for biscuits, one for butter, and one for cheese.
　　There's a pot of ferns. Then there's Blanche the maid, who snufflesbecause of her nose. We talk--oh yes, it's Aunt Lucy's afternoonat Walworth, so we're rather quick over luncheon. She goes off.
　　She has a purple bag, and a black notebook. Aunt Clara haswhat they call a G.F.S. meeting in the drawing-room on Wednesday,so I take the dogs out. I go up Richmond Hill, along the terrace,into the park. It's the 18th of April--the same day as it is here.
　　It's spring in England. The ground is rather damp. However, I crossthe road and get on to the grass and we walk along, and I singas I always do when I'm alone, until we come to the open placewhere you can see the whole of London beneath you on a clear day.
　　Hampstead Church spire there, Westminster Cathedral over there,and factory chimneys about here. There's generally a haze over the lowparts of London; but it's often blue over the park when London'sin a mist. It's the open place that the balloons cross going overto Hurlingham. They're pale yellow. Well, then, it smells very good,particularly if they happen to be burning wood in the keeper's lodgewhich is there. I could tell you now how to get from place to place,and exactly what trees you'd pass, and where you'd cross the roads.
　　You see, I played there when I was small. Spring is good, but it'sbest in the autumn when the deer are barking; then it gets dusky,and I go back through the streets, and you can't see people properly;they come past very quick, you just see their faces and thenthey're gone--that's what I like--and no one knows in the least whatyou're doing--""But you have to be back for tea, I suppose?" Hewet checked her.
　　"Tea? Oh yes. Five o'clock. Then I say what I've done, and myaunts say what they've done, and perhaps some one comes in:
　　Mrs. Hunt, let's suppose. She's an old lady with a lame leg.
　　She has or she once had eight children; so we ask after them.
　　They're all over the world; so we ask where they are, and sometimesthey're ill, or they're stationed in a cholera district, or insome place where it only rains once in five months. Mrs. Hunt,"she said with a smile, "had a son who was hugged to death bya bear."Here she stopped and looked at Hewet to see whether he was amusedby the same things that amused her. She was reassured. But shethought it necessary to apologise again; she had been talking too much.
　　"You can't conceive how it interests me," he said.
　　Indeed, his cigarette had gone out, and he had to light another.
　　"Why does it interest you?" she asked.
　　"Partly because you're a woman," he replied. When he said this,Rachel, who had become oblivious of anything, and had reverted to achildlike state of interest and pleasure, lost her freedom and becameself-conscious. She felt herself at once singular and under observation,as she felt with St. John Hirst. She was about to launch into an argumentwhich would have made them both feel bitterly against each other,and to define sensations which had no such importance as wordswere bound to give them when Hewet led her thoughts in a different direction.
　　"I've often walked along the streets where people live all in a row,and one house is exactly like another house, and wondered what onearth the women were doing inside," he said. "Just consider:
　　it's the beginning of the twentieth century, and until a few yearsago no woman had ever come out by herself and said things at all.
　　There it was going on in the background, for all those thousandsof years, this curious silent unrepresented life. Of course we'realways writing about women--abusing them, or jeering at them,or worshipping them; but it's never come from women themselves.
　　I believe we still don't know in the least how they live,or what they feel, or what they do precisely. If one's a man,the only confidences one gets are from young women about theirlove affairs. But the lives of women of forty, of unmarried women,of working women, of women who keep shops and bring up children,of women like your aunts or Mrs. Thornbury or Miss Allan--one knows nothing whatever about them. They won't tell you.
　　Either they're afraid, or they've got a way of treating men.
　　It's the man's view that's represented, you see. Think of arailway train: fifteen carriages for men who want to smoke.
　　Doesn't it make your blood boil? If I were a woman I'd blowsome one's brains out. Don't you laugh at us a great deal?
　　Don't you think it all a great humbug? You, I mean--how does itall strike you?"His determination to know, while it gave meaning to their talk,hampered her; he seemed to press further and further, and made itappear so important. She took some time to answer, and during thattime she went over and over the course of her twenty-four years,lighting now on one point, now on another--on her aunts, her mother,her father, and at last her mind fixed upon her aunts and her father,and she tried to describe them as at this distance they appearedto her.
　　They were very much afraid of her father. He was a great dim forcein the house, by means of which they held on to the great worldwhich is represented every morning in the _Times_. But the reallife of the house was something quite different from this.
　　It went on independently of Mr. Vinrace, and tended to hide itselffrom him. He was good-humoured towards them, but contemptuous.
　　She had always taken it for granted that his point of view was just,and founded upon an ideal scale of things where the life of oneperson was absolutely more important than the life of another,and that in that scale they were much less importance than he was.
　　But did she really believe that? Hewet's words made her think.
　　She always submitted to her father, just as they did, but it was heraunts who influenced her really; her aunts who built up the fine,closely woven substance of their life at home. They were lesssplendid but more natural than her father was. All her rageshad been against them; it was their world with its four meals,its punctuality, and servants on the stairs at half-past ten, that sheexamined so closely and wanted so vehemently to smash to atoms.
　　Following these thoughts she looked up and said:
　　"And there's a sort of beauty in it--there they are at Richmondat this very moment building things up. They're all wrong,perhaps, but there's a sort of beauty in it," she repeated.
　　"It's so unconscious, so modest. And yet they feel things.
　　They do mind if people die. Old spinsters are always doing things.
　　I don't quite know what they do. Only that was what I felt when Ilived with them. It was very real."She reviewed their little journeys to and fro, to Walworth,to charwomen with bad legs, to meetings for this and that,their minute acts of charity and unselfishness which floweredpunctually from a definite view of what they ought to do,their friendships, their tastes and habits; she saw all these thingslike grains of sand falling, falling through innumerable days,making an atmosphere and building up a solid mass, a background.
　　Hewet observed her as she considered this.
　　"Were you happy?" he demanded.
　　Again she had become absorbed in something else, and he calledher back to an unusually vivid consciousness of herself.
　　"I was both," she replied. "I was happy and I was miserable.
　　You've no conception what it's like--to be a young woman."She looked straight at him. "There are terrors and agonies,"she said, keeping her eye on him as if to detect the slightest hintof laughter.
　　"I can believe it," he said. He returned her look with perfect sincerity.
　　"Women one sees in the streets," she said.
　　"Prostitutes?""Men kissing one."He nodded his head.
　　"You were never told?"She shook her head.
　　"And then," she began and stopped. Here came in the great spaceof life into which no one had ever penetrated. All that she had beensaying about her father and her aunts and walks in Richmond Park,and what they did from hour to hour, was merely on the surface.
　　Hewet was watching her. Did he demand that she should describethat also? Why did he sit so near and keep his eye on her?
　　Why did they not have done with this searching and agony? Why didthey not kiss each other simply? She wished to kiss him. But allthe time she went on spinning out words.
　　"A girl is more lonely than a boy. No one cares in the least whatshe does. Nothing's expected of her. Unless one's very prettypeople don't listen to what you say. . . . And that is what I like,"she added energetically, as if the memory were very happy.
　　"I like walking in Richmond Park and singing to myself andknowing it doesn't matter a damn to anybody. I like seeingthings go on--as we saw you that night when you didn't see us--I love the freedom of it--it's like being the wind or the sea."She turned with a curious fling of her hands and looked at the sea.
　　It was still very blue, dancing away as far as the eye could reach,but the light on it was yellower, and the clouds were turningflamingo red.
　　A feeling of intense depression crossed Hewet's mind as she spoke.
　　It seemed plain that she would never care for one person ratherthan another; she was evidently quite indifferent to him; they seemedto come very near, and then they were as far apart as ever again;and her gesture as she turned away had been oddly beautiful.
　　"Nonsense," he said abruptly. "You like people. You like admiration.
　　Your real grudge against Hirst is that he doesn't admire you."She made no answer for some time. Then she said:
　　"That's probably true. Of course I like people--I like almostevery one I've ever met."She turned her back on the sea and regarded Hewet with friendlyif critical eyes. He was good-looking in the sense that he hadalways had a sufficiency of beef to eat and fresh air to breathe.
　　His head was big; the eyes were also large; though generallyvague they could be forcible; and the lips were sensitive.
　　One might account him a man of considerable passion and fitful energy,likely to be at the mercy of moods which had little relation to facts;at once tolerant and fastidious. The breadth of his forehead showedcapacity for thought. The interest with which Rachel looked at himwas heard in her voice.
　　"What novels do you write?" she asked.
　　"I want to write a novel about Silence," he said; "the things peopledon't say. But the difficulty is immense." He sighed. "However, youdon't care," he continued. He looked at her almost severely.
　　"Nobody cares. All you read a novel for is to see what sort of personthe writer is, and, if you know him, which of his friends he's put in.
　　As for the novel itself, the whole conception, the way one's seenthe thing, felt about it, make it stand in relation to other things,not one in a million cares for that. And yet I sometimes wonderwhether there's anything else in the whole world worth doing.
　　These other people," he indicated the hotel, "are always wantingsomething they can't get. But there's an extraordinary satisfactionin writing, even in the attempt to write. What you said just nowis true: one doesn't want to be things; one wants merely to beallowed to see them."Some of the satisfaction of which he spoke came into his face as hegazed out to sea.
　　It was Rachel's turn now to feel depressed. As he talked of writinghe had become suddenly impersonal. He might never care for any one;all that desire to know her and get at her, which she had feltpressing on her almost painfully, had completely vanished.
　　"Are you a good writer?" she asked.
　　"Yes," he said. "I'm not first-rate, of course; I'm good second-rate;about as good as Thackeray, I should say."Rachel was amazed. For one thing it amazed her to hear Thackeraycalled second-rate; and then she could not widen her point ofview to believe that there could be great writers in existenceat the present day, or if there were, that any one she knewcould be a great writer, and his self-confidence astounded her,and he became more and more remote.
　　"My other novel," Hewet continued, "is about a young manwho is obsessed by an idea--the idea of being a gentleman.
　　He manages to exist at Cambridge on a hundred pounds a year.
　　He has a coat; it was once a very good coat. But the trousers--they're not so good. Well, he goes up to London, gets intogood society, owing to an early-morning adventure on the banksof the Serpentine. He is led into telling lies--my idea, you see,is to show the gradual corruption of the soul--calls himself the sonof some great landed proprietor in Devonshire. Meanwhile the coatbecomes older and older, and he hardly dares to wear the trousers.
　　Can't you imagine the wretched man, after some splendid eveningof debauchery, contemplating these garments--hanging them overthe end of the bed, arranging them now in full light, now in shade,and wondering whether they will survive him, or he will survive them?
　　Thoughts of suicide cross his mind. He has a friend, too, a manwho somehow subsists upon selling small birds, for which he setstraps in the fields near Uxbridge. They're scholars, both of them.
　　I know one or two wretched starving creatures like that who quoteAristotle at you over a fried herring and a pint of porter.
　　Fashionable life, too, I have to represent at some length,in order to show my hero under all circumstances. Lady TheoBingham Bingley, whose bay mare he had the good fortune to stop,is the daughter of a very fine old Tory peer. I'm going to describethe kind of parties I once went to--the fashionable intellectuals,you know, who like to have the latest book on their tables.
　　They give parties, river parties, parties where you play games.
　　There's no difficulty in conceiving incidents; the difficulty isto put them into shape--not to get run away with, as Lady Theo was.
　　It ended disastrously for her, poor woman, for the book, as Iplanned it, was going to end in profound and sordid respectability.
　　Disowned by her father, she marries my hero, and they live in a snuglittle villa outside Croydon, in which town he is set up as ahouse agent. He never succeeds in becoming a real gentleman after all.
　　That's the interesting part of it. Does it seem to you the kind of bookyou'd like to read?" he enquired; "or perhaps you'd like my Stuarttragedy better," he continued, without waiting for her to answer him.
　　"My idea is that there's a certain quality of beauty in the past,which the ordinary historical novelist completely ruins by hisabsurd conventions. The moon becomes the Regent of the Skies.
　　People clap spurs to their horses, and so on. I'm going to treatpeople as though they were exactly the same as we are. The advantageis that, detached from modern conditions, one can make them moreintense and more abstract then people who live as we do."Rachel had listened to all this with attention, but with a certainamount of bewilderment. They both sat thinking their own thoughts.
　　"I'm not like Hirst," said Hewet, after a pause; he spoke meditatively;"I don't see circles of chalk between people's feet. I sometimes wishI did. It seems to me so tremendously complicated and confused.
　　One can't come to any decision at all; one's less and less capableof making judgments. D'you find that? And then one never knowswhat any one feels. We're all in the dark. We try to find out,but can you imagine anything more ludicrous than one person'sopinion of another person? One goes along thinking one knows;but one really doesn't know."As he said this he was leaning on his elbow arranging and rearrangingin the grass the stones which had represented Rachel and her auntsat luncheon. He was speaking as much to himself as to Rachel.
　　He was reasoning against the desire, which had returned with intensity,to take her in his arms; to have done with indirectness; to explainexactly what he felt. What he said was against his belief;all the things that were important about her he knew; he felt themin the air around them; but he said nothing; he went on arrangingthe stones.
　　"I like you; d'you like me?" Rachel suddenly observed.
　　"I like you immensely," Hewet replied, speaking with the reliefof a person who is unexpectedly given an opportunity of sayingwhat he wants to say. He stopped moving the pebbles.
　　"Mightn't we call each other Rachel and Terence?" he asked.
　　"Terence," Rachel repeated. "Terence--that's like the cry of an owl."She looked up with a sudden rush of delight, and in looking atTerence with eyes widened by pleasure she was struck by the changethat had come over the sky behind them. The substantial blue dayhad faded to a paler and more ethereal blue; the clouds were pink,far away and closely packed together; and the peace of eveninghad replaced the heat of the southern afternoon, in which theyhad started on their walk.
　　"It must be late!" she exclaimed.
　　It was nearly eight o'clock.
　　"But eight o'clock doesn't count here, does it?" Terence asked,as they got up and turned inland again. They began to walk ratherquickly down the hill on a little path between the olive trees.
　　They felt more intimate because they shared the knowledge ofwhat eight o'clock in Richmond meant. Terence walked in front,for there was not room for them side by side.
　　"What I want to do in writing novels is very much what you want to dowhen you play the piano, I expect," he began, turning and speaking overhis shoulder. "We want to find out what's behind things, don't we?--Look at the lights down there," he continued, "scattered about anyhow.
　　Things I feel come to me like lights. . . . I want to combine them.
　　. . . Have you ever seen fireworks that make figures? . . . I wantto make figures. . . . Is that what you want to do?"Now they were out on the road and could walk side by side.
　　"When I play the piano? Music is different. . . . But I see what you mean."They tried to invent theories and to make their theories agree.
　　As Hewet had no knowledge of music, Rachel took his stick and drewfigures in the thin white dust to explain how Bach wrote his fugues.
　　"My musical gift was ruined," he explained, as they walked on afterone of these demonstrations, "by the village organist at home,who had invented a system of notation which he tried to teach me,with the result that I never got to the tune-playing at all.
　　My mother thought music wasn't manly for boys; she wanted me tokill rats and birds--that's the worst of living in the country.
　　We live in Devonshire. It's the loveliest place in the world.
　　Only--it's always difficult at home when one's grown up. I'd likeyou to know one of my sisters. . . . Oh, here's your gate--"He pushed it open. They paused for a moment. She could not ask himto come in. She could not say that she hoped they would meet again;there was nothing to be said, and so without a word she went throughthe gate, and was soon invisible. Directly Hewet lost sight of her,he felt the old discomfort return, even more strongly than before.
　　Their talk had been interrupted in the middle, just as hewas beginning to say the things he wanted to say. After all,what had they been able to say? He ran his mind over the thingsthey had said, the random, unnecessary things which had eddied roundand round and used up all the time, and drawn them so close togetherand flung them so far apart, and left him in the end unsatisfied,ignorant still of what she felt and of what she was like. What wasthe use of talking, talking, merely talking?
Chapter 17
    It was now the height of the season, and every ship that came fromEngland left a few people on the shores of Santa Marina who droveup to the hotel. The fact that the Ambroses had a house where onecould escape momentarily from the slightly inhuman atmosphere of anhotel was a source of genuine pleasure not only to Hirst and Hewet,but to the Elliots, the Thornburys, the Flushings, Miss Allan,Evelyn M., together with other people whose identity was so littledeveloped that the Ambroses did not discover that they possessed names.
　　By degrees there was established a kind of correspondence betweenthe two houses, the big and the small, so that at most hoursof the day one house could guess what was going on in the other,and the words "the villa" and "the hotel" called up the idea of twoseparate systems of life. Acquaintances showed signs of developinginto friends, for that one tie to Mrs. Parry's drawing-room hadinevitably split into many other ties attached to different partsof England, and sometimes these alliances seemed cynically fragile,and sometimes painfully acute, lacking as they did the supportingbackground of organised English life. One night when the moon wasround between the trees, Evelyn M. told Helen the story of her life,and claimed her everlasting friendship; or another occasion,merely because of a sigh, or a pause, or a word thoughtlessly dropped,poor Mrs. Elliot left the villa half in tears, vowing never againto meet the cold and scornful woman who had insulted her, and in truth,meet again they never did. It did not seem worth while to piecetogether so slight a friendship.
　　Hewet, indeed, might have found excellent material at this time upat the villa for some chapters in the novel which was to be called"Silence, or the Things People don't say." Helen and Rachel hadbecome very silent. Having detected, as she thought, a secret,and judging that Rachel meant to keep it from her, Mrs. Ambroserespected it carefully, but from that cause, though unintentionally,a curious atmosphere of reserve grew up between them. Instead ofsharing their views upon all subjects, and plunging after an ideawherever it might lead, they spoke chiefly in comment uponthe people they saw, and the secret between them made itself feltin what they said even of Thornburys and Elliots. Always calmand unemotional in her judgments, Mrs. Ambrose was now inclinedto be definitely pessimistic. She was not severe upon individualsso much as incredulous of the kindness of destiny, fate, what happensin the long run, and apt to insist that this was generally adverseto people in proportion as they deserved well. Even this theory shewas ready to discard in favour of one which made chaos triumphant,things happening for no reason at all, and every one groping aboutin illusion and ignorance. With a certain pleasure she developedthese views to her niece, taking a letter from home as her test:
　　which gave good news, but might just as well have given bad.
　　How did she know that at this very moment both her children werenot lying dead, crushed by motor omnibuses? "It's happeningto somebody: why shouldn't it happen to me?" she would argue,her face taking on the stoical expression of anticipated sorrow.
　　however sincere these views may have been, they were undoubtedlycalled forth by the irrational state of her niece's mind.
　　It was so fluctuating, and went so quickly from joy to despair,that it seemed necessary to confront it with some stable opinionwhich naturally became dark as well as stable. Perhaps Mrs. Ambrosehad some idea that in leading the talk into these quarters she mightdiscover what was in Rachel's mind, but it was difficult to judge,for sometimes she would agree with the gloomiest thing that was said,at other times she refused to listen, and rammed Helen's theoriesdown her throat with laughter, chatter, ridicule of the wildest,and fierce bursts of anger even at what she called the "croaking of araven in the mud.""It's hard enough without that," she asserted.
　　"What's hard?" Helen demanded.
　　"Life," she replied, and then they both became silent.
　　Helen might draw her own conclusions as to why life was hard, as to whyan hour later, perhaps, life was something so wonderful and vividthat the eyes of Rachel beholding it were positively exhilaratingto a spectator. True to her creed, she did not attempt to interfere,although there were enough of those weak moments of depressionto make it perfectly easy for a less scrupulous person to pressthrough and know all, and perhaps Rachel was sorry that she didnot choose. All these moods ran themselves into one general effect,which Helen compared to the sliding of a river, quick, quicker,quicker still, as it races to a waterfall. Her instinct was to cryout Stop! but even had there been any use in crying Stop! she wouldhave refrained, thinking it best that things should take their way,the water racing because the earth was shaped to make it race.
　　It seemed that Rachel herself had no suspicion that she was watched,or that there was anything in her manner likely to draw attention to her.
　　What had happened to her she did not know. Her mind was very muchin the condition of the racing water to which Helen compared it.
　　She wanted to see Terence; she was perpetually wishing to seehim when he was not there; it was an agony to miss seeing him;agonies were strewn all about her day on account of him, but she neverasked herself what this force driving through her life arose from.
　　She thought of no result any more than a tree perpetually presseddownwards by the wind considers the result of being pressed downwardsby the wind.
　　During the two or three weeks which had passed since their walk,half a dozen notes from him had accumulated in her drawer. She wouldread them, and spend the whole morning in a daze of happiness;the sunny land outside the window being no less capable of analysingits own colour and heat than she was of analysing hers. In these moodsshe found it impossible to read or play the piano, even to move beingbeyond her inclination. The time passed without her noticing it.
　　When it was dark she was drawn to the window by the lights of the hotel.
　　A light that went in and out was the light in Terence's window:
　　there he sat, reading perhaps, or now he was walking up and downpulling out one book after another; and now he was seated in hischair again, and she tried to imagine what he was thinking about.
　　The steady lights marked the rooms where Terence sat with peoplemoving round him. Every one who stayed in the hotel had a peculiarromance and interest about them. They were not ordinary people.
　　She would attribute wisdom to Mrs. Elliot, beauty to Susan Warrington,a splendid vitality to Evelyn M., because Terence spoke to them.
　　As unreflecting and pervasive were the moods of depression.
　　Her mind was as the landscape outside when dark beneath cloudsand straitly lashed by wind and hail. Again she would sit passivein her chair exposed to pain, and Helen's fantastical or gloomywords were like so many darts goading her to cry out against thehardness of life. Best of all were the moods when for no reasonagain this stress of feeling slackened, and life went on as usual,only with a joy and colour in its events that was unknown before;they had a significance like that which she had seen in the tree:
　　the nights were black bars separating her from the days;she would have liked to run all the days into one long continuityof sensation. Although these moods were directly or indirectlycaused by the presence of Terence or the thought of him, she neversaid to herself that she was in love with him, or consideredwhat was to happen if she continued to feel such things, so thatHelen's image of the river sliding on to the waterfall had a greatlikeness to the facts, and the alarm which Helen sometimes feltwas justified.
　　In her curious condition of unanalysed sensations she was incapableof making a plan which should have any effect upon her state of mind.
　　She abandoned herself to the mercy of accidents, missing Terence one day,meeting him the next, receiving his letters always with a startof surprise. Any woman experienced in the progress of courtshipwould have come by certain opinions from all this which would havegiven her at least a theory to go upon; but no one had ever beenin love with Rachel, and she had never been in love with any one.
　　Moreover, none of the books she read, from _Wuthering_ _Heights_to _Man_ _and_ _Superman_, and the plays of Ibsen, suggested fromtheir analysis of love that what their heroines felt was what shewas feeling now. It seemed to her that her sensations had no name.
　　She met Terence frequently. When they did not meet, he was aptto send a note with a book or about a book, for he had not beenable after all to neglect that approach to intimacy. But sometimeshe did not come or did not write for several days at a time.
　　Again when they met their meeting might be one of inspiriting joyor of harassing despair. Over all their partings hung the senseof interruption, leaving them both unsatisfied, though ignorantthat the other shared the feeling.
　　If Rachel was ignorant of her own feelings, she was even morecompletely ignorant of his. At first he moved as a god;as she came to know him better he was still the centre of light,but combined with this beauty a wonderful power of making her daringand confident of herself. She was conscious of emotions and powerswhich she had never suspected in herself, and of a depth in the worldhitherto unknown. When she thought of their relationship she sawrather than reasoned, representing her view of what Terence feltby a picture of him drawn across the room to stand by her side.
　　This passage across the room amounted to a physical sensation,but what it meant she did not know.
　　Thus the time went on, wearing a calm, bright look upon its surface.
　　Letters came from England, letters came from Willoughby,and the days accumulated their small events which shaped the year.
　　Superficially, three odes of Pindar were mended, Helen covered aboutfive inches of her embroidery, and St. John completed the firsttwo acts of a play. He and Rachel being now very good friends,he read them aloud to her, and she was so genuinely impressedby the skill of his rhythms and the variety of his adjectives,as well as by the fact that he was Terence's friend, that he beganto wonder whether he was not intended for literature rather thanfor law. It was a time of profound thought and sudden revelationsfor more than one couple, and several single people.
　　A Sunday came, which no one in the villa with the exception ofRachel and the Spanish maid proposed to recognise. Rachel stillwent to church, because she had never, according to Helen,taken the trouble to think about it. Since they had celebratedthe service at the hotel she went there expecting to get somepleasure from her passage across the garden and through the hallof the hotel, although it was very doubtful whether she wouldsee Terence, or at any rate have the chance of speaking to him.
　　As the greater number of visitors at the hotel were English,there was almost as much difference between Sunday and Wednesdayas there is in England, and Sunday appeared here as there, the muteblack ghost or penitent spirit of the busy weekday. The Englishcould not pale the sunshine, but they could in some miraculous wayslow down the hours, dull the incidents, lengthen the meals, and makeeven the servants and page-boys wear a look of boredom and propriety.
　　The best clothes which every one put on helped the general effect;it seemed that no lady could sit down without bending a clean starchedpetticoat, and no gentleman could breathe without a sudden cracklefrom a stiff shirt-front. As the hands of the clock neared eleven,on this particular Sunday, various people tended to draw togetherin the hall, clasping little redleaved books in their hands.
　　The clock marked a few minutes to the hour when a stout black figurepassed through the hall with a preoccupied expression, as thoughhe would rather not recognise salutations, although aware of them,and disappeared down the corridor which led from it.
　　"Mr. Bax," Mrs. Thornbury whispered.
　　The little group of people then began to move off in the samedirection as the stout black figure. Looked at in an oddway by people who made no effort to join them, they movedwith one exception slowly and consciously towards the stairs.
　　Mrs. Flushing was the exception. She came running downstairs,strode across the hall, joined the procession much out of breath,demanding of Mrs. Thornbury in an agitated whisper, "Where, where?""We are all going," said Mrs. Thornbury gently, and soon theywere descending the stairs two by two. Rachel was amongthe first to descend. She did not see that Terence and Hirstcame in at the rear possessed of no black volume, but of onethin book bound in light-blue cloth, which St. John carried under his arm.
　　The chapel was the old chapel of the monks. It was a profound coolplace where they had said Mass for hundreds of years, and done penancein the cold moonlight, and worshipped old brown pictures and carvedsaints which stood with upraised hands of blessing in the hollowsin the walls. The transition from Catholic to Protestant worshiphad been bridged by a time of disuse, when there were no services,and the place was used for storing jars of oil, liqueur, and deck-chairs;the hotel flourishing, some religious body had taken the place in hand,and it was now fitted out with a number of glazed yellow benches,claret-coloured footstools; it had a small pulpit, and a brass eaglecarrying the Bible on its back, while the piety of different womenhad supplied ugly squares of carpet, and long strips of embroideryheavily wrought with monograms in gold.
　　As the congregation entered they were met by mild sweet chordsissuing from a harmonium, where Miss Willett, concealed from viewby a baize curtain, struck emphatic chords with uncertain fingers.
　　The sound spread through the chapel as the rings of water spreadfrom a fallen stone. The twenty or twenty-five people who composedthe congregation first bowed their heads and then sat up and lookedabout them. It was very quiet, and the light down here seemed palerthan the light above. The usual bows and smiles were dispensed with,but they recognised each other. The Lord's Prayer was read over them.
　　As the childlike battle of voices rose, the congregation,many of whom had only met on the staircase, felt themselvespathetically united and well-disposed towards each other.
　　As if the prayer were a torch applied to fuel, a smoke seemed to riseautomatically and fill the place with the ghosts of innumerableservices on innumerable Sunday mornings at home. Susan Warringtonin particular was conscious of the sweetest sense of sisterhood,as she covered her face with her hands and saw slips of bent backsthrough the chinks between her fingers. Her emotions rose calmlyand evenly, approving of herself and of life at the same time.
　　It was all so quiet and so good. But having created this peacefulatmosphere Mr. Bax suddenly turned the page and read a psalm.
　　Though he read it with no change of voice the mood was broken.
　　"Be merciful unto me, O God," he read, "for man goeth about to devour me:
　　he is daily fighting and troubling me. . . . They daily mistakemy words: all that they imagine is to do me evil. They holdall together and keep themselves close. . . . Break their teeth,O God, in their mouths; smite the jaw-bones of the lions, O Lord:
　　let them fall away like water that runneth apace; and when they shoottheir arrows let them be rooted out."Nothing in Susan's experience at all corresponded with this,and as she had no love of language she had long ceased to attendto such remarks, although she followed them with the same kindof mechanical respect with which she heard many of Lear's speechesread aloud. Her mind was still serene and really occupied withpraise of her own nature and praise of God, that is of the solemnand satisfactory order of the world.
　　But it could be seen from a glance at their faces that most of the others,the men in particular, felt the inconvenience of the sudden intrusionof this old savage. They looked more secular and critical as thenlistened to the ravings of the old black man with a cloth round hisloins cursing with vehement gesture by a camp-fire in the desert.
　　After that there was a general sound of pages being turned as ifthey were in class, and then they read a little bit of the OldTestament about making a well, very much as school boys translatean easy passage from the _Anabasis_ when they have shut up theirFrench grammar. Then they returned to the New Testament and the sadand beautiful figure of Christ. While Christ spoke they madeanother effort to fit his interpretation of life upon the livesthey lived, but as they were all very different, some practical,some ambitious, some stupid, some wild and experimental, some in love,and others long past any feeling except a feeling of comfort,they did very different things with the words of Christ.
　　From their faces it seemed that for the most part they madeno effort at all, and, recumbent as it were, accepted the ideasthe words gave as representing goodness, in the same way, no doubt,as one of those industrious needlewomen had accepted the brightugly pattern on her mat as beauty.
　　Whatever the reason might be, for the first time in her life,instead of slipping at once into some curious pleasant cloudof emotion, too familiar to be considered, Rachel listened criticallyto what was being said. By the time they had swung in an irregularway from prayer to psalm, from psalm to history, from historyto poetry, and Mr. Bax was giving out his text, she was in a stateof acute discomfort. Such was the discomfort she felt when forcedto sit through an unsatisfactory piece of music badly played.
　　Tantalised, enraged by the clumsy insensitiveness of the conductor,who put the stress on the wrong places, and annoyed by the vastflock of the audience tamely praising and acquiescing withoutknowing or caring, so she was not tantalized and enraged, only here,with eyes half-shut and lips pursed together, the atmosphere offorced solemnity increased her anger. All round her were peoplepretending to feel what they did not feel, while somewhere aboveher floated the idea which they could none of them grasp, which theypretended to grasp, always escaping out of reach, a beautiful idea,an idea like a butterfly. One after another, vast and hard and cold,appeared to her the churches all over the world where this blunderingeffort and misunderstanding were perpetually going on, great buildings,filled with innumerable men and women, not seeing clearly,who finally gave up the effort to see, and relapsed tamely into praiseand acquiescence, half-shutting their eyes and pursing up their lips.
　　The thought had the same sort of physical discomfort as is causedby a film of mist always coming between the eyes and the printed page.
　　She did her best to brush away the film and to conceive somethingto be worshipped as the service went on, but failed, always misledby the voice of Mr. Bax saying things which misrepresented the idea,and by the patter of baaing inexpressive human voices falling roundher like damp leaves. The effort was tiring and dispiriting.
　　She ceased to listen, and fixed her eyes on the face of a womannear her, a hospital nurse, whose expression of devout attentionseemed to prove that she was at any rate receiving satisfaction.
　　But looking at her carefully she came to the conclusion that thehospital nurse was only slavishly acquiescent, and that the look ofsatisfaction was produced by no splendid conception of God within her.
　　How indeed, could she conceive anything far outside her own experience,a woman with a commonplace face like hers, a little round red face,upon which trivial duties and trivial spites had drawn lines, whose weakblue eyes saw without intensity or individuality, whose featureswere blurred, insensitive, and callous? She was adoring somethingshallow and smug, clinging to it, so the obstinate mouth witnessed,with the assiduity of a limpet; nothing would tear her from herdemure belief in her own virtue and the virtues of her religion.
　　She was a limpet, with the sensitive side of her stuck to a rock,for ever dead to the rush of fresh and beautiful things past her.
　　The face of this single worshipper became printed on Rachel's mindwith an impression of keen horror, and she had it suddenly revealedto her what Helen meant and St. John meant when they proclaimed theirhatred of Christianity. With the violence that now marked her feelings,she rejected all that she had implicitly believed.
　　Meanwhile Mr. Bax was half-way through the second lesson.
　　She looked at him. He was a man of the world with supple lipsand an agreeable manner, he was indeed a man of much kindlinessand simplicity, though by no means clever, but she was not inthe mood to give any one credit for such qualities, and examinedhim as though he were an epitome of all the vices of his service.
　　Right at the back of the chapel Mrs. Flushing, Hirst, and Hewetsat in a row in a very different frame of mind. Hewet was staringat the roof with his legs stuck out in front of him, for as hehad never tried to make the service fit any feeling or idea of his,he was able to enjoy the beauty of the language without hindrance.
　　His mind was occupied first with accidental things, such as thewomen's hair in front of him, the light on the faces, then withthe words which seemed to him magnificent, and then more vaguelywith the characters of the other worshippers. But when he suddenlyperceived Rachel, all these thoughts were driven out of his head,and he thought only of her. The psalms, the prayers, the Litany,and the sermon were all reduced to one chanting sound which paused,and then renewed itself, a little higher or a little lower.
　　He stared alternately at Rachel and at the ceiling, but his expressionwas now produced not by what he saw but by something in his mind.
　　He was almost as painfully disturbed by his thoughts as she wasby hers.
　　Early in the service Mrs. Flushing had discovered that she had taken upa Bible instead of a prayer-book, and, as she was sitting next to Hirst,she stole a glance over his shoulder. He was reading steadily inthe thin pale-blue volume. Unable to understand, she peered closer,upon which Hirst politely laid the book before her, pointing tothe first line of a Greek poem and then to the translation opposite.
　　"What's that?" she whispered inquisitively.
　　"Sappho," he replied. "The one Swinburne did--the best thingthat's ever been written."Mrs. Flushing could not resist such an opportunity. She gulpeddown the Ode to Aphrodite during the Litany, keeping herself withdifficulty from asking when Sappho lived, and what else she wroteworth reading, and contriving to come in punctually at the endwith "the forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of the body,and the life everlastin'. Amen."Meanwhile Hirst took out an envelope and began scribbling on the backof it. When Mr. Bax mounted the pulpit he shut up Sappho with hisenvelope between the pages, settled his spectacles, and fixed hisgaze intently upon the clergyman. Standing in the pulpit he lookedvery large and fat; the light coming through the greenish unstainedwindow-glass made his face appear smooth and white like a very large egg.
　　He looked round at all the faces looking mildly up at him,although some of them were the faces of men and women old enough to behis grandparents, and gave out his text with weighty significance.
　　The argument of the sermon was that visitors to this beautiful land,although they were on a holiday, owed a duty to the natives.
　　It did not, in truth, differ very much from a leading article upontopics of general interest in the weekly newspapers. It rambledwith a kind of amiable verbosity from one heading to another,suggesting that all human beings are very much the same undertheir skins, illustrating this by the resemblance of the gameswhich little Spanish boys play to the games little boys in Londonstreets play, observing that very small things do influence people,particularly natives; in fact, a very dear friend of Mr. Bax's hadtold him that the success of our rule in India, that vast country,largely depended upon the strict code of politeness which theEnglish adopted towards the natives, which led to the remarkthat small things were not necessarily small, and that somehowto the virtue of sympathy, which was a virtue never more neededthan to-day, when we lived in a time of experiment and upheaval--witness the aeroplane and wireless telegraph, and there wereother problems which hardly presented themselves to our fathers,but which no man who called himself a man could leave unsettled.
　　Here Mr. Bax became more definitely clerical, if it were possible,he seemed to speak with a certain innocent craftiness, as he pointedout that all this laid a special duty upon earnest Christians.
　　What men were inclined to say now was, "Oh, that fellow--he's a parson."What we want them to say is, "He's a good fellow"--in other words,"He is my brother." He exhorted them to keep in touch with menof the modern type; they must sympathise with their multifariousinterests in order to keep before their eyes that whatever discoverieswere made there was one discovery which could not be superseded,which was indeed as much of a necessity to the most successfuland most brilliant of them all as it had been to their fathers.
　　The humblest could help; the least important things had an influence(here his manner became definitely priestly and his remarks seemedto be directed to women, for indeed Mr. Bax's congregations weremainly composed of women, and he was used to assigning them theirduties in his innocent clerical campaigns). Leaving more definiteinstruction, he passed on, and his theme broadened into a perorationfor which he drew a long breath and stood very upright,--"As a dropof water, detached, alone, separate from others, falling fromthe cloud and entering the great ocean, alters, so scientiststell us, not only the immediate spot in the ocean where it falls,but all the myriad drops which together compose the great universeof waters, and by this means alters the configuration of the globeand the lives of millions of sea creatures, and finally the livesof the men and women who seek their living upon the shores--as all this is within the compass of a single drop of water,such as any rain shower sends in millions to lose themselvesin the earth, to lose themselves we say, but we know very wellthat the fruits of the earth could not flourish without them--so is a marvel comparable to this within the reach of each oneof us, who dropping a little word or a little deed into the greatuniverse alters it; yea, it is a solemn thought, _alters_ it,for good or for evil, not for one instant, or in one vicinity,but throughout the entire race, and for all eternity." Whipping roundas though to avoid applause, he continued with the same breath,but in a different tone of voice,--"And now to God the Father . .
　　."He gave his blessing, and then, while the solemn chords again issuedfrom the harmonium behind the curtain, the different people beganscraping and fumbling and moving very awkwardly and consciouslytowards the door. Half-way upstairs, at a point where the light andsounds of the upper world conflicted with the dimness and the dyinghymn-tune of the under, Rachel felt a hand drop upon her shoulder.
　　"Miss Vinrace," Mrs. Flushing whispered peremptorily, "stay to luncheon.
　　It's such a dismal day. They don't even give one beef for luncheon.
　　Please stay."Here they came out into the hall, where once more the littleband was greeted with curious respectful glances by the peoplewho had not gone to church, although their clothing made it clearthat they approved of Sunday to the very verge of going to church.
　　Rachel felt unable to stand any more of this particular atmosphere,and was about to say she must go back, when Terence passed them,drawn along in talk with Evelyn M. Rachel thereupon contentedherself with saying that the people looked very respectable,which negative remark Mrs. Flushing interpreted to mean that shewould stay.
　　"English people abroad!" she returned with a vivid flash of malice.
　　"Ain't they awful! But we won't stay here," she continued,plucking at Rachel's arm. "Come up to my room."She bore her past Hewet and Evelyn and the Thornburys and the Elliots.
　　Hewet stepped forward.
　　"Luncheon--" he began.
　　"Miss Vinrace has promised to lunch with me," said Mrs. Flushing,and began to pound energetically up the staircase, as thoughthe middle classes of England were in pursuit. She did not stopuntil she had slammed her bedroom door behind them.
　　"Well, what did you think of it?" she demanded, panting slightly.
　　All the disgust and horror which Rachel had been accumulating burstforth beyond her control.
　　"I thought it the most loathsome exhibition I'd ever seen!"she broke out. "How can they--how dare they--what do you mean by it--Mr. Bax, hospital nurses, old men, prostitutes, disgusting--"She hit off the points she remembered as fast as she could, but shewas too indignant to stop to analyse her feelings. Mrs. Flushingwatched her with keen gusto as she stood ejaculating with emphaticmovements of her head and hands in the middle of the room.
　　"Go on, go on, do go on," she laughed, clapping her hands.
　　"It's delightful to hear you!""But why do you go?" Rachel demanded.
　　"I've been every Sunday of my life ever since I can remember,"Mrs. Flushing chuckled, as though that were a reason by itself.
　　Rachel turned abruptly to the window. She did not know what itwas that had put her into such a passion; the sight of Terence inthe hall had confused her thoughts, leaving her merely indignant.
　　She looked straight at their own villa, half-way up the side ofthe mountain. The most familiar view seen framed through glass hasa certain unfamiliar distinction, and she grew calm as she gazed.
　　Then she remembered that she was in the presence of some one shedid not know well, and she turned and looked at Mrs. Flushing.
　　Mrs. Flushing was still sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up,with her lips parted, so that her strong white teeth showed intwo rows.
　　"Tell me," she said, "which d'you like best, Mr. Hewet or Mr. Hirst?""Mr. Hewet," Rachel replied, but her voice did not sound natural.
　　"Which is the one who reads Greek in church?" Mrs. Flushing demanded.
　　It might have been either of them and while Mrs. Flushing proceededto describe them both, and to say that both frightened her, but onefrightened her more than the other, Rachel looked for a chair.
　　The room, of course, was one of the largest and most luxuriousin the hotel. There were a great many arm-chairs and setteescovered in brown holland, but each of these was occupied by a largesquare piece of yellow cardboard, and all the pieces of cardboardwere dotted or lined with spots or dashes of bright oil paint.
　　"But you're not to look at those," said Mrs. Flushing as she sawRachel's eye wander. She jumped up, and turned as many as she could,face downwards, upon the floor. Rachel, however, managed topossess herself of one of them, and, with the vanity of an artist,Mrs. Flushing demanded anxiously, "Well, well?""It's a hill," Rachel replied. There could be no doubt thatMrs. Flushing had represented the vigorous and abrupt fling of theearth up into the air; you could almost see the clods flying as it whirled.
　　Rachel passed from one to another. They were all marked by somethingof the jerk and decision of their maker; they were all perfectly untrainedonslaughts of the brush upon some half-realised idea suggested byhill or tree; and they were all in some way characteristic of Mrs. Flushing.
　　"I see things movin'," Mrs. Flushing explained. "So"--sheswept her hand through a yard of the air. She then took up oneof the cardboards which Rachel had laid aside, seated herselfon a stool, and began to flourish a stump of charcoal. While sheoccupied herself in strokes which seemed to serve her as speechserves others, Rachel, who was very restless, looked about her.
　　"Open the wardrobe," said Mrs. Flushing after a pause, speakingindistinctly because of a paint-brush in her mouth, "and look at the things."As Rachel hesitated, Mrs. Flushing came forward, still with a paint-brushin her mouth, flung open the wings of her wardrobe, and tosseda quantity of shawls, stuffs, cloaks, embroideries, on to the bed.
　　Rachel began to finger them. Mrs. Flushing came up once more,and dropped a quantity of beads, brooches, earrings, bracelets, tassels,and combs among the draperies. Then she went back to her stooland began to paint in silence. The stuffs were coloured and darkand pale; they made a curious swarm of lines and colours uponthe counterpane, with the reddish lumps of stone and peacocks'
　　feathers and clear pale tortoise-shell combs lying among them.
　　"The women wore them hundreds of years ago, they wear 'em still,"Mrs. Flushing remarked. "My husband rides about and finds 'em;they don't know what they're worth, so we get 'em cheap. And weshall sell 'em to smart women in London," she chuckled, as thoughthe thought of these ladies and their absurd appearance amused her.
　　After painting for some minutes, she suddenly laid down her brush andfixed her eyes upon Rachel.
　　"I tell you what I want to do," she said. "I want to go up thereand see things for myself. It's silly stayin' here with a packof old maids as though we were at the seaside in England. I wantto go up the river and see the natives in their camps. It's onlya matter of ten days under canvas. My husband's done it. One wouldlie out under the trees at night and be towed down the river by day,and if we saw anythin' nice we'd shout out and tell 'em to stop."She rose and began piercing the bed again and again with a longgolden pin, as she watched to see what effect her suggestion hadupon Rachel.
　　"We must make up a party," she went on. "Ten people could hirea launch. Now you'll come, and Mrs. Ambrose'll come, and willMr. Hirst and t'other gentleman come? Where's a pencil?"She became more and more determined and excited as she evolved her plan.
　　She sat on the edge of the bed and wrote down a list of surnames,which she invariably spelt wrong. Rachel was enthusiastic, for indeedthe idea was immeasurably delightful to her. She had always had agreat desire to see the river, and the name of Terence threw a lustreover the prospect, which made it almost too good to come true.
　　She did what she could to help Mrs. Flushing by suggesting names,helping her to spell them, and counting up the days of the week uponher fingers. As Mrs. Flushing wanted to know all she could tellher about the birth and pursuits of every person she suggested,and threw in wild stories of her own as to the temperaments andhabits of artists, and people of the same name who used to cometo Chillingley in the old days, but were doubtless not the same,though they too were very clever men interested in Egyptology,the business took some time.
　　At last Mrs. Flushing sought her diary for help, the methodof reckoning dates on the fingers proving unsatisfactory.
　　She opened and shut every drawer in her writing-table, and thencried furiously, "Yarmouth! Yarmouth! Drat the woman!
　　She's always out of the way when she's wanted!"At this moment the luncheon gong began to work itself into itsmidday frenzy. Mrs. Flushing rang her bell violently. The doorwas opened by a handsome maid who was almost as upright as her mistress.
　　"Oh, Yarmouth," said Mrs. Flushing, "just find my diary and seewhere ten days from now would bring us to, and ask the hall porterhow many men 'ud be wanted to row eight people up the river for a week,and what it 'ud cost, and put it on a slip of paper and leave iton my dressing-table. Now--" she pointed at the door with a superbforefinger so that Rachel had to lead the way.
　　"Oh, and Yarmouth," Mrs. Flushing called back over her shoulder.
　　"Put those things away and hang 'em in their right places, there's agood girl, or it fusses Mr. Flushin'."To all of which Yarmouth merely replied, "Yes, ma'am."As they entered the long dining-room it was obvious that the daywas still Sunday, although the mood was slightly abating.
　　The Flushings' table was set by the side in the window,so that Mrs. Flushing could scrutinise each figure as it entered,and her curiosity seemed to be intense.
　　"Old Mrs. Paley," she whispered as the wheeled chair slowly made itsway through the door, Arthur pushing behind. "Thornburys" came next.
　　"That nice woman," she nudged Rachel to look at Miss Allan.
　　"What's her name?" The painted lady who always came in late,tripping into the room with a prepared smile as though she came outupon a stage, might well have quailed before Mrs. Flushing's stare,which expressed her steely hostility to the whole tribe of painted ladies.
　　Next came the two young men whom Mrs. Flushing called collectivelythe Hirsts. They sat down opposite, across the gangway.
　　Mr. Flushing treated his wife with a mixture of admiration and indulgence,making up by the suavity and fluency of his speech for the abruptnessof hers. While she darted and ejaculated he gave Rachel a sketchof the history of South American art. He would deal with one of hiswife's exclamations, and then return as smoothly as ever to his theme.
　　He knew very well how to make a luncheon pass agreeably, without beingdull or intimate. He had formed the opinion, so he told Rachel,that wonderful treasures lay hid in the depths of the land;the things Rachel had seen were merely trifles picked up in the courseof one short journey. He thought there might be giant gods hewnout of stone in the mountain-side; and colossal figures standingby themselves in the middle of vast green pasture lands, where nonebut natives had ever trod. Before the dawn of European art hebelieved that the primitive huntsmen and priests had built templesof massive stone slabs, had formed out of the dark rocks and the greatcedar trees majestic figures of gods and of beasts, and symbolsof the great forces, water, air, and forest among which they lived.
　　There might be prehistoric towns, like those in Greece and Asia,standing in open places among the trees, filled with the works of thisearly race. Nobody had been there; scarcely anything was known.
　　Thus talking and displaying the most picturesque of his theories,Rachel's attention was fixed upon him.
　　She did not see that Hewet kept looking at her across the gangway,between the figures of waiters hurrying past with plates.
　　He was inattentive, and Hirst was finding him also very crossand disagreeable. They had touched upon all the usual topics--upon politics and literature, gossip and Christianity. They hadquarrelled over the service, which was every bit as fine as Sappho,according to Hewet; so that Hirst's paganism was mere ostentation.
　　Why go to church, he demanded, merely in order to read Sappho?
　　Hirst observed that he had listened to every word of the sermon,as he could prove if Hewet would like a repetition of it; and he wentto church in order to realise the nature of his Creator, which he haddone very vividly that morning, thanks to Mr. Bax, who had inspiredhim to write three of the most superb lines in English literature,an invocation to the Deity.
　　"I wrote 'em on the back of the envelope of my aunt's last letter,"he said, and pulled it from between the pages of Sappho.
　　"Well, let's hear them," said Hewet, slightly mollifiedby the prospect of a literary discussion.
　　"My dear Hewet, do you wish us both to be flung out of the hotelby an enraged mob of Thornburys and Elliots?" Hirst enquired.
　　"The merest whisper would be sufficient to incriminate mefor ever. God!" he broke out, "what's the use of attempting to writewhen the world's peopled by such damned fools? Seriously, Hewet,I advise you to give up literature. What's the good of it?
　　There's your audience."He nodded his head at the tables where a very miscellaneous collectionof Europeans were now engaged in eating, in some cases in gnawing,the stringy foreign fowls. Hewet looked, and grew more out oftemper than ever. Hirst looked too. His eyes fell upon Rachel,and he bowed to her.
　　"I rather think Rachel's in love with me," he remarked, as hiseyes returned to his plate. "That's the worst of friendshipswith young women--they tend to fall in love with one."To that Hewet made no answer whatever, and sat singularly still.
　　Hirst did not seem to mind getting no answer, for he returnedto Mr. Bax again, quoting the peroration about the drop of water;and when Hewet scarcely replied to these remarks either, he merelypursed his lips, chose a fig, and relapsed quite contentedly intohis own thoughts, of which he always had a very large supply.
　　When luncheon was over they separated, taking their cups of coffee todifferent parts of the hall.
　　From his chair beneath the palm-tree Hewet saw Rachel come out ofthe dining-room with the Flushings; he saw them look round for chairs,and choose three in a corner where they could go on talkingin private. Mr. Flushing was now in the full tide of his discourse.
　　He produced a sheet of paper upon which he made drawings as he wenton with his talk. He saw Rachel lean over and look, pointing to thisand that with her finger. Hewet unkindly compared Mr. Flushing,who was extremely well dressed for a hot climate, and ratherelaborate in his manner, to a very persuasive shop-keeper. Meanwhile,as he sat looking at them, he was entangled in the Thornburysand Miss Allan, who, after hovering about for a minute or two,settled in chairs round him, holding their cups in their hands.
　　They wanted to know whether he could tell them anything about Mr. Bax.
　　Mr. Thornbury as usual sat saying nothing, looking vaguely aheadof him, occasionally raising his eye-glasses, as if to put them on,but always thinking better of it at the last moment, and lettingthem fall again. After some discussion, the ladies put itbeyond a doubt that Mr. Bax was not the son of Mr. William Bax.
　　There was a pause. Then Mrs. Thornbury remarked that she was stillin the habit of saying Queen instead of King in the National Anthem.
　　There was another pause. Then Miss Allan observed reflectively thatgoing to church abroad always made her feel as if she had been to asailor's funeral.
　　There was then a very long pause, which threatened to be final,when, mercifully, a bird about the size of a magpie, but of a metallicblue colour, appeared on the section of the terrace that couldbe seen from where they sat. Mrs. Thornbury was led to enquirewhether we should like it if all our rooks were blue--"Whatdo _you_ think, William?" she asked, touching her husband on the knee.
　　"If all our rooks were blue," he said,--he raised his glasses;he actually placed them on his nose--"they would not live longin Wiltshire," he concluded; he dropped his glasses to his side again.
　　The three elderly people now gazed meditatively at the bird,which was so obliging as to stay in the middle of the view for aconsiderable space of time, thus making it unnecessary for them tospeak again. Hewet began to wonder whether he might not cross overto the Flushings' corner, when Hirst appeared from the background,slipped into a chair by Rachel's side, and began to talk to her withevery appearance of familiarity. Hewet could stand it no longer.
　　He rose, took his hat and dashed out of doors.
Chapter 18
    Everything he saw was distasteful to him. He hated the blue and white,the intensity and definiteness, the hum and heat of the south;the landscape seemed to him as hard and as romantic as a cardboardbackground on the stage, and the mountain but a wooden screenagainst a sheet painted blue. He walked fast in spite of the heatof the sun.
　　Two roads led out of the town on the eastern side; one branched offtowards the Ambroses' villa, the other struck into the country,eventually reaching a village on the plain, but many footpaths,which had been stamped in the earth when it was wet, led off from it,across great dry fields, to scattered farm-houses, and the villasof rich natives. Hewet stepped off the road on to one of these,in order to avoid the hardness and heat of the main road,the dust of which was always being raised in small clouds by cartsand ramshackle flies which carried parties of festive peasants,or turkeys swelling unevenly like a bundle of air balls beneatha net, or the brass bedstead and black wooden boxes of some newlywedded pair.
　　The exercise indeed served to clear away the superficial irritationsof the morning, but he remained miserable. It seemed proved beyonda doubt that Rachel was indifferent to him, for she had scarcelylooked at him, and she had talked to Mr. Flushing with just the sameinterest with which she talked to him. Finally, Hirst's odiouswords flicked his mind like a whip, and he remembered that he hadleft her talking to Hirst. She was at this moment talking to him,and it might be true, as he said, that she was in love with him.
　　He went over all the evidence for this supposition--her sudden interestin Hirst's writing, her way of quoting his opinions respectfully,or with only half a laugh; her very nickname for him, "the great Man,"might have some serious meaning in it. Supposing that there werean understanding between them, what would it mean to him?
　　"Damn it all!" he demanded, "am I in love with her?" To that he couldonly return himself one answer. He certainly was in love with her,if he knew what love meant. Ever since he had first seen her he hadbeen interested and attracted, more and more interested and attracted,until he was scarcely able to think of anything except Rachel.
　　But just as he was sliding into one of the long feasts of meditation aboutthem both, he checked himself by asking whether he wanted to marry her?
　　That was the real problem, for these miseries and agonies could notbe endured, and it was necessary that he should make up his mind.
　　He instantly decided that he did not want to marry any one.
　　Partly because he was irritated by Rachel the idea of marriageirritated him. It immediately suggested the picture of two peoplesitting alone over the fire; the man was reading, the woman sewing.
　　There was a second picture. He saw a man jump up, say good-night,leave the company and hasten away with the quiet secret look of onewho is stealing to certain happiness. Both these pictures werevery unpleasant, and even more so was a third picture, of husbandand wife and friend; and the married people glancing at each otheras though they were content to let something pass unquestioned,being themselves possessed of the deeper truth. Other pictures--he was walking very fast in his irritation, and they came beforehim without any conscious effort, like pictures on a sheet--succeeded these. Here were the worn husband and wife sittingwith their children round them, very patient, tolerant, and wise.
　　But that too, was an unpleasant picture. He tried all sortsof pictures, taking them from the lives of friends of his, for he knewmany different married couples; but he saw them always, walled upin a warm firelit room. When, on the other hand, he began to thinkof unmarried people, he saw them active in an unlimited world;above all, standing on the same ground as the rest, without shelteror advantage. All the most individual and humane of his friendswere bachelors and spinsters; indeed he was surprised to findthat the women he most admired and knew best were unmarried women.
　　Marriage seemed to be worse for them than it was for men.
　　Leaving these general pictures he considered the people whom hehad been observing lately at the hotel. He had often revolvedthese questions in his mind, as he watched Susan and Arthur,or Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury, or Mr. and Mrs. Elliot. He had observedhow the shy happiness and surprise of the engaged couple had graduallybeen replaced by a comfortable, tolerant state of mind, as if theyhad already done with the adventure of intimacy and were taking uptheir parts. Susan used to pursue Arthur about with a sweater,because he had one day let slip that a brother of his had diedof pneumonia. The sight amused him, but was not pleasant if yousubstituted Terence and Rachel for Arthur and Susan; and Arthurwas far less eager to get you in a corner and talk about flying andthe mechanics of aeroplanes. They would settle down. He then lookedat the couples who had been married for several years. It was truethat Mrs. Thornbury had a husband, and that for the most part shewas wonderfully successful in bringing him into the conversation,but one could not imagine what they said to each other when theywere alone. There was the same difficulty with regard to the Elliots,except that they probably bickered openly in private. They sometimesbickered in public, though these disagreements were painfullycovered over by little insincerities on the part of the wife,who was afraid of public opinion, because she was much stupiderthan her husband, and had to make efforts to keep hold of him.
　　There could be no doubt, he decided, that it would have been far betterfor the world if these couples had separated. Even the Ambroses,whom he admired and respected profoundly--in spite of allthe love between them, was not their marriage too a compromise?
　　She gave way to him; she spoilt him; she arranged things for him;she who was all truth to others was not true to her husband, was nottrue to her friends if they came in conflict with her husband.
　　It was a strange and piteous flaw in her nature. Perhaps Rachel hadbeen right, then, when she said that night in the garden, "We bringout what's worst in each other--we should live separate."No Rachel had been utterly wrong! Every argument seemed to be againstundertaking the burden of marriage until he came to Rachel's argument,which was manifestly absurd. From having been the pursued, he turnedand became the pursuer. Allowing the case against marriage to lapse,he began to consider the peculiarities of character which had ledto her saying that. Had she meant it? Surely one ought to knowthe character of the person with whom one might spend all one's life;being a novelist, let him try to discover what sort of person she was.
　　When he was with her he could not analyse her qualities, because heseemed to know them instinctively, but when he was away from her itsometimes seemed to him that he did not know her at all. She was young,but she was also old; she had little self-confidence, and yet shewas a good judge of people. She was happy; but what made her happy?
　　If they were alone and the excitement had worn off, and they hadto deal with the ordinary facts of the day, what would happen?
　　Casting his eye upon his own character, two things appeared to him:
　　that he was very unpunctual, and that he disliked answering notes.
　　As far as he knew Rachel was inclined to be punctual, but he couldnot remember that he had ever seen her with a pen in her hand.
　　Let him next imagine a dinner-party, say at the Crooms, and Wilson,who had taken her down, talking about the state of the Liberal party.
　　She would say--of course she was absolutely ignorant of politics.
　　Nevertheless she was intelligent certainly, and honest too.
　　Her temper was uncertain--that he had noticed--and she was not domestic,and she was not easy, and she was not quiet, or beautiful,except in some dresses in some lights. But the great gift shehad was that she understood what was said to her; there had neverbeen any one like her for talking to. You could say anything--you could say everything, and yet she was never servile. Here hepulled himself up, for it seemed to him suddenly that he knew lessabout her than about any one. All these thoughts had occurredto him many times already; often had he tried to argue and reason;and again he had reached the old state of doubt. He did not know her,and he did not know what she felt, or whether they could live together,or whether he wanted to marry her, and yet he was in love withher.
　　Supposing he went to her and said (he slackened his pace and beganto speak aloud, as if he were speaking to Rachel):
　　"I worship you, but I loathe marriage, I hate its smugness, its safety,its compromise, and the thought of you interfering in my work,hindering me; what would you answer?"He stopped, leant against the trunk of a tree, and gazed withoutseeing them at some stones scattered on the bank of the dryriver-bed. He saw Rachel's face distinctly, the grey eyes, the hair,the mouth; the face that could look so many things--plain, vacant,almost insignificant, or wild, passionate, almost beautiful,yet in his eyes was always the same because of the extraordinaryfreedom with which she looked at him, and spoke as she felt.
　　What would she answer? What did she feel? Did she love him,or did she feel nothing at all for him or for any other man, being,as she had said that afternoon, free, like the wind or the sea?
　　"Oh, you're free!" he exclaimed, in exultation at the thoughtof her, "and I'd keep you free. We'd be free together.
　　We'd share everything together. No happiness would be like ours.
　　No lives would compare with ours." He opened his arms wideas if to hold her and the world in one embrace.
　　No longer able to consider marriage, or to weigh coolly whather nature was, or how it would be if they lived together,he dropped to the ground and sat absorbed in the thought of her,and soon tormented by the desire to be in her presence again.
Chapter 19
    But Hewet need not have increased his torments by imagining thatHirst was still talking to Rachel. The party very soon broke up,the Flushings going in one direction, Hirst in another, and Rachelremaining in the hall, pulling the illustrated papers about,turning from one to another, her movements expressing the unformedrestless desire in her mind. She did not know whether to go orto stay, though Mrs. Flushing had commanded her to appear at tea.
　　The hall was empty, save for Miss Willett who was playing scales withher fingers upon a sheet of sacred music, and the Carters, an opulentcouple who disliked the girl, because her shoe laces were untied,and she did not look sufficiently cheery, which by some indirectprocess of thought led them to think that she would not like them.
　　Rachel certainly would not have liked them, if she had seen them,for the excellent reason that Mr. Carter waxed his moustache,and Mrs. Carter wore bracelets, and they were evidently the kindof people who would not like her; but she was too much absorbedby her own restlessness to think or to look.
　　She was turning over the slippery pages of an American magazine,when the hall door swung, a wedge of light fell upon the floor,and a small white figure upon whom the light seemed focussed,made straight across the room to her.
　　"What! You here?" Evelyn exclaimed. "Just caught a glimpseof you at lunch; but you wouldn't condescend to look at _me_."It was part of Evelyn's character that in spite of many snubswhich she received or imagined, she never gave up the pursuitof people she wanted to know, and in the long run generallysucceeded in knowing them and even in making them like her.
　　She looked round her. "I hate this place. I hate these people,"she said. "I wish you'd come up to my room with me. I do want totalk to you."As Rachel had no wish to go or to stay, Evelyn took her by the wristand drew her out of the hall and up the stairs. As they went upstairstwo steps at a time, Evelyn, who still kept hold of Rachel's hand,ejaculated broken sentences about not caring a hang what people said.
　　"Why should one, if one knows one's right? And let 'em all goto blazes! Them's my opinions!"She was in a state of great excitement, and the muscles of her armswere twitching nervously. It was evident that she was only waitingfor the door to shut to tell Rachel all about it. Indeed, directly theywere inside her room, she sat on the end of the bed and said,"I suppose you think I'm mad?"Rachel was not in the mood to think clearly about any one's stateof mind. She was however in the mood to say straight out whateveroccurred to her without fear of the consequences.
　　"Somebody's proposed to you," she remarked.
　　"How on earth did you guess that?" Evelyn exclaimed, some pleasuremingling with her surprise. "Do as I look as if I'd just hada proposal?""You look as if you had them every day," Rachel replied.
　　"But I don't suppose I've had more than you've had," Evelyn laughedrather insincerely.
　　"I've never had one.""But you will--lots--it's the easiest thing in the world--But that'snot what's happened this afternoon exactly. It's--Oh, it's a muddle,a detestable, horrible, disgusting muddle!"She went to the wash-stand and began sponging her cheeks with cold water;for they were burning hot. Still sponging them and trembling slightly sheturned and explained in the high pitched voice of nervous excitement:
　　"Alfred Perrott says I've promised to marry him, and I say I never did.
　　Sinclair says he'll shoot himself if I don't marry him, and I say,'Well, shoot yourself!' But of course he doesn't--they never do.
　　And Sinclair got hold of me this afternoon and began bothering meto give an answer, and accusing me of flirting with Alfred Perrott,and told me I'd no heart, and was merely a Siren, oh, and quantitiesof pleasant things like that. So at last I said to him,'Well, Sinclair, you've said enough now. You can just let me go.'
　　And then he caught me and kissed me--the disgusting brute--I canstill feel his nasty hairy face just there--as if he'd any right to,after what he'd said!"She sponged a spot on her left cheek energetically.
　　"I've never met a man that was fit to compare with a woman!"she cried; "they've no dignity, they've no courage, they've nothingbut their beastly passions and their brute strength! Would anywoman have behaved like that--if a man had said he didn't want her?
　　We've too much self-respect; we're infinitely finer than they are."She walked about the room, dabbing her wet cheeks with a towel.
　　Tears were now running down with the drops of cold water.
　　"It makes me angry," she explained, drying her eyes.
　　Rachel sat watching her. She did not think of Evelyn's position;she only thought that the world was full or people in torment.
　　"There's only one man here I really like," Evelyn continued;"Terence Hewet. One feels as if one could trust him."At these words Rachel suffered an indescribable chill; her heartseemed to be pressed together by cold hands.
　　"Why?" she asked. "Why can you trust him?""I don't know," said Evelyn. "Don't you have feelings about people?
　　Feelings you're absolutely certain are right? I had a long talk withTerence the other night. I felt we were really friends after that.
　　There's something of a woman in him--" She paused as though shewere thinking of very intimate things that Terence had told her,so at least Rachel interpreted her gaze.
　　She tried to force herself to say, "Has to be proposed to you?"but the question was too tremendous, and in another moment Evelynwas saying that the finest men were like women, and women were noblerthan men--for example, one couldn't imagine a woman like LillahHarrison thinking a mean thing or having anything base about her.
　　"How I'd like you to know her!" she exclaimed.
　　She was becoming much calmer, and her cheeks were now quite dry.
　　Her eyes had regained their usual expression of keen vitality,and she seemed to have forgotten Alfred and Sinclair and her emotion.
　　"Lillah runs a home for inebriate women in the Deptford Road,"she continued. "She started it, managed it, did everything offher own bat, and it's now the biggest of its kind in England.
　　You can't think what those women are like--and their homes.
　　But she goes among them at all hours of the day and night.
　　I've often been with her. . . . That's what's the matter with us.
　　. . . We don't _do_ things. What do you _do_?" she demanded,looking at Rachel with a slightly ironical smile. Rachel had scarcelylistened to any of this, and her expression was vacant and unhappy.
　　She had conceived an equal dislike for Lillah Harrison and her workin the Deptford Road, and for Evelyn M. and her profusion of loveaffairs.
　　"I play," she said with an affection of stolid composure.
　　"That's about it!" Evelyn laughed. "We none of us do anythingbut play. And that's why women like Lillah Harrison, who's worthtwenty of you and me, have to work themselves to the bone.
　　But I'm tired of playing," she went on, lying flat on the bed,and raising her arms above her head. Thus stretched out, she lookedmore diminutive than ever.
　　"I'm going to do something. I've got a splendid idea. Look here,you must join. I'm sure you've got any amount of stuff in you,though you look--well, as if you'd lived all your life in a garden."She sat up, and began to explain with animation. "I belong to a clubin London. It meets every Saturday, so it's called the Saturday Club.
　　We're supposed to talk about art, but I'm sick of talking about art--what's the good of it? With all kinds of real things going on round one?
　　It isn't as if they'd got anything to say about art, either.
　　So what I'm going to tell 'em is that we've talked enough about art,and we'd better talk about life for a change. Questions that reallymatter to people's lives, the White Slave Traffic, Women Suffrage,the Insurance Bill, and so on. And when we've made up our mind whatwe want to do we could form ourselves into a society for doing it.
　　. . . I'm certain that if people like ourselves were to takethings in hand instead of leaving it to policemen and magistrates,we could put a stop to--prostitution"--she lowered her voiceat the ugly word--"in six months. My idea is that men and womenought to join in these matters. We ought to go into Piccadillyand stop one of these poor wretches and say: 'Now, look here,I'm no better than you are, and I don't pretend to be any better,but you're doing what you know to be beastly, and I won't haveyou doing beastly things, because we're all the same underour skins, and if you do a beastly thing it does matter to me.'
　　That's what Mr. Bax was saying this morning, and it's true,though you clever people--you're clever too, aren't you?--don't believe it."When Evelyn began talking--it was a fact she often regretted--her thoughts came so quickly that she never had any time to listento other people's thoughts. She continued without more pause thanwas needed for taking breath.
　　"I don't see why the Saturday club people shouldn't do a really greatwork in that way," she went on. "Of course it would want organisation,some one to give their life to it, but I'm ready to do that. My notion'sto think of the human beings first and let the abstract ideas take careof themselves. What's wrong with Lillah--if there is anything wrong--is that she thinks of Temperance first and the women afterwards.
　　Now there's one thing I'll say to my credit," she continued;"I'm not intellectual or artistic or anything of that sort,but I'm jolly human." She slipped off the bed and sat on the floor,looking up at Rachel. She searched up into her face as if she weretrying to read what kind of character was concealed behind the face.
　　She put her hand on Rachel's knee.
　　"It _is_ being human that counts, isn't it?" she continued.
　　"Being real, whatever Mr. Hirst may say. Are you real?"Rachel felt much as Terence had felt that Evelyn was too closeto her, and that there was something exciting in this closeness,although it was also disagreeable. She was spared the need offinding an answer to the question, for Evelyn proceeded, "Do you_believe_ in anything?"In order to put an end to the scrutiny of these bright blue eyes,and to relieve her own physical restlessness, Rachel pushed backher chair and exclaimed, "In everything!" and began to fingerdifferent objects, the books on the table, the photographs,the freshly leaved plant with the stiff bristles, which stoodin a large earthenware pot in the window.
　　"I believe in the bed, in the photographs, in the pot, in the balcony,in the sun, in Mrs. Flushing," she remarked, still speaking recklessly,with something at the back of her mind forcing her to say the thingsthat one usually does not say. "But I don't believe in God,I don't believe in Mr. Bax, I don't believe in the hospital nurse.
　　I don't believe--" She took up a photograph and, looking at it,did not finish her sentence.
　　"That's my mother," said Evelyn, who remained sitting on the floorbinding her knees together with her arms, and watching Rachel curiously.
　　Rachel considered the portrait. "Well, I don't much believe in her,"she remarked after a time in a low tone of voice.
　　Mrs. Murgatroyd looked indeed as if the life had been crushedout of her; she knelt on a chair, gazing piteously from behindthe body of a Pomeranian dog which she clasped to her cheek,as if for protection.
　　"And that's my dad," said Evelyn, for there were two photographsin one frame. The second photograph represented a handsomesoldier with high regular features and a heavy black moustache;his hand rested on the hilt of his sword; there was a decidedlikeness between him and Evelyn.
　　"And it's because of them," said Evelyn, "that I'm goingto help the other women. You've heard about me, I suppose?
　　They weren't married, you see; I'm not anybody in particular.
　　I'm not a bit ashamed of it. They loved each other anyhow,and that's more than most people can say of their parents."Rachel sat down on the bed, with the two pictures in her hands,and compared them--the man and the woman who had, so Evelyn said,loved each other. That fact interested her more than the campaignon behalf of unfortunate women which Evelyn was once more beginningto describe. She looked again from one to the other.
　　"What d'you think it's like," she asked, as Evelyn paused for a minute,"being in love?""Have you never been in love?" Evelyn asked. "Oh no--one's onlygot to look at you to see that," she added. She considered.
　　"I really was in love once," she said. She fell into reflection,her eyes losing their bright vitality and approaching something likean expression of tenderness. "It was heavenly!--while it lasted.
　　The worst of it is it don't last, not with me. That's the bother."She went on to consider the difficulty with Alfred and Sinclairabout which she had pretended to ask Rachel's advice. But she didnot want advice; she wanted intimacy. When she looked at Rachel,who was still looking at the photographs on the bed, she could nothelp seeing that Rachel was not thinking about her. What was shethinking about, then? Evelyn was tormented by the little spark oflife in her which was always trying to work through to other people,and was always being rebuffed. Falling silent she looked ather visitor, her shoes, her stockings, the combs in her hair,all the details of her dress in short, as though by seizing everydetail she might get closer to the life within.
　　Rachel at last put down the photographs, walked to the windowand remarked, "It's odd. People talk as much about love as theydo about religion.""I wish you'd sit down and talk," said Evelyn impatiently.
　　Instead Rachel opened the window, which was made in two long panes,and looked down into the garden below.
　　"That's where we got lost the first night," she said. "It musthave been in those bushes.""They kill hens down there," said Evelyn. "They cut their headsoff with a knife--disgusting! But tell me--what--""I'd like to explore the hotel," Rachel interrupted. She drewher head in and looked at Evelyn, who still sat on the floor.
　　"It's just like other hotels," said Evelyn.
　　That might be, although every room and passage and chairin the place had a character of its own in Rachel's eyes;but she could not bring herself to stay in one place any longer.
　　She moved slowly towards the door.
　　"What is it you want?" said Evelyn. "You make me feel as if youwere always thinking of something you don't say. . . . Do say it!"But Rachel made no response to this invitation either. She stoppedwith her fingers on the handle of the door, as if she rememberedthat some sort of pronouncement was due from her.
　　"I suppose you'll marry one of them," she said, and then turnedthe handle and shut the door behind her. She walked slowlydown the passage, running her hand along the wall beside her.
　　She did not think which way she was going, and therefore walkeddown a passage which only led to a window and a balcony. She lookeddown at the kitchen premises, the wrong side of the hotel life,which was cut off from the right side by a maze of small bushes.
　　The ground was bare, old tins were scattered about, and the busheswore towels and aprons upon their heads to dry. Every now and thena waiter came out in a white apron and threw rubbish on to a heap.
　　Two large women in cotton dresses were sitting on a bench withblood-smeared tin trays in front of them and yellow bodies acrosstheir knees. They were plucking the birds, and talking as they plucked.
　　Suddenly a chicken came floundering, half flying, half runninginto the space, pursued by a third woman whose age could hardly beunder eighty. Although wizened and unsteady on her legs she keptup the chase, egged on by the laughter of the others; her face wasexpressive of furious rage, and as she ran she swore in Spanish.
　　Frightened by hand-clapping here, a napkin there, the bird ranthis way and that in sharp angles, and finally fluttered straightat the old woman, who opened her scanty grey skirts to enclose it,dropped upon it in a bundle, and then holding it out cut its headoff with an expression of vindictive energy and triumph combined.
　　The blood and the ugly wriggling fascinated Rachel, so that althoughshe knew that some one had come up behind and was standing beside her,she did not turn round until the old woman had settled down onthe bench beside the others. Then she looked up sharply, because ofthe ugliness of what she had seen. It was Miss Allan who stoodbeside her.
　　"Not a pretty sight," said Miss Allan, "although I daresay it'sreally more humane than our method. . . . I don't believe you'veever been in my room," she added, and turned away as if she meantRachel to follow her. Rachel followed, for it seemed possiblethat each new person might remove the mystery which burdened her.
　　The bedrooms at the hotel were all on the same pattern, save that somewere larger and some smaller; they had a floor of dark red tiles;they had a high bed, draped in mosquito curtains; they had eacha writing-table and a dressing-table, and a couple of arm-chairs.
　　But directly a box was unpacked the rooms became very different,so that Miss Allan's room was very unlike Evelyn's room.
　　There were no variously coloured hatpins on her dressing-table;no scent-bottles; no narrow curved pairs of scissors; no great varietyof shoes and boots; no silk petticoats lying on the chairs. The roomwas extremely neat. There seemed to be two pairs of everything.
　　The writing-table, however, was piled with manuscript, and a tablewas drawn out to stand by the arm-chair on which were two separateheaps of dark library books, in which there were many slips of papersticking out at different degrees of thickness. Miss Allan had askedRachel to come in out of kindness, thinking that she was waitingabout with nothing to do. Moreover, she liked young women, for shehad taught many of them, and having received so much hospitality fromthe Ambroses she was glad to be able to repay a minute part of it.
　　She looked about accordingly for something to show her. The roomdid not provide much entertainment. She touched her manuscript.
　　"Age of Chaucer; Age of Elizabeth; Age of Dryden," she reflected;"I'm glad there aren't many more ages. I'm still in the middle ofthe eighteenth century. Won't you sit down, Miss Vinrace? The chair,though small, is firm. . . . Euphues. The germ of the English novel,"she continued, glancing at another page. "Is that the kind of thingthat interests you?"She looked at Rachel with great kindness and simplicity, as thoughshe would do her utmost to provide anything she wished to have.
　　This expression had a remarkable charm in a face otherwise much linedwith care and thought.
　　"Oh no, it's music with you, isn't it?" she continued,recollecting, "and I generally find that they don't go together.
　　Sometimes of course we have prodigies--" She was looking about herfor something and now saw a jar on the mantelpiece which she reacheddown and gave to Rachel. "If you put your finger into this jaryou may be able to extract a piece of preserved ginger. Are you a prodigy?"But the ginger was deep and could not be reached.
　　"Don't bother," she said, as Miss Allan looked about for someother implement. "I daresay I shouldn't like preserved ginger.""You've never tried?" enquired Miss Allan. "Then I consider that itis your duty to try now. Why, you may add a new pleasure to life,and as you are still young--" She wondered whether a button-hookwould do. "I make it a rule to try everything," she said. "Don't youthink it would be very annoying if you tasted ginger for the firsttime on your death-bed, and found you never liked anything so much?
　　I should be so exceedingly annoyed that I think I should get wellon that account alone."She was now successful, and a lump of ginger emerged on the endof the button-hook. While she went to wipe the button-hook, Rachelbit the ginger and at once cried, "I must spit it out!""Are you sure you have really tasted it?" Miss Allan demanded.
　　For answer Rachel threw it out of the window.
　　"An experience anyhow," said Miss Allan calmly. "Let me see--I havenothing else to offer you, unless you would like to taste this."A small cupboard hung above her bed, and she took out of it a slimelegant jar filled with a bright green fluid.
　　"Creme de Menthe," she said. "Liqueur, you know. It looksas if I drank, doesn't it? As a matter of fact it goes to provewhat an exceptionally abstemious person I am. I've had that jarfor six-and-twenty years," she added, looking at it with pride,as she tipped it over, and from the height of the liquid it couldbe seen that the bottle was still untouched.
　　"Twenty-six years?" Rachel exclaimed.
　　Miss Allan was gratified, for she had meant Rachel to be surprised.
　　"When I went to Dresden six-and-twenty years ago," she said,"a certain friend of mine announced her intention of making mea present. She thought that in the event of shipwreck or accidenta stimulant might be useful. However, as I had no occasion for it,I gave it back on my return. On the eve of any foreign journeythe same bottle always makes its appearance, with the same note;on my return in safety it is always handed back. I consider it a kindof charm against accidents. Though I was once detained twenty-fourhours by an accident to the train in front of me, I have never metwith any accident myself. Yes," she continued, now addressingthe bottle, "we have seen many climes and cupboards together,have we not? I intend one of these days to have a silver labelmade with an inscription. It is a gentleman, as you may observe,and his name is Oliver. . . . I do not think I could forgive you,Miss Vinrace, if you broke my Oliver," she said, firmly taking thebottle out of Rachel's hands and replacing it in the cupboard.
　　Rachel was swinging the bottle by the neck. She was interestedby Miss Allan to the point of forgetting the bottle.
　　"Well," she exclaimed, "I do think that odd; to have had a friendfor twenty-six years, and a bottle, and--to have made all those journeys.""Not at all; I call it the reverse of odd," Miss Allan replied.
　　"I always consider myself the most ordinary person I know.
　　It's rather distinguished to be as ordinary as I am. I forget--are you a prodigy, or did you say you were not a prodigy?"She smiled at Rachel very kindly. She seemed to have knownand experienced so much, as she moved cumbrously about the room,that surely there must be balm for all anguish in her words,could one induce her to have recourse to them. But Miss Allan,who was now locking the cupboard door, showed no signs ofbreaking the reticence which had snowed her under for years.
　　An uncomfortable sensation kept Rachel silent; on the one hand,she wished to whirl high and strike a spark out of the cool pink flesh;on the other she perceived there was nothing to be done but to driftpast each other in silence.
　　"I'm not a prodigy. I find it very difficult to say what I mean--"she observed at length.
　　"It's a matter of temperament, I believe," Miss Allan helped her.
　　"There are some people who have no difficulty; for myself I findthere are a great many things I simply cannot say. But then Iconsider myself very slow. One of my colleagues now, knows whethershe likes you or not--let me see, how does she do it?--by the way yousay good-morning at breakfast. It is sometimes a matter of yearsbefore I can make up my mind. But most young people seem to findit easy?""Oh no," said Rachel. "It's hard!"Miss Allan looked at Rachel quietly, saying nothing; she suspectedthat there were difficulties of some kind. Then she put her handto the back of her head, and discovered that one of the grey coilsof hair had come loose.
　　"I must ask you to be so kind as to excuse me," she said, rising,"if I do my hair. I have never yet found a satisfactory typeof hairpin. I must change my dress, too, for the matter of that;and I should be particularly glad of your assistance, because thereis a tiresome set of hooks which I _can_ fasten for myself,but it takes from ten to fifteen minutes; whereas with your help--"She slipped off her coat and skirt and blouse, and stood doingher hair before the glass, a massive homely figure, her petticoatbeing so short that she stood on a pair of thick slate-grey legs.
　　"People say youth is pleasant; I myself find middle age far pleasanter,"she remarked, removing hair pins and combs, and taking up her brush.
　　When it fell loose her hair only came down to her neck.
　　"When one was young," she continued, "things could seem so veryserious if one was made that way. . . . And now my dress."In a wonderfully short space of time her hair had been reformed in itsusual loops. The upper half of her body now became dark green with blackstripes on it; the skirt, however, needed hooking at various angles,and Rachel had to kneel on the floor, fitting the eyes to the hooks.
　　"Our Miss Johnson used to find life very unsatisfactory, I remember,"Miss Allan continued. She turned her back to the light. "And thenshe took to breeding guinea-pigs for their spots, and becameabsorbed in that. I have just heard that the yellow guinea-pighas had a black baby. We had a bet of sixpence on about it.
　　She will be very triumphant."The skirt was fastened. She looked at herself in the glass withthe curious stiffening of her face generally caused by lookingin the glass.
　　"Am I in a fit state to encounter my fellow-beings?" she asked.
　　"I forget which way it is--but they find black animals very rarelyhave coloured babies--it may be the other way round. I have hadit so often explained to me that it is very stupid of me to haveforgotten again."She moved about the room acquiring small objects with quiet force,and fixing them about her--a locket, a watch and chain, a heavygold bracelet, and the parti-coloured button of a suffrage society.
　　Finally, completely equipped for Sunday tea, she stood before Rachel,and smiled at her kindly. She was not an impulsive woman, and herlife had schooled her to restrain her tongue. At the same time,she was possessed of an amount of good-will towards others,and in particular towards the young, which often made her regretthat speech was so difficult.
　　"Shall we descend?" she said.
　　She put one hand upon Rachel's shoulder, and stooping, picked upa pair of walking-shoes with the other, and placed them neatly sideby side outside her door. As they walked down the passage theypassed many pairs of boots and shoes, some black and some brown,all side by side, and all different, even to the way in which theylay together.
　　"I always think that people are so like their boots," said Miss Allan.
　　"That is Mrs. Paley's--" but as she spoke the door opened,and Mrs. Paley rolled out in her chair, equipped also for tea.
　　She greeted Miss Allan and Rachel.
　　"I was just saying that people are so like their boots,"said Miss Allan. Mrs. Paley did not hear. She repeated itmore loudly still. Mrs. Paley did not hear. She repeated ita third time. Mrs. Paley heard, but she did not understand.
　　She was apparently about to repeat it for the fourth time,when Rachel suddenly said something inarticulate, and disappeareddown the corridor. This misunderstanding, which involved a completeblock in the passage, seemed to her unbearable. She walked quicklyand blindly in the opposite direction, and found herself at the endof a _cul_ _de_ _sac_. There was a window, and a table and achair in the window, and upon the table stood a rusty inkstand,an ashtray, an old copy of a French newspaper, and a pen with abroken nib. Rachel sat down, as if to study the French newspaper,but a tear fell on the blurred French print, raising a soft blot.
　　She lifted her head sharply, exclaiming aloud, "It's intolerable!"Looking out of the window with eyes that would have seen nothingeven had they not been dazed by tears, she indulged herself at lastin violent abuse of the entire day. It had been miserable fromstart to finish; first, the service in the chapel; then luncheon;then Evelyn; then Miss Allan; then old Mrs. Paley blocking upthe passage. All day long she had been tantalized and put off.
　　She had now reached one of those eminences, the result of some crisis,from which the world is finally displayed in its true proportions.
　　She disliked the look of it immensely--churches, politicians, misfits,and huge impostures--men like Mr. Dalloway, men like Mr. Bax,Evelyn and her chatter, Mrs. Paley blocking up the passage.
　　Meanwhile the steady beat of her own pulse represented the hot currentof feeling that ran down beneath; beating, struggling, fretting.
　　For the time, her own body was the source of all the life in the world,which tried to burst forth here--there--and was repressed now byMr. Bax, now by Evelyn, now by the imposition of ponderous stupidity,the weight of the entire world. Thus tormented, she would twisther hands together, for all things were wrong, all people stupid.
　　Vaguely seeing that there were people down in the garden beneathshe represented them as aimless masses of matter, floating hitherand thither, without aim except to impede her. What were they doing,those other people in the world?
　　"Nobody knows," she said. The force of her rage was beginningto spend itself, and the vision of the world which had been so vividbecame dim.
　　"It's a dream," she murmured. She considered the rusty inkstand,the pen, the ash-tray, and the old French newspaper. These smalland worthless objects seemed to her to represent human lives.
　　"We're asleep and dreaming," she repeated. But the possibilitywhich now suggested itself that one of the shapes might bethe shape of Terence roused her from her melancholy lethargy.
　　She became as restless as she had been before she sat down. She wasno longer able to see the world as a town laid out beneath her.
　　It was covered instead by a haze of feverish red mist. She hadreturned to the state in which she had been all day. Thinking wasno escape. Physical movement was the only refuge, in and outof rooms, in and out of people's minds, seeking she knew not what.
　　Therefore she rose, pushed back the table, and went downstairs.
　　She went out of the hall door, and, turning the corner of the hotel,found herself among the people whom she had seen from the window.
　　But owing to the broad sunshine after shaded passages, and tothe substance of living people after dreams, the group appearedwith startling intensity, as though the dusty surface had beenpeeled off everything, leaving only the reality and the instant.
　　It had the look of a vision printed on the dark at night.
　　White and grey and purple figures were scattered on the green,round wicker tables, in the middle the flame of the tea-urn madethe air waver like a faulty sheet of glass, a massive green treestood over them as if it were a moving force held at rest.
　　As she approached, she could hear Evelyn's voice repeating monotonously,"Here then--here--good doggie, come here"; for a moment nothingseemed to happen; it all stood still, and then she realised thatone of the figures was Helen Ambrose; and the dust again beganto settle.
　　The group indeed had come together in a miscellaneous way;one tea-table joining to another tea-table, and deck-chairs servingto connect two groups. But even at a distance it could be seenthat Mrs. Flushing, upright and imperious, dominated the party.
　　She was talking vehemently to Helen across the table.
　　"Ten days under canvas," she was saying. "No comforts. If youwant comforts, don't come. But I may tell you, if you don't comeyou'll regret it all your life. You say yes?"At this moment Mrs. Flushing caught sight of Rachel.
　　"Ah, there's your niece. She's promised. You're coming, aren't you?"Having adopted the plan, she pursued it with the energy of a child.
　　Rachel took her part with eagerness.
　　"Of course I'm coming. So are you, Helen. And Mr. Pepper too."As she sat she realised that she was surrounded by people she knew,but that Terence was not among them. From various angles peoplebegan saying what they thought of the proposed expedition.
　　According to some it would be hot, but the nights would be cold;according to others, the difficulties would lie rather in getting a boat,and in speaking the language. Mrs. Flushing disposed of all objections,whether due to man or due to nature, by announcing that her husbandwould settle all that.
　　Meanwhile Mr. Flushing quietly explained to Helen that the expeditionwas really a simple matter; it took five days at the outside;and the place--a native village--was certainly well worth seeingbefore she returned to England. Helen murmured ambiguously,and did not commit herself to one answer rather than to another.
　　The tea-party, however, included too many different kinds of peoplefor general conversation to flourish; and from Rachel's pointof view possessed the great advantage that it was quite unnecessaryfor her to talk. Over there Susan and Arthur were explainingto Mrs. Paley that an expedition had been proposed; and Mrs. Paleyhaving grasped the fact, gave the advice of an old traveller that theyshould take nice canned vegetables, fur cloaks, and insect powder.
　　She leant over to Mrs. Flushing and whispered something whichfrom the twinkle in her eyes probably had reference to bugs.
　　Then Helen was reciting "Toll for the Brave" to St. John Hirst,in order apparently to win a sixpence which lay upon the table;while Mr. Hughling Elliot imposed silence upon his sectionof the audience by his fascinating anecdote of Lord Curzonand the undergraduate's bicycle. Mrs. Thornbury was trying toremember the name of a man who might have been another Garibaldi,and had written a book which they ought to read; and Mr. Thornburyrecollected that he had a pair of binoculars at anybody's service.
　　Miss Allan meanwhile murmured with the curious intimacy which a spinsteroften achieves with dogs, to the fox-terrier which Evelyn had at lastinduced to come over to them. Little particles of dust or blossomfell on the plates now and then when the branches sighed above.
　　Rachel seemed to see and hear a little of everything, much as ariver feels the twigs that fall into it and sees the sky above,but her eyes were too vague for Evelyn's liking. She came across,and sat on the ground at Rachel's feet.
　　"Well?" she asked suddenly. "What are you thinking about?""Miss Warrington," Rachel replied rashly, because she had tosay something. She did indeed see Susan murmuring to Mrs. Elliot,while Arthur stared at her with complete confidence in his own love.
　　Both Rachel and Evelyn then began to listen to what Susan was saying.
　　"There's the ordering and the dogs and the garden, and the childrencoming to be taught," her voice proceeded rhythmically as if checkingthe list, "and my tennis, and the village, and letters to writefor father, and a thousand little things that don't sound much;but I never have a moment to myself, and when I got to bed,I'm so sleepy I'm off before my head touches the pillow. Besides Ilike to be a great deal with my Aunts--I'm a great bore, aren't I,Aunt Emma?" (she smiled at old Mrs. Paley, who with head slightlydrooped was regarding the cake with speculative affection), "andfather has to be very careful about chills in winter which meansa great deal of running about, because he won't look after himself,any more than you will, Arthur! So it all mounts up!"Her voice mounted too, in a mild ecstasy of satisfaction with her lifeand her own nature. Rachel suddenly took a violent dislike to Susan,ignoring all that was kindly, modest, and even pathetic about her.
　　She appeared insincere and cruel; she saw her grown stout and prolific,the kind blue eyes now shallow and watery, the bloom of the cheekscongealed to a network of dry red canals.
　　Helen turned to her. "Did you go to church?" she asked.
　　She had won her sixpence and seemed making ready to go.
　　"Yes," said Rachel. "For the last time," she added.
　　In preparing to put on her gloves, Helen dropped one.
　　"You're not going?" Evelyn asked, taking hold of one gloveas if to keep them.
　　"It's high time we went," said Helen. "Don't you see how silentevery one's getting--?"A silence had fallen upon them all, caused partly by one of theaccidents of talk, and partly because they saw some one approaching.
　　Helen could not see who it was, but keeping her eyes fixed upon Rachelobserved something which made her say to herself, "So it's Hewet."She drew on her gloves with a curious sense of the significanceof the moment. Then she rose, for Mrs. Flushing had seen Hewet too,and was demanding information about rivers and boats which showedthat the whole conversation would now come over again.
　　Rachel followed her, and they walked in silence down the avenue.
　　In spite of what Helen had seen and understood, the feeling that wasuppermost in her mind was now curiously perverse; if she went onthis expedition, she would not be able to have a bath, the effortappeared to her to be great and disagreeable.
　　"It's so unpleasant, being cooped up with people one hardly knows,"she remarked. "People who mind being seen naked.""You don't mean to go?" Rachel asked.
　　The intensity with which this was spoken irritated Mrs. Ambrose.
　　"I don't mean to go, and I don't mean not to go," she replied.
　　She became more and more casual and indifferent.
　　"After all, I daresay we've seen all there is to be seen;and there's the bother of getting there, and whatever theymay say it's bound to be vilely uncomfortable."For some time Rachel made no reply; but every sentence Helen spokeincreased her bitterness. At last she broke out--"Thank God, Helen, I'm not like you! I sometimes think you don't thinkor feel or care to do anything but exist! You're like Mr. Hirst.
　　You see that things are bad, and you pride yourself on saying so.
　　It's what you call being honest; as a matter of fact it's being lazy,being dull, being nothing. You don't help; you put an endto things."Helen smiled as if she rather enjoyed the attack.
　　"Well?" she enquired.
　　"It seems to me bad--that's all," Rachel replied.
　　"Quite likely," said Helen.
　　At any other time Rachel would probably have been silenced by herAunt's candour; but this afternoon she was not in the mood to besilenced by any one. A quarrel would be welcome.
　　"You're only half alive," she continued.
　　"Is that because I didn't accept Mr. Flushing's invitation?"Helen asked, "or do you always think that?"At the moment it appeared to Rachel that she had always seen the samefaults in Helen, from the very first night on board the _Euphrosyne_,in spite of her beauty, in spite of her magnanimity and their love.
　　"Oh, it's only what's the matter with every one!" she exclaimed.
　　"No one feels--no one does anything but hurt. I tell you, Helen,the world's bad. It's an agony, living, wanting--"Here she tore a handful of leaves from a bush and crushed themto control herself.
　　"The lives of these people," she tried to explain, the aimlessness,the way they live. One goes from one to another, and it's all the same.
　　One never gets what one wants out of any of them."Her emotional state and her confusion would have made her an easyprey if Helen had wished to argue or had wished to draw confidences.
　　But instead of talking she fell into a profound silence as theywalked on. Aimless, trivial, meaningless, oh no--what shehad seen at tea made it impossible for her to believe that.
　　The little jokes, the chatter, the inanities of the afternoon hadshrivelled up before her eyes. Underneath the likings and spites,the comings together and partings, great things were happening--terrible things, because they were so great. Her sense of safetywas shaken, as if beneath twigs and dead leaves she had seenthe movement of a snake. It seemed to her that a moment's respitewas allowed, a moment's make-believe, and then again the profoundand reasonless law asserted itself, moulding them all to its liking,making and destroying.
　　She looked at Rachel walking beside her, still crushing the leavesin her fingers and absorbed in her own thoughts. She was in love,and she pitied her profoundly. But she roused herself fromthese thoughts and apologised. "I'm very sorry," she said,"but if I'm dull, it's my nature, and it can't be helped." If itwas a natural defect, however, she found an easy remedy, for she wenton to say that she thought Mr. Flushing's scheme a very good one,only needing a little consideration, which it appeared she had givenit by the time they reached home. By that time they had settledthat if anything more was said, they would accept the invitation.
Chapter 20
    When considered in detail by Mr. Flushing and Mrs. Ambrosethe expedition proved neither dangerous nor difficult.
　　They found also that it was not even unusual. Every year at thisseason English people made parties which steamed a short way upthe river, landed, and looked at the native village, bought a certainnumber of things from the natives, and returned again withoutdamage done to mind or body. When it was discovered that sixpeople really wished the same thing the arrangements were soon carried out.
　　Since the time of Elizabeth very few people had seen the river,and nothing has been done to change its appearance from what itwas to the eyes of the Elizabethan voyagers. The time of Elizabethwas only distant from the present time by a moment of spacecompared with the ages which had passed since the water had runbetween those banks, and the green thickets swarmed there,and the small trees had grown to huge wrinkled trees in solitude.
　　Changing only with the change of the sun and the clouds, the wavinggreen mass had stood there for century after century, and the waterhad run between its banks ceaselessly, sometimes washing awayearth and sometimes the branches of trees, while in other partsof the world one town had risen upon the ruins of another town,and the men in the towns had become more and more articulateand unlike each other. A few miles of this river were visiblefrom the top of the mountain where some weeks before the partyfrom the hotel had picnicked. Susan and Arthur had seen it as theykissed each other, and Terence and Rachel as they sat talkingabout Richmond, and Evelyn and Perrott as they strolled about,imagining that they were great captains sent to colonise the world.
　　They had seen the broad blue mark across the sand where it flowedinto the sea, and the green cloud of trees mass themselves about itfarther up, and finally hide its waters altogether from sight.
　　At intervals for the first twenty miles or so houses were scatteredon the bank; by degrees the houses became huts, and, later still,there was neither hut nor house, but trees and grass, which wereseen only by hunters, explorers, or merchants, marching or sailing,but making no settlement.
　　By leaving Santa Marina early in the morning, driving twentymiles and riding eight, the party, which was composed finallyof six English people, reached the river-side as the night fell.
　　They came cantering through the trees--Mr. and Mrs. Flushing,Helen Ambrose, Rachel, Terence, and St. John. The tired littlehorses then stopped automatically, and the English dismounted.
　　Mrs. Flushing strode to the river-bank in high spirits. The day hadbeen long and hot, but she had enjoyed the speed and the open air;she had left the hotel which she hated, and she found the companyto her liking. The river was swirling past in the darkness;they could just distinguish the smooth moving surface of the water,and the air was full of the sound of it. They stood in an emptyspace in the midst of great tree-trunks, and out there a little greenlight moving slightly up and down showed them where the steamer layin which they were to embark.
　　When they all stood upon its deck they found that it was a verysmall boat which throbbed gently beneath them for a few minutes,and then shoved smoothly through the water. They seemed to bedriving into the heart of the night, for the trees closed infront of them, and they could hear all round them the rustlingof leaves. The great darkness had the usual effect of taking awayall desire for communication by making their words sound thinand small; and, after walking round the deck three or four times,they clustered together, yawning deeply, and looking at the same spotof deep gloom on the banks. Murmuring very low in the rhythmicaltone of one oppressed by the air, Mrs. Flushing began to wonderwhere they were to sleep, for they could not sleep downstairs,they could not sleep in a doghole smelling of oil, they could notsleep on deck, they could not sleep--She yawned profoundly. It wasas Helen had foreseen; the question of nakedness had risen already,although they were half asleep, and almost invisible to each other.
　　With St. John's help she stretched an awning, and persuadedMrs. Flushing that she could take off her clothes behind this,and that no one would notice if by chance some part of her which hadbeen concealed for forty-five years was laid bare to the human eye.
　　Mattresses were thrown down, rugs provided, and the three womenlay near each other in the soft open air.
　　The gentlemen, having smoked a certain number of cigarettes,dropped the glowing ends into the river, and looked for a time atthe ripples wrinkling the black water beneath them, undressed too,and lay down at the other end of the boat. They were very tired,and curtained from each other by the darkness. The light from onelantern fell upon a few ropes, a few planks of the deck, and the railof the boat, but beyond that there was unbroken darkness, no lightreached their faces, or the trees which were massed on the sidesof the river.
　　Soon Wilfrid Flushing slept, and Hirst slept. Hewet alone lay awakelooking straight up into the sky. The gentle motion and the blackshapes that were drawn ceaselessly across his eyes had the effectof making it impossible for him to think. Rachel's presence so nearhim lulled thought asleep. Being so near him, only a few paces offat the other end of the boat, she made it as impossible for himto think about her as it would have been impossible to see her if shehad stood quite close to him, her forehead against his forehead.
　　In some strange way the boat became identified with himself, and justas it would have been useless for him to get up and steer the boat,so was it useless for him to struggle any longer with the irresistibleforce of his own feelings. He was drawn on and on away from allhe knew, slipping over barriers and past landmarks into unknownwaters as the boat glided over the smooth surface of the river.
　　In profound peace, enveloped in deeper unconsciousness than had beenhis for many nights, he lay on deck watching the tree-tops changetheir position slightly against the sky, and arch themselves,and sink and tower huge, until he passed from seeing them intodreams where he lay beneath the shadow of the vast trees, looking upinto the sky.
　　When they woke next morning they had gone a considerable way upthe river; on the right was a high yellow bank of sand tuftedwith trees, on the left a swamp quivering with long reeds and tallbamboos on the top of which, swaying slightly, perched vivid greenand yellow birds. The morning was hot and still. After breakfast theydrew chairs together and sat in an irregular semicircle in the bow.
　　An awning above their heads protected them from the heat of the sun,and the breeze which the boat made aired them softly. Mrs. Flushingwas already dotting and striping her canvas, her head jerking thisway and that with the action of a bird nervously picking up grain;the others had books or pieces of paper or embroidery on their knees,at which they looked fitfully and again looked at the river ahead.
　　At one point Hewet read part of a poem aloud, but the number ofmoving things entirely vanquished his words. He ceased to read,and no one spoke. They moved on under the shelter of the trees.
　　There was now a covey of red birds feeding on one of the little isletsto the left, or again a blue-green parrot flew shrieking from treeto tree. As they moved on the country grew wilder and wilder.
　　The trees and the undergrowth seemed to be strangling each othernear the ground in a multitudinous wrestle; while here and therea splendid tree towered high above the swarm, shaking its thin greenumbrellas lightly in the upper air. Hewet looked at his books again.
　　The morning was peaceful as the night had been, only it was verystrange because he could see it was light, and he could see Racheland hear her voice and be near to her. He felt as if he were waiting,as if somehow he were stationary among things that passed over himand around him, voices, people's bodies, birds, only Rachel toowas waiting with him. He looked at her sometimes as if she mustknow that they were waiting together, and being drawn on together,without being able to offer any resistance. Again he read fromhis book:
　　Whoever you are holding me now in your hand,Without one thing all will be useless.
　　A bird gave a wild laugh, a monkey chuckled a malicious question,and, as fire fades in the hot sunshine, his words flickered and went out.
　　By degrees as the river narrowed, and the high sandbanks fellto level ground thickly grown with trees, the sounds of the forestcould be heard. It echoed like a hall. There were sudden cries;and then long spaces of silence, such as there are in a cathedralwhen a boy's voice has ceased and the echo of it still seemsto haunt about the remote places of the roof. Once Mr. Flushingrose and spoke to a sailor, and even announced that some timeafter luncheon the steamer would stop, and they could walk a littleway through the forest.
　　"There are tracks all through the trees there," he explained.
　　"We're no distance from civilisation yet."He scrutinised his wife's painting. Too polite to praise it openly,he contented himself with cutting off one half of the picturewith one hand, and giving a flourish in the air with the other.
　　"God!" Hirst exclaimed, staring straight ahead. "Don't you thinkit's amazingly beautiful?""Beautiful?" Helen enquired. It seemed a strange little word,and Hirst and herself both so small that she forgot to answer him.
　　Hewet felt that he must speak.
　　"That's where the Elizabethans got their style," he mused,staring into the profusion of leaves and blossoms and prodigious fruits.
　　"Shakespeare? I hate Shakespeare!" Mrs. Flushing exclaimed;and Wilfrid returned admiringly, "I believe you're the only personwho dares to say that, Alice." But Mrs. Flushing went on painting.
　　She did not appear to attach much value to her husband's compliment,and painted steadily, sometimes muttering a half-audible wordor groan.
　　The morning was now very hot.
　　"Look at Hirst!" Mr. Flushing whispered. His sheet of paperhad slipped on to the deck, his head lay back, and he drew a longsnoring breath.
　　Terence picked up the sheet of paper and spread it out before Rachel.
　　It was a continuation of the poem on God which he had begunin the chapel, and it was so indecent that Rachel did notunderstand half of it although she saw that it was indecent.
　　Hewet began to fill in words where Hirst had left spaces,but he soon ceased; his pencil rolled on deck. Gradually theyapproached nearer and nearer to the bank on the right-hand side,so that the light which covered them became definitely green,falling through a shade of green leaves, and Mrs. Flushing set asideher sketch and stared ahead of her in silence. Hirst woke up;they were then called to luncheon, and while they ate it,the steamer came to a standstill a little way out from the bank.
　　The boat which was towed behind them was brought to the side,and the ladies were helped into it.
　　For protection against boredom, Helen put a book of memoirs beneathher arm, and Mrs. Flushing her paint-box, and, thus equipped,they allowed themselves to be set on shore on the verge of the forest.
　　They had not strolled more than a few hundred yards along the trackwhich ran parallel with the river before Helen professed to findit was unbearably hot. The river breeze had ceased, and a hotsteamy atmosphere, thick with scents, came from the forest.
　　"I shall sit down here," she announced, pointing to the trunk of a treewhich had fallen long ago and was now laced across and across by creepersand thong-like brambles. She seated herself, opened her parasol,and looked at the river which was barred by the stems of trees.
　　She turned her back to the trees which disappeared in black shadowbehind her.
　　"I quite agree," said Mrs. Flushing, and proceeded to undo herpaint-box. Her husband strolled about to select an interestingpoint of view for her. Hirst cleared a space on the ground byHelen's side, and seated himself with great deliberation, as if hedid not mean to move until he had talked to her for a long time.
　　Terence and Rachel were left standing by themselves without occupation.
　　Terence saw that the time had come as it was fated to come,but although he realised this he was completely calm and masterof himself. He chose to stand for a few moments talking to Helen,and persuading her to leave her seat. Rachel joined him tooin advising her to come with them.
　　"Of all the people I've ever met," he said, "you're the least adventurous.
　　You might be sitting on green chairs in Hyde Park. Are yougoing to sit there the whole afternoon? Aren't you going to walk?""Oh, no," said Helen, "one's only got to use one's eye.
　　There's everything here--everything," she repeated in a drowsytone of voice. "What will you gain by walking?""You'll be hot and disagreeable by tea-time, we shall be cool and sweet,"put in Hirst. Into his eyes as he looked up at them had come yellowand green reflections from the sky and the branches, robbing themof their intentness, and he seemed to think what he did not say.
　　It was thus taken for granted by them both that Terence and Rachelproposed to walk into the woods together; with one look at eachother they turned away.
　　"Good-bye!" cried Rachel.
　　"Good-by. Beware of snakes," Hirst replied. He settled himselfstill more comfortably under the shade of the fallen tree andHelen's figure. As they went, Mr. Flushing called after them,"We must start in an hour. Hewet, please remember that. An hour."Whether made by man, or for some reason preserved by nature,there was a wide pathway striking through the forest at rightangles to the river. It resembled a drive in an English forest,save that tropical bushes with their sword-like leaves grew atthe side, and the ground was covered with an unmarked springymoss instead of grass, starred with little yellow flowers.
　　As they passed into the depths of the forest the light grew dimmer,and the noises of the ordinary world were replaced by those creakingand sighing sounds which suggest to the traveller in a forest that heis walking at the bottom of the sea. The path narrowed and turned;it was hedged in by dense creepers which knotted tree to tree,and burst here and there into star-shaped crimson blossoms.
　　The sighing and creaking up above were broken every now and thenby the jarring cry of some startled animal. The atmosphere was closeand the air came at them in languid puffs of scent. The vast greenlight was broken here and there by a round of pure yellow sunlightwhich fell through some gap in the immense umbrella of green above,and in these yellow spaces crimson and black butterflies were circlingand settling. Terence and Rachel hardly spoke.
　　Not only did the silence weigh upon them, but they were both unableto frame any thoughts. There was something between them which had to bespoken of. One of them had to begin, but which of them was it to be?
　　Then Hewet picked up a red fruit and threw it as high as he could.
　　When it dropped, he would speak. They heard the flapping ofgreat wings; they heard the fruit go pattering through the leavesand eventually fall with a thud. The silence was again profound.
　　"Does this frighten you?" Terence asked when the sound of the fruitfalling had completely died away.
　　"No," she answered. "I like it."She repeated "I like it." She was walking fast, and holding herselfmore erect than usual. There was another pause.
　　"You like being with me?" Terence asked.
　　"Yes, with you," she replied.
　　He was silent for a moment. Silence seemed to have fallen uponthe world.
　　"That is what I have felt ever since I knew you," he replied.
　　"We are happy together." He did not seem to be speaking, or sheto be hearing.
　　"Very happy," she answered.
　　They continued to walk for some time in silence. Their stepsunconsciously quickened.
　　"We love each other," Terence said.
　　"We love each other," she repeated.
　　The silence was then broken by their voices which joined in tonesof strange unfamiliar sound which formed no words. Faster andfaster they walked; simultaneously they stopped, clasped each otherin their arms, then releasing themselves, dropped to the earth.
　　They sat side by side. Sounds stood out from the background makinga bridge across their silence; they heard the swish of the treesand some beast croaking in a remote world.
　　"We love each other," Terence repeated, searching into her face.
　　Their faces were both very pale and quiet, and they said nothing.
　　He was afraid to kiss her again. By degrees she drew close to him,and rested against him. In this position they sat for some time.
　　She said "Terence" once; he answered "Rachel.""Terrible--terrible," she murmured after another pause,but in saying this she was thinking as much of the persistentchurning of the water as of her own feeling. On and on it wentin the distance, the senseless and cruel churning of the water.
　　She observed that the tears were running down Terence's cheeks.
　　The next movement was on his part. A very long time seemedto have passed. He took out his watch.
　　"Flushing said an hour. We've been gone more than half an hour.""And it takes that to get back," said Rachel. She raised herselfvery slowly. When she was standing up she stretched her armsand drew a deep breath, half a sigh, half a yawn. She appearedto be very tired. Her cheeks were white. "Which way?" she asked.
　　"There," said Terence.
　　They began to walk back down the mossy path again. The sighing andcreaking continued far overhead, and the jarring cries of animals.
　　The butterflies were circling still in the patches of yellow sunlight.
　　At first Terence was certain of his way, but as they walked hebecame doubtful. They had to stop to consider, and then to returnand start once more, for although he was certain of the directionof the river he was not certain of striking the point where theyhad left the others. Rachel followed him, stopping where he stopped,turning where he turned, ignorant of the way, ignorant why he stoppedor why he turned.
　　"I don't want to be late," he said, "because--" He put a flower intoher hand and her fingers closed upon it quietly. "We're so late--so late--so horribly late," he repeated as if he were talkingin his sleep. "Ah--this is right. We turn here."They found themselves again in the broad path, like the drive inthe English forest, where they had started when they left the others.
　　They walked on in silence as people walking in their sleep,and were oddly conscious now and again of the mass of their bodies.
　　Then Rachel exclaimed suddenly, "Helen!"In the sunny space at the edge of the forest they saw Helenstill sitting on the tree-trunk, her dress showing very whitein the sun, with Hirst still propped on his elbow by her side.
　　They stopped instinctively. At the sight of other people they couldnot go on. They stood hand in hand for a minute or two in silence.
　　They could not bear to face other people.
　　"But we must go on," Rachel insisted at last, in the curious dulltone of voice in which they had both been speaking, and with agreat effort they forced themselves to cover the short distancewhich lay between them and the pair sitting on the tree-trunk.
　　As they approached, Helen turned round and looked at them.
　　She looked at them for some time without speaking, and when theywere close to her she said quietly:
　　"Did you meet Mr. Flushing? He has gone to find you. He thoughtyou must be lost, though I told him you weren't lost."Hirst half turned round and threw his head back so that he lookedat the branches crossing themselves in the air above him.
　　"Well, was it worth the effort?" he enquired dreamily.
　　Hewet sat down on the grass by his side and began to fan himself.
　　Rachel had balanced herself near Helen on the end of the tree trunk.
　　"Very hot," she said.
　　"You look exhausted anyhow," said Hirst.
　　"It's fearfully close in those trees," Helen remarked, picking upher book and shaking it free from the dried blades of grasswhich had fallen between the leaves. Then they were all silent,looking at the river swirling past in front of them between thetrunks of the trees until Mr. Flushing interrupted them. He brokeout of the trees a hundred yards to the left, exclaiming sharply:
　　"Ah, so you found the way after all. But it's late--much laterthan we arranged, Hewet."He was slightly annoyed, and in his capacity as leader of the expedition,inclined to be dictatorial. He spoke quickly, using curiously sharp,meaningless words.
　　"Being late wouldn't matter normally, of course," he said,"but when it's a question of keeping the men up to time--"He gathered them together and made them come down to the river-bank,where the boat was waiting to row them out to the steamer.
　　The heat of the day was going down, and over their cups of teathe Flushings tended to become communicative. It seemed toTerence as he listened to them talking, that existence now wenton in two different layers. Here were the Flushings talking,talking somewhere high up in the air above him, and he and Rachelhad dropped to the bottom of the world together. But with somethingof a child's directness, Mrs. Flushing had also the instinct whichleads a child to suspect what its elders wish to keep hidden.
　　She fixed Terence with her vivid blue eyes and addressed herselfto him in particular. What would he do, she wanted to know,if the boat ran upon a rock and sank.
　　"Would you care for anythin' but savin' yourself? Should I?
　　No, no," she laughed, "not one scrap--don't tell me. There's onlytwo creatures the ordinary woman cares about," she continued,"her child and her dog; and I don't believe it's even two with men.
　　One reads a lot about love--that's why poetry's so dull.
　　But what happens in real life, he? It ain't love!" she cried.
　　Terence murmured something unintelligible. Mr. Flushing,however, had recovered his urbanity. He was smoking a cigarette,and he now answered his wife.
　　"You must always remember, Alice," he said, "that your upbringingwas very unnatural--unusual, I should say. They had no mother,"he explained, dropping something of the formality of his tone;"and a father--he was a very delightful man, I've no doubt,but he cared only for racehorses and Greek statues. Tell them aboutthe bath, Alice.""In the stable-yard," said Mrs. Flushing. "Covered with ice in winter.
　　We had to get in; if we didn't, we were whipped. The strongones lived--the others died. What you call survival of the fittest--a most excellent plan, I daresay, if you've thirteen children!""And all this going on in the heart of England,in the nineteenth century!" Mr. Flushing exclaimed, turning to Helen.
　　"I'd treat my children just the same if I had any," said Mrs. Flushing.
　　Every word sounded quite distinctly in Terence's ears; but whatwere they saying, and who were they talking to, and who were they,these fantastic people, detached somewhere high up in the air?
　　Now that they had drunk their tea, they rose and leant over the bow ofthe boat. The sun was going down, and the water was dark and crimson.
　　The river had widened again, and they were passing a little islandset like a dark wedge in the middle of the stream. Two great whitebirds with red lights on them stood there on stilt-like legs,and the beach of the island was unmarked, save by the skeletonprint of birds' feet. The branches of the trees on the bank lookedmore twisted and angular than ever, and the green of the leaveswas lurid and splashed with gold. Then Hirst began to talk,leaning over the bow.
　　"It makes one awfully queer, don't you find?" he complained.
　　"These trees get on one's nerves--it's all so crazy.
　　God's undoubtedly mad. What sane person could have conceiveda wilderness like this, and peopled it with apes and alligators?
　　I should go mad if I lived here--raving mad."Terence attempted to answer him, but Mrs. Ambrose replied instead.
　　She bade him look at the way things massed themselves--look atthe amazing colours, look at the shapes of the trees. She seemedto be protecting Terence from the approach of the others.
　　"Yes," said Mr. Flushing. "And in my opinion," he continued,"the absence of population to which Hirst objects is preciselythe significant touch. You must admit, Hirst, that a little Italiantown even would vulgarise the whole scene, would detract fromthe vastness--the sense of elemental grandeur." He swept his handstowards the forest, and paused for a moment, looking at the greatgreen mass, which was now falling silent. "I own it makes us seempretty small--us, not them." He nodded his head at a sailor wholeant over the side spitting into the river. "And that, I think,is what my wife feels, the essential superiority of the peasant--"Under cover of Mr. Flushing's words, which continued now gentlyreasoning with St. John and persuading him, Terence drew Rachelto the side, pointing ostensibly to a great gnarled tree-trunkwhich had fallen and lay half in the water. He wished, at any rate,to be near her, but he found that he could say nothing. They couldhear Mr. Flushing flowing on, now about his wife, now about art,now about the future of the country, little meaningless wordsfloating high in air. As it was becoming cold he began to pacethe deck with Hirst. Fragments of their talk came out distinctlyas they passed--art, emotion, truth, reality.
　　"Is it true, or is it a dream?" Rachel murmured, when they had passed.
　　"It's true, it's true," he replied.
　　But the breeze freshened, and there was a general desire for movement.
　　When the party rearranged themselves under cover of rugs and cloaks,Terence and Rachel were at opposite ends of the circle, and couldnot speak to each other. But as the dark descended, the words ofthe others seemed to curl up and vanish as the ashes of burnt paper,and left them sitting perfectly silent at the bottom of the world.
　　Occasional starts of exquisite joy ran through them, and then theywere peaceful again.
Chapter 21
    Thanks to Mr. Flushing's discipline, the right stages of the riverwere reached at the right hours, and when next morning afterbreakfast the chairs were again drawn out in a semicircle in the bow,the launch was within a few miles of the native camp which wasthe limit of the journey. Mr. Flushing, as he sat down, advised themto keep their eyes fixed on the left bank, where they would soonpass a clearing, and in that clearing, was a hut where Mackenzie,the famous explorer, had died of fever some ten years ago,almost within reach of civilisation--Mackenzie, he repeated,the man who went farther inland than any one's been yet. Their eyesturned that way obediently. The eyes of Rachel saw nothing.
　　Yellow and green shapes did, it is true, pass before them, but sheonly knew that one was large and another small; she did not knowthat they were trees. These directions to look here and thereirritated her, as interruptions irritate a person absorbed in thought,although she was not thinking of anything. She was annoyed with allthat was said, and with the aimless movements of people's bodies,because they seemed to interfere with her and to prevent her fromspeaking to Terence. Very soon Helen saw her staring moodilyat a coil of rope, and making no effort to listen. Mr. Flushingand St. John were engaged in more or less continuous conversationabout the future of the country from a political point of view,and the degree to which it had been explored; the others, with theirlegs stretched out, or chins poised on the hands, gazed in silence.
　　Mrs. Ambrose looked and listened obediently enough, but inwardlyshe was prey to an uneasy mood not readily to be ascribed to anyone cause. Looking on shore as Mr. Flushing bade her, she thoughtthe country very beautiful, but also sultry and alarming.
　　She did not like to feel herself the victim of unclassified emotions,and certainly as the launch slipped on and on, in the hot morning sun,she felt herself unreasonably moved. Whether the unfamiliarityof the forest was the cause of it, or something less definite,she could not determine. Her mind left the scene and occupied itselfwith anxieties for Ridley, for her children, for far-off things,such as old age and poverty and death. Hirst, too, was depressed.
　　He had been looking forward to this expedition as to a holiday, for,once away from the hotel, surely wonderful things would happen,instead of which nothing happened, and here they were as uncomfortable,as restrained, as self-conscious as ever. That, of course, was whatcame of looking forward to anything; one was always disappointed.
　　He blamed Wilfrid Flushing, who was so well dressed and so formal;he blamed Hewet and Rachel. Why didn't they talk? He looked atthem sitting silent and self-absorbed, and the sight annoyed him.
　　He supposed that they were engaged, or about to become engaged,but instead of being in the least romantic or exciting, that was as dullas everything else; it annoyed him, too, to think that they were in love.
　　He drew close to Helen and began to tell her how uncomfortable his nighthad been, lying on the deck, sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold,and the stars so bright that he couldn't get to sleep. He had lainawake all night thinking, and when it was light enough to see,he had written twenty lines of his poem on God, and the awful thingwas that he'd practically proved the fact that God did not exist.
　　He did not see that he was teasing her, and he went on to wonderwhat would happen if God did exist--"an old gentleman in a beard anda long blue dressing gown, extremely testy and disagreeable as he'sbound to be? Can you suggest a rhyme? God, rod, sod--all used;any others?"Although he spoke much as usual, Helen could have seen, had she looked,that he was also impatient and disturbed. But she was not called uponto answer, for Mr. Flushing now exclaimed "There!" They looked at the huton the bank, a desolate place with a large rent in the roof, and theground round it yellow, scarred with fires and scattered with rusty open tins.
　　"Did they find his dead body there?" Mrs. Flushing exclaimed,leaning forward in her eagerness to see the spot where the explorerhad died.
　　"They found his body and his skins and a notebook," her husband replied.
　　But the boat had soon carried them on and left the place behind.
　　It was so hot that they scarcely moved, except now to changea foot, or, again, to strike a match. Their eyes, concentrated uponthe bank, were full of the same green reflections, and their lipswere slightly pressed together as though the sights they were passinggave rise to thoughts, save that Hirst's lips moved intermittentlyas half consciously he sought rhymes for God. Whatever the thoughtsof the others, no one said anything for a considerable space.
　　They had grown so accustomed to the wall of trees on either sidethat they looked up with a start when the light suddenly widenedout and the trees came to an end.
　　"It almost reminds one of an English park," said Mr. Flushing.
　　Indeed no change could have been greater. On both banks of the river layan open lawn-like space, grass covered and planted, for the gentlenessand order of the place suggested human care, with graceful treeson the top of little mounds. As far as they could gaze, this lawnrose and sank with the undulating motion of an old English park.
　　The change of scene naturally suggested a change of position,grateful to most of them. They rose and leant over the rail.
　　"It might be Arundel or Windsor," Mr. Flushing continued, "if youcut down that bush with the yellow flowers; and, by Jove, look!"Rows of brown backs paused for a moment and then leapt with a motionas if they were springing over waves out of sight.
　　for a moment no one of them could believe that they had reallyseen live animals in the open--a herd of wild deer, and the sightaroused a childlike excitement in them, dissipating their gloom.
　　"I've never in my life seen anything bigger than a hare!"Hirst exclaimed with genuine excitement. "What an ass I was notto bring my Kodak!"Soon afterwards the launch came gradually to a standstill,and the captain explained to Mr. Flushing that it would be pleasantfor the passengers if they now went for a stroll on shore; if theychose to return within an hour, he would take them on to the village;if they chose to walk--it was only a mile or two farther on--he would meet them at the landing-place.
　　The matter being settled, they were once more put on shore:
　　the sailors, producing raisins and tobacco, leant upon the railand watched the six English, whose coats and dresses looked sostrange upon the green, wander off. A joke that was by no meansproper set them all laughing, and then they turned round and layat their ease upon the deck.
　　Directly they landed, Terence and Rachel drew together slightlyin advance of the others.
　　"Thank God!" Terence exclaimed, drawing a long breath. "At lastwe're alone.""And if we keep ahead we can talk," said Rachel.
　　Nevertheless, although their position some yards in advance ofthe others made it possible for them to say anything they chose,they were both silent.
　　"You love me?" Terence asked at length, breaking the silence painfully.
　　To speak or to be silent was equally an effort, for when theywere silent they were keenly conscious of each other's presence,and yet words were either too trivial or too large.
　　She murmured inarticulately, ending, "And you?""Yes, yes," he replied; but there were so many things to be said,and now that they were alone it seemed necessary to bring themselvesstill more near, and to surmount a barrier which had grown upsince they had last spoken. It was difficult, frightening even,oddly embarrassing. At one moment he was clear-sighted, and,at the next, confused.
　　"Now I'm going to begin at the beginning," he said resolutely.
　　"I'm going to tell you what I ought to have told you before.
　　In the first place, I've never been in love with other women,but I've had other women. Then I've great faults. I'm very lazy,I'm moody--" He persisted, in spite of her exclamation, "You've gotto know the worst of me. I'm lustful. I'm overcome by a senseof futility--incompetence. I ought never to have asked you to marry me,I expect. I'm a bit of a snob; I'm ambitious--""Oh, our faults!" she cried. "What do they matter?" Then she demanded,"Am I in love--is this being in love--are we to marry each other?"Overcome by the charm of her voice and her presence, he exclaimed,"Oh, you're free, Rachel. To you, time will make no difference,or marriage or--"The voices of the others behind them kept floating, now farther,now nearer, and Mrs. Flushing's laugh rose clearly by itself.
　　"Marriage?" Rachel repeated.
　　The shouts were renewed behind, warning them that they were bearingtoo far to the left. Improving their course, he continued,"Yes, marriage." The feeling that they could not be united untilshe knew all about him made him again endeavour to explain.
　　"All that's been bad in me, the things I've put up with--the second best--"She murmured, considered her own life, but could not describehow it looked to her now.
　　"And the loneliness!" he continued. A vision of walking with herthrough the streets of London came before his eyes. "We will go forwalks together," he said. The simplicity of the idea relieved them,and for the first time they laughed. They would have liked hadthey dared to take each other by the hand, but the consciousnessof eyes fixed on them from behind had not yet deserted them.
　　"Books, people, sights--Mrs. Nutt, Greeley, Hutchinson," Hewet murmured.
　　With every word the mist which had enveloped them, making themseem unreal to each other, since the previous afternoon melteda little further, and their contact became more and more natural.
　　Up through the sultry southern landscape they saw the world they knewappear clearer and more vividly than it had ever appeared before Asupon that occasion at the hotel when she had sat in the window,the world once more arranged itself beneath her gaze very vividlyand in its true proportions. She glanced curiously at Terencefrom time to time, observing his grey coat and his purple tie;observing the man with whom she was to spend the rest of her life.
　　After one of these glances she murmured, "Yes, I'm in love.
　　There's no doubt; I'm in love with you."Nevertheless, they remained uncomfortably apart; drawn soclose together, as she spoke, that there seemed no divisionbetween them, and the next moment separate and far away again.
　　Feeling this painfully, she exclaimed, "It will be a fight."But as she looked at him she perceived from the shape of his eyes,the lines about his mouth, and other peculiarities that he pleased her,and she added:
　　"Where I want to fight, you have compassion. You're finer than I am;you're much finer."He returned her glance and smiled, perceiving, much as she had done,the very small individual things about her which made her delightfulto him. She was his for ever. This barrier being surmounted,innumerable delights lay before them both.
　　"I'm not finer," he answered. "I'm only older, lazier; a man,not a woman.""A man," she repeated, and a curious sense of possession comingover her, it struck her that she might now touch him; she put outher hand and lightly touched his cheek. His fingers followed wherehers had been, and the touch of his hand upon his face brought backthe overpowering sense of unreality. This body of his was unreal;the whole world was unreal.
　　"What's happened?" he began. "Why did I ask you to marry me?
　　How did it happen?""Did you ask me to marry you?" she wondered. They faded far awayfrom each other, and neither of them could remember what had been said.
　　"We sat upon the ground," he recollected.
　　"We sat upon the ground," she confirmed him. The recollection of sittingupon the ground, such as it was, seemed to unite them again, and theywalked on in silence, their minds sometimes working with difficultyand sometimes ceasing to work, their eyes alone perceiving the thingsround them. Now he would attempt again to tell her his faults,and why he loved her; and she would describe what she had felt at thistime or at that time, and together they would interpret her feeling.
　　So beautiful was the sound of their voices that by degrees theyscarcely listened to the words they framed. Long silences came betweentheir words, which were no longer silences of struggle and confusionbut refreshing silences, in which trivial thoughts moved easily.
　　They began to speak naturally of ordinary things, of the flowersand the trees, how they grew there so red, like garden flowersat home, and there bent and crooked like the arm of a twisted old man.
　　Very gently and quietly, almost as if it were the blood singingin her veins, or the water of the stream running over stones,Rachel became conscious of a new feeling within her. She wonderedfor a moment what it was, and then said to herself, with a littlesurprise at recognising in her own person so famous a thing:
　　"This is happiness, I suppose." And aloud to Terence she spoke,"This is happiness."On the heels of her words he answered, "This is happiness,"upon which they guessed that the feeling had sprung in both of themthe same time. They began therefore to describe how this feltand that felt, how like it was and yet how different; for theywere very different.
　　Voices crying behind them never reached through the waters in whichthey were now sunk. The repetition of Hewet's name in short,dissevered syllables was to them the crack of a dry branchor the laughter of a bird. The grasses and breezes sounding andmurmuring all round them, they never noticed that the swishing ofthe grasses grew louder and louder, and did not cease with the lapseof the breeze. A hand dropped abrupt as iron on Rachel's shoulder;it might have been a bolt from heaven. She fell beneath it,and the grass whipped across her eyes and filled her mouth and ears.
　　Through the waving stems she saw a figure, large and shapelessagainst the sky. Helen was upon her. Rolled this way and that,now seeing only forests of green, and now the high blue heaven;she was speechless and almost without sense. At last she lay still,all the grasses shaken round her and before her by her panting.
　　Over her loomed two great heads, the heads of a man and woman,of Terence and Helen.
　　Both were flushed, both laughing, and the lips were moving;they came together and kissed in the air above her. Broken fragmentsof speech came down to her on the ground. She thought she heard themspeak of love and then of marriage. Raising herself and sitting up,she too realised Helen's soft body, the strong and hospitable arms,and happiness swelling and breaking in one vast wave. When thisfell away, and the grasses once more lay low, and the skybecame horizontal, and the earth rolled out flat on each side,and the trees stood upright, she was the first to perceive alittle row of human figures standing patiently in the distance.
　　For the moment she could not remember who they were.
　　"Who are they?" she asked, and then recollected.
　　Falling into line behind Mr. Flushing, they were careful to leaveat least three yards' distance between the toe of his bootand the rim of her skirt.
　　He led them across a stretch of green by the river-bank and thenthrough a grove of trees, and bade them remark the signs of humanhabitation, the blackened grass, the charred tree-stumps, and there,through the trees, strange wooden nests, drawn together in an archwhere the trees drew apart, the village which was the goal of their journey.
　　Stepping cautiously, they observed the women, who were squatting onthe ground in triangular shapes, moving their hands, either plaitingstraw or in kneading something in bowls. But when they had lookedfor a moment undiscovered, they were seen, and Mr. Flushing,advancing into the centre of the clearing, was engaged in talkwith a lean majestic man, whose bones and hollows at once madethe shapes of the Englishman's body appear ugly and unnatural.
　　The women took no notice of the strangers, except that their handspaused for a moment and their long narrow eyes slid round and fixedupon them with the motionless inexpensive gaze of those removedfrom each other far far beyond the plunge of speech. Their handsmoved again, but the stare continued. It followed them as they walked,as they peered into the huts where they could distinguish guns leaningin the corner, and bowls upon the floor, and stacks of rushes;in the dusk the solemn eyes of babies regarded them, and old womenstared out too. As they sauntered about, the stare followed them,passing over their legs, their bodies, their heads, curiously notwithout hostility, like the crawl of a winter fly. As she drewapart her shawl and uncovered her breast to the lips of her baby,the eyes of a woman never left their faces, although they moveduneasily under her stare, and finally turned away, rather than standthere looking at her any longer. When sweetmeats were offered them,they put out great red hands to take them, and felt themselvestreading cumbrously like tight-coated soldiers among these softinstinctive people. But soon the life of the village took no noticeof them; they had become absorbed in it. The women's hands becamebusy again with the straw; their eyes dropped. If they moved,it was to fetch something from the hut, or to catch a straying child,or to cross the space with a jar balanced on their heads;if they spoke, it was to cry some harsh unintelligible cry.
　　Voices rose when a child was beaten, and fell again; voices rosein song, which slid up a little way and down a little way,and settled again upon the same low and melancholy note.
　　Seeking each other, Terence and Rachel drew together under a tree.
　　Peaceful, and even beautiful at first, the sight of the women,who had given up looking at them, made them now feel very coldand melancholy.
　　"Well," Terence sighed at length, "it makes us seem insignificant,doesn't it?"Rachel agreed. So it would go on for ever and ever, she said,those women sitting under the trees, the trees and the river.
　　They turned away and began to walk through the trees, leaning, without fearof discovery, upon each other's arms. They had not gone far beforethey began to assure each other once more that they were in love,were happy, were content; but why was it so painful being in love,why was there so much pain in happiness?
　　The sight of the village indeed affected them all curiously thoughall differently. St. John had left the others and was walking slowlydown to the river, absorbed in his own thoughts, which were bitterand unhappy, for he felt himself alone; and Helen, standing by herselfin the sunny space among the native women, was exposed to presentimentsof disaster. The cries of the senseless beasts rang in her earshigh and low in the air, as they ran from tree-trunk to tree-top.
　　How small the little figures looked wandering through the trees!
　　She became acutely conscious of the little limbs, the thin veins,the delicate flesh of men and women, which breaks so easily and letsthe life escape compared with these great trees and deep waters.
　　A falling branch, a foot that slips, and the earth has crushed themor the water drowned them. Thus thinking, she kept her eyes anxiouslyfixed upon the lovers, as if by doing so she could protect themfrom their fate. Turning, she found the Flushings by her side.
　　They were talking about the things they had bought and arguingwhether they were really old, and whether there were not signshere and there of European influence. Helen was appealed to.
　　She was made to look at a brooch, and then at a pair of ear-rings.
　　But all the time she blamed them for having come on this expedition,for having ventured too far and exposed themselves. Then she rousedherself and tried to talk, but in a few moments she caught herselfseeing a picture of a boat upset on the river in England, at midday.
　　It was morbid, she knew, to imagine such things; nevertheless shesought out the figures of the others between the trees, and whenevershe saw them she kept her eyes fixed on them, so that she might beable to protect them from disaster.
　　But when the sun went down and the steamer turned and beganto steam back towards civilisation, again her fears were calmed.
　　In the semi-darkness the chairs on deck and the people sittingin them were angular shapes, the mouth being indicated by a tinyburning spot, and the arm by the same spot moving up or down as thecigar or cigarette was lifted to and from the lips. Words crossedthe darkness, but, not knowing where they fell, seemed to lack energyand substance. Deep sights proceeded regularly, although with someattempt at suppression, from the large white mound which representedthe person of Mrs. Flushing. The day had been long and very hot,and now that all the colours were blotted out the cool night airseemed to press soft fingers upon the eyelids, sealing them down.
　　Some philosophical remark directed, apparently, at St. John Hirstmissed its aim, and hung so long suspended in the air until itwas engulfed by a yawn, that it was considered dead, and thisgave the signal for stirring of legs and murmurs about sleep.
　　The white mound moved, finally lengthened itself and disappeared,and after a few turns and paces St. John and Mr. Flushing withdrew,leaving the three chairs still occupied by three silent bodies.
　　The light which came from a lamp high on the mast and a sky palewith stars left them with shapes but without features; but evenin this darkness the withdrawal of the others made them feel eachother very near, for they were all thinking of the same thing.
　　For some time no one spoke, then Helen said with a sigh, "So you're bothvery happy?"As if washed by the air her voice sounded more spiritual and softerthan usual. Voices at a little distance answered her, "Yes."Through the darkness she was looking at them both, and trying todistinguish him. What was there for her to say? Rachel had passedbeyond her guardianship. A voice might reach her ears, but neveragain would it carry as far as it had carried twenty-four hours ago.
　　Nevertheless, speech seemed to be due from her before she went to bed.
　　She wished to speak, but she felt strangely old and depressed.
　　"D'you realise what you're doing?" she demanded. "She's young,you're both young; and marriage--" Here she ceased. They beggedher, however, to continue, with such earnestness in their voices,as if they only craved advice, that she was led to add:
　　"Marriage! well, it's not easy.""That's what we want to know," they answered, and she guessedthat now they were looking at each other.
　　"It depends on both of you," she stated. Her face was turnedtowards Terence, and although he could hardly see her, he believedthat her words really covered a genuine desire to know more about him.
　　He raised himself from his semi-recumbent position and proceededto tell her what she wanted to know. He spoke as lightly as hecould in order to take away her depression.
　　"I'm twenty-seven, and I've about seven hundred a year," he began.
　　"My temper is good on the whole, and health excellent, though Hirstdetects a gouty tendency. Well, then, I think I'm very intelligent."He paused as if for confirmation.
　　Helen agreed.
　　"Though, unfortunately, rather lazy. I intend to allow Rachelto be a fool if she wants to, and--Do you find me on the wholesatisfactory in other respects?" he asked shyly.
　　"Yes, I like what I know of you," Helen replied.
　　"But then--one knows so little.""We shall live in London," he continued, "and--" With one voicethey suddenly enquired whether she did not think them the happiestpeople that she had ever known.
　　"Hush," she checked them, "Mrs. Flushing, remember. She's behind us."Then they fell silent, and Terence and Rachel felt instinctivelythat their happiness had made her sad, and, while they were anxiousto go on talking about themselves, they did not like to.
　　"We've talked too much about ourselves," Terence said. "Tell us--""Yes, tell us--" Rachel echoed. They were both in the mood to believethat every one was capable of saying something very profound.
　　"What can I tell you?" Helen reflected, speaking more to herselfin a rambling style than as a prophetess delivering a message.
　　She forced herself to speak.
　　"After all, though I scold Rachel, I'm not much wiser myself.
　　I'm older, of course, I'm half-way through, and you're just beginning.
　　It's puzzling--sometimes, I think, disappointing; the great thingsaren't as great, perhaps, as one expects--but it's interesting--Oh, yes, you're certain to find it interesting--And so it goes on,"they became conscious here of the procession of dark trees into which,as far as they could see, Helen was now looking, "and there arepleasures where one doesn't expect them (you must write to your father),and you'll be very happy, I've no doubt. But I must go to bed,and if you are sensible you will follow in ten minutes, and so,"she rose and stood before them, almost featureless and very large,"Good-night." She passed behind the curtain.
　　After sitting in silence for the greater part of the ten minutesshe allowed them, they rose and hung over the rail. Beneath themthe smooth black water slipped away very fast and silently.
　　The spark of a cigarette vanished behind them. "A beautiful voice,"Terence murmured.
　　Rachel assented. Helen had a beautiful voice.
　　After a silence she asked, looking up into the sky, "Are we onthe deck of a steamer on a river in South America? Am I Rachel,are you Terence?"The great black world lay round them. As they were drawn smoothlyalong it seemed possessed of immense thickness and endurance.
　　They could discern pointed tree-tops and blunt rounded tree-tops.
　　Raising their eyes above the trees, they fixed them on the starsand the pale border of sky above the trees. The little points offrosty light infinitely far away drew their eyes and held them fixed,so that it seemed as if they stayed a long time and fell a greatdistance when once more they realised their hands grasping the railand their separate bodies standing side by side.
　　"You'd forgotten completely about me," Terence reproached her,taking her arm and beginning to pace the deck, "and I never forget you.""Oh, no," she whispered, she had not forgotten, only the stars--the night--the dark--"You're like a bird half asleep in its nest, Rachel. You're asleep.
　　You're talking in your sleep."Half asleep, and murmuring broken words, they stood in the anglemade by the bow of the boat. It slipped on down the river.
　　Now a bell struck on the bridge, and they heard the lapping of wateras it rippled away on either side, and once a bird startled in itssleep creaked, flew on to the next tree, and was silent again.
　　The darkness poured down profusely, and left them with scarcelyany feeling of life, except that they were standing there togetherin the darkness.
Chapter 22
    The darkness fell, but rose again, and as each day spread widelyover the earth and parted them from the strange day in the forestwhen they had been forced to tell each other what they wanted,this wish of theirs was revealed to other people, and in the processbecame slightly strange to themselves. Apparently it was not anythingunusual that had happened; it was that they had become engagedto marry each other. The world, which consisted for the most partof the hotel and the villa, expressed itself glad on the wholethat two people should marry, and allowed them to see that they werenot expected to take part in the work which has to be done in orderthat the world shall go on, but might absent themselves for a time.
　　They were accordingly left alone until they felt the silence as if,playing in a vast church, the door had been shut on them.
　　They were driven to walk alone, and sit alone, to visit secret placeswhere the flowers had never been picked and the trees were solitary.
　　In solitude they could express those beautiful but too vast desireswhich were so oddly uncomfortable to the ears of other men and women--desires for a world, such as their own world which contained twopeople seemed to them to be, where people knew each other intimatelyand thus judged each other by what was good, and never quarrelled,because that was waste of time.
　　They would talk of such questions among books, or out in the sun,or sitting in the shade of a tree undisturbed. They were nolonger embarrassed, or half-choked with meaning which could notexpress itself; they were not afraid of each other, or, like travellersdown a twisting river, dazzled with sudden beauties when the corneris turned; the unexpected happened, but even the ordinary was lovable,and in many ways preferable to the ecstatic and mysterious,for it was refreshingly solid, and called out effort, and effortunder such circumstances was not effort but delight.
　　While Rachel played the piano, Terence sat near her, engaged,as far as the occasional writing of a word in pencil testified,in shaping the world as it appeared to him now that he and Rachelwere going to be married. It was different certainly. The bookcalled _Silence_ would not now be the same book that it wouldhave been. He would then put down his pencil and stare in frontof him, and wonder in what respects the world was different--it had, perhaps, more solidity, more coherence, more importance,greater depth. Why, even the earth sometimes seemed to him very deep;not carved into hills and cities and fields, but heaped in great masses.
　　He would look out of the window for ten minutes at a time; but no, he didnot care for the earth swept of human beings. He liked human beings--he liked them, he suspected, better than Rachel did. There she was,swaying enthusiastically over her music, quite forgetful of him,--but he liked that quality in her. He liked the impersonalitywhich it produced in her. At last, having written down a seriesof little sentences, with notes of interrogation attached to them,he observed aloud, "'Women--'under the heading Women I've written:
　　"'Not really vainer than men. Lack of self-confidence at the baseof most serious faults. Dislike of own sex traditional, or foundedon fact? Every woman not so much a rake at heart, as an optimist,because they don't think.' What do you say, Rachel?" He pausedwith his pencil in his hand and a sheet of paper on his knee.
　　Rachel said nothing. Up and up the steep spiral of a very late Beethovensonata she climbed, like a person ascending a ruined staircase,energetically at first, then more laboriously advancing her feetwith effort until she could go no higher and returned with a runto begin at the very bottom again.
　　"'Again, it's the fashion now to say that women are more practicaland less idealistic than men, also that they have considerableorganising ability but no sense of honour'--query, what is meantby masculine term, honour?--what corresponds to it in your sex? Eh?"Attacking her staircase once more, Rachel again neglectedthis opportunity of revealing the secrets of her sex.
　　She had, indeed, advanced so far in the pursuit of wisdomthat she allowed these secrets to rest undisturbed; it seemedto be reserved for a later generation to discuss them philosophically.
　　Crashing down a final chord with her left hand, she exclaimed at last,swinging round upon him:
　　"No, Terence, it's no good; here am I, the best musician inSouth America, not to speak of Europe and Asia, and I can't playa note because of you in the room interrupting me every other second.""You don't seem to realise that that's what I've been aimingat for the last half-hour," he remarked. "I've no objectionto nice simple tunes--indeed, I find them very helpfulto my literary composition, but that kind of thing is merelylike an unfortunate old dog going round on its hind legs in the rain."He began turning over the little sheets of note-paper which werescattered on the table, conveying the congratulations of their friends.
　　"'--all possible wishes for all possible happiness,'" he read;"correct, but not very vivid, are they?""They're sheer nonsense!" Rachel exclaimed. "Think of wordscompared with sounds!" she continued. "Think of novels and playsand histories--" Perched on the edge of the table, she stirredthe red and yellow volumes contemptuously. She seemed to herselfto be in a position where she could despise all human learning.
　　Terence looked at them too.
　　"God, Rachel, you do read trash!" he exclaimed. "And you'rebehind the times too, my dear. No one dreams of reading this kindof thing now--antiquated problem plays, harrowing descriptionsof life in the east end--oh, no, we've exploded all that.
　　Read poetry, Rachel, poetry, poetry, poetry!"Picking up one of the books, he began to read aloud, his intentionbeing to satirise the short sharp bark of the writer's English;but she paid no attention, and after an interval of meditation exclaimed:
　　"Does it ever seem to you, Terence, that the world is composedentirely of vast blocks of matter, and that we're nothing butpatches of light--" she looked at the soft spots of sun waveringover the carpet and up the wall--"like that?""No," said Terence, "I feel solid; immensely solid; the legs of mychair might be rooted in the bowels of the earth. But at Cambridge,I can remember, there were times when one fell into ridiculous statesof semi-coma about five o'clock in the morning. Hirst does now,I expect--oh, no, Hirst wouldn't."Rachel continued, "The day your note came, asking us to go onthe picnic, I was sitting where you're sitting now, thinking that;I wonder if I could think that again? I wonder if the world's changed?
　　and if so, when it'll stop changing, and which is the real world?""When I first saw you," he began, "I thought you were like acreature who'd lived all its life among pearls and old bones.
　　Your hands were wet, d'you remember, and you never said a word untilI gave you a bit of bread, and then you said, 'Human Beings!'""And I thought you--a prig," she recollected. "No; that's not quite it.
　　There were the ants who stole the tongue, and I thought you andSt. John were like those ants--very big, very ugly, very energetic,with all your virtues on your backs. However, when I talked to youI liked you--""You fell in love with me," he corrected her. "You were in lovewith me all the time, only you didn't know it.""No, I never fell in love with you," she asserted.
　　"Rachel--what a lie--didn't you sit here looking at my window--didn't you wander about the hotel like an owl in the sun--?""No," she repeated, "I never fell in love, if falling in loveis what people say it is, and it's the world that tells the liesand I tell the truth. Oh, what lies--what lies!"She crumpled together a handful of letters from Evelyn M., fromMr. Pepper, from Mrs. Thornbury and Miss Allan, and Susan Warrington.
　　It was strange, considering how very different these people were,that they used almost the same sentences when they wrote tocongratulate her upon her engagement.
　　That any one of these people had ever felt what she felt, or couldever feel it, or had even the right to pretend for a single secondthat they were capable of feeling it, appalled her much as the churchservice had done, much as the face of the hospital nurse had done;and if they didn't feel a thing why did they go and pretend to?
　　The simplicity and arrogance and hardness of her youth, now concentratedinto a single spark as it was by her love of him, puzzled Terence;being engaged had not that effect on him; the world was different,but not in that way; he still wanted the things he had always wanted,and in particular he wanted the companionship of other peoplemore than ever perhaps. He took the letters out of her hand,and protested:
　　"Of course they're absurd, Rachel; of course they say things justbecause other people say them, but even so, what a nice woman MissAllan is; you can't deny that; and Mrs. Thornbury too; she's gottoo many children I grant you, but if half-a-dozen of them had goneto the bad instead of rising infallibly to the tops of their trees--hasn't she a kind of beauty--of elemental simplicity as Flushingwould say? Isn't she rather like a large old tree murmuringin the moonlight, or a river going on and on and on? By the way,Ralph's been made governor of the Carroway Islands--the youngestgovernor in the service; very good, isn't it?"But Rachel was at present unable to conceive that the vast majorityof the affairs of the world went on unconnected by a single threadwith her own destiny.
　　"I won't have eleven children," she asserted; "I won't have the eyesof an old woman. She looks at one up and down, up and down,as if one were a horse.""We must have a son and we must have a daughter," said Terence,putting down the letters, "because, let alone the inestimableadvantage of being our children, they'd be so well brought up."They went on to sketch an outline of the ideal education--how their daughter should be required from infancy to gaze at a largesquare of cardboard painted blue, to suggest thoughts of infinity,for women were grown too practical; and their son--he should be taughtto laugh at great men, that is, at distinguished successful men,at men who wore ribands and rose to the tops of their trees.
　　He should in no way resemble (Rachel added) St. John Hirst.
　　At this Terence professed the greatest admiration for St. John Hirst.
　　Dwelling upon his good qualities he became seriously convinced of them;he had a mind like a torpedo, he declared, aimed at falsehood.
　　Where should we all be without him and his like? Choked in weeds;Christians, bigots,--why, Rachel herself, would be a slave with a fanto sing songs to men when they felt drowsy.
　　"But you'll never see it!" he exclaimed; "because with all your virtuesyou don't, and you never will, care with every fibre of your beingfor the pursuit of truth! You've no respect for facts, Rachel;you're essentially feminine." She did not trouble to deny it,nor did she think good to produce the one unanswerable argumentagainst the merits which Terence admired. St. John Hirst saidthat she was in love with him; she would never forgive that;but the argument was not one to appeal to a man.
　　"But I like him," she said, and she thought to herself that she alsopitied him, as one pities those unfortunate people who are outside the warmmysterious globe full of changes and miracles in which we ourselvesmove about; she thought that it must be very dull to be St. John Hirst.
　　She summed up what she felt about him by saying that she wouldnot kiss him supposing he wished it, which was not likely.
　　As if some apology were due to Hirst for the kiss which she thenbestowed upon him, Terence protested:
　　"And compared with Hirst I'm a perfect Zany."The clock here struck twelve instead of eleven.
　　"We're wasting the morning--I ought to be writing my book, and youought to be answering these.""We've only got twenty-one whole mornings left," said Rachel.
　　"And my father'll be here in a day or two."However, she drew a pen and paper towards her and began to write laboriously,"My dear Evelyn--"Terence, meanwhile, read a novel which some one else had written,a process which he found essential to the composition of his own.
　　For a considerable time nothing was to be heard but the tickingof the clock and the fitful scratch of Rachel's pen, as she producedphrases which bore a considerable likeness to those which shehad condemned. She was struck by it herself, for she stopped writingand looked up; looked at Terence deep in the arm-chair, lookedat the different pieces of furniture, at her bed in the corner,at the window-pane which showed the branches of a tree filledin with sky, heard the clock ticking, and was amazed at the gulfwhich lay between all that and her sheet of paper. Would thereever be a time when the world was one and indivisible? Even withTerence himself--how far apart they could be, how little she knewwhat was passing in his brain now! She then finished her sentence,which was awkward and ugly, and stated that they were "both very happy,and going to be married in the autumn probably and hope to livein London, where we hope you will come and see us when we get back."Choosing "affectionately," after some further speculation,rather than sincerely, she signed the letter and was doggedlybeginning on another when Terence remarked, quoting from his book:
　　"Listen to this, Rachel. 'It is probable that Hugh' (he's the hero,a literary man), 'had not realised at the time of his marriage,any more than the young man of parts and imagination usuallydoes realise, the nature of the gulf which separates the needsand desires of the male from the needs and desires of the female.
　　. . . At first they had been very happy. The walking tour in Switzerlandhad been a time of jolly companionship and stimulating revelationsfor both of them. Betty had proved herself the ideal comrade.
　　. . . They had shouted _Love_ _in_ _the_ _Valley_ to each other acrossthe snowy slopes of the Riffelhorn' (and so on, and so on--I'll skipthe descriptions). . . . 'But in London, after the boy's birth,all was changed. Betty was an admirable mother; but it did nottake her long to find out that motherhood, as that function isunderstood by the mother of the upper middle classes, did not absorbthe whole of her energies. She was young and strong, with healthylimbs and a body and brain that called urgently for exercise.
　　. . .' (In short she began to give tea-parties.) . . . 'Comingin late from this singular talk with old Bob Murphy in his smoky,book-lined room, where the two men had each unloosened his soulto the other, with the sound of the traffic humming in his ears,and the foggy London sky slung tragically across his mind . . . hefound women's hats dotted about among his papers. Women's wrapsand absurd little feminine shoes and umbrellas were in the hall.
　　. . . Then the bills began to come in. . . . He tried to speakfrankly to her. He found her lying on the great polar-bear skinin their bedroom, half-undressed, for they were dining with the Greensin Wilton Crescent, the ruddy firelight making the diamonds winkand twinkle on her bare arms and in the delicious curve of her breast--a vision of adorable femininity. He forgave her all.' (Well, thisgoes from bad to worse, and finally about fifty pages later,Hugh takes a week-end ticket to Swanage and 'has it out with himselfon the downs above Corfe.' . . . Here there's fifteen pages or sowhich we'll skip. The conclusion is . . .) 'They were different.
　　Perhaps, in the far future, when generations of men had struggledand failed as he must now struggle and fail, woman would be, indeed,what she now made a pretence of being--the friend and companion--not the enemy and parasite of man.'
　　"The end of it is, you see, Hugh went back to his wife, poor fellow.
　　It was his duty, as a married man. Lord, Rachel," he concluded,"will it be like that when we're married?"Instead of answering him she asked,"Why don't people write about the things they do feel?""Ah, that's the difficulty!" he sighed, tossing the book away.
　　"Well, then, what will it be like when we're married? What arethe things people do feel?"She seemed doubtful.
　　"Sit on the floor and let me look at you," he commanded.
　　Resting her chin on his knee, she looked straight at him.
　　He examined her curiously.
　　"You're not beautiful," he began, "but I like your face.
　　I like the way your hair grows down in a point, and your eyes too--they never see anything. Your mouth's too big, and your cheekswould be better if they had more colour in them. But what I likeabout your face is that it makes one wonder what the devil you'rethinking about--it makes me want to do that--" He clenched his fistand shook it so near her that she started back, "because now you lookas if you'd blow my brains out. There are moments," he continued,"when, if we stood on a rock together, you'd throw me into the sea."Hypnotised by the force of his eyes in hers, she repeated, "If westood on a rock together--"To be flung into the sea, to be washed hither and thither, and drivenabout the roots of the world--the idea was incoherently delightful.
　　She sprang up, and began moving about the room, bending and thrustingaside the chairs and tables as if she were indeed striking throughthe waters. He watched her with pleasure; she seemed to be cleavinga passage for herself, and dealing triumphantly with the obstacleswhich would hinder their passage through life.
　　"It does seem possible!" he exclaimed, "though I've always thoughtit the most unlikely thing in the world--I shall be in lovewith you all my life, and our marriage will be the most excitingthing that's ever been done! We'll never have a moment's peace--"He caught her in his arms as she passed him, and they foughtfor mastery, imagining a rock, and the sea heaving beneath them.
　　At last she was thrown to the floor, where she lay gasping,and crying for mercy.
　　"I'm a mermaid! I can swim," she cried, "so the game's up."Her dress was torn across, and peace being established, she fetcheda needle and thread and began to mend the tear.
　　"And now," she said, "be quiet and tell me about the world;tell me about everything that's ever happened, and I'll tell you--let me see, what can I tell you?--I'll tell you about Miss Montgomerieand the river party. She was left, you see, with one foot in the boat,and the other on shore."They had spent much time already in thus filling out for the otherthe course of their past lives, and the characters of their friendsand relations, so that very soon Terence knew not only what Rachel'saunts might be expected to say upon every occasion, but also howtheir bedrooms were furnished, and what kind of bonnets they wore.
　　He could sustain a conversation between Mrs. Hunt and Rachel, and carryon a tea-party including the Rev. William Johnson and Miss Macquoid,the Christian Scientists, with remarkable likeness to the truth.
　　But he had known many more people, and was far more highly skilledin the art of narrative than Rachel was, whose experiences were,for the most part, of a curiously childlike and humorous kind,so that it generally fell to her lot to listen and ask questions.
　　He told her not only what had happened, but what he had thought and felt,and sketched for her portraits which fascinated her of what other menand women might be supposed to be thinking and feeling, so that shebecame very anxious to go back to England, which was full of people,where she could merely stand in the streets and look at them.
　　According to him, too, there was an order, a pattern which madelife reasonable, or if that word was foolish, made it of deepinterest anyhow, for sometimes it seemed possible to understandwhy things happened as they did. Nor were people so solitaryand uncommunicative as she believed. She should look for vanity--for vanity was a common quality--first in herself, and thenin Helen, in Ridley, in St. John, they all had their share of it--and she would find it in ten people out of every twelve she met;and once linked together by one such tie she would find themnot separate and formidable, but practically indistinguishable,and she would come to love them when she found that they werelike herself.
　　If she denied this, she must defend her belief that human beingswere as various as the beasts at the Zoo, which had stripesand manes, and horns and humps; and so, wrestling over the entirelist of their acquaintances, and diverging into anecdoteand theory and speculation, they came to know each other.
　　The hours passed quickly, and seemed to them full to leaking-point.
　　After a night's solitude they were always ready to begin again.
　　The virtues which Mrs. Ambrose had once believed to existin free talk between men and women did in truth exist for bothof them, although not quite in the measure she prescribed.
　　Far more than upon the nature of sex they dwelt upon the natureof poetry, but it was true that talk which had no boundariesdeepened and enlarged the strangely small bright view of a girl.
　　In return for what he could tell her she brought him such curiosityand sensitiveness of perception, that he was led to doubtwhether any gift bestowed by much reading and living was quitethe equal of that for pleasure and pain. What would experiencegive her after all, except a kind of ridiculous formal balance,like that of a drilled dog in the street? He looked at her faceand wondered how it would look in twenty years' time, when the eyeshad dulled, and the forehead wore those little persistent wrinkleswhich seem to show that the middle-aged are facing something hardwhich the young do not see? What would the hard thing be for them,he wondered? Then his thoughts turned to their life in England.
　　The thought of England was delightful, for together they would seethe old things freshly; it would be England in June, and there would beJune nights in the country; and the nightingales singing in the lanes,into which they could steal when the room grew hot; and there wouldbe English meadows gleaming with water and set with stolid cows,and clouds dipping low and trailing across the green hills.
　　As he sat in the room with her, he wished very often to be backagain in the thick of life, doing things with Rachel.
　　He crossed to the window and exclaimed, "Lord, how good it is tothink of lanes, muddy lanes, with brambles and nettles, you know,and real grass fields, and farmyards with pigs and cows, and menwalking beside carts with pitchforks--there's nothing to comparewith that here--look at the stony red earth, and the bright blue sea,and the glaring white houses--how tired one gets of it! And the air,without a stain or a wrinkle. I'd give anything for a sea mist."Rachel, too, had been thinking of the English country: the flat landrolling away to the sea, and the woods and the long straight roads,where one can walk for miles without seeing any one, and the greatchurch towers and the curious houses clustered in the valleys,and the birds, and the dusk, and the rain falling against the windows.
　　"But London, London's the place," Terence continued. They lookedtogether at the carpet, as though London itself were to be seenthere lying on the floor, with all its spires and pinnacles prickingthrough the smoke.
　　"On the whole, what I should like best at this moment,"Terence pondered, "would be to find myself walking down Kingsway,by those big placards, you know, and turning into the Strand.
　　Perhaps I might go and look over Waterloo Bridge for a moment.
　　Then I'd go along the Strand past the shops with all the newbooks in them, and through the little archway into the Temple.
　　I always like the quiet after the uproar. You hear your own footstepssuddenly quite loud. The Temple's very pleasant. I think I shouldgo and see if I could find dear old Hodgkin--the man who writesbooks about Van Eyck, you know. When I left England he was very sadabout his tame magpie. He suspected that a man had poisoned it.
　　And then Russell lives on the next staircase. I think you'dlike him. He's a passion for Handel. Well, Rachel," he concluded,dismissing the vision of London, "we shall be doing that togetherin six weeks' time, and it'll be the middle of June then--and Junein London--my God! how pleasant it all is!""And we're certain to have it too," she said. "It isn't as if wewere expecting a great deal--only to walk about and look at things.""Only a thousand a year and perfect freedom," he replied.
　　"How many people in London d'you think have that?""And now you've spoilt it," she complained. "Now we've got to thinkof the horrors." She looked grudgingly at the novel which had oncecaused her perhaps an hour's discomfort, so that she had never openedit again, but kept it on her table, and looked at it occasionally,as some medieval monk kept a skull, or a crucifix to remind himof the frailty of the body.
　　"Is it true, Terence," she demanded, "that women die with bugscrawling across their faces?""I think it's very probable," he said. "But you must admit,Rachel, that we so seldom think of anything but ourselvesthat an occasional twinge is really rather pleasant."Accusing him of an affection of cynicism which was just as bad assentimentality itself, she left her position by his side and knelt uponthe window sill, twisting the curtain tassels between her fingers.
　　A vague sense of dissatisfaction filled her.
　　"What's so detestable in this country," she exclaimed, "is the blue--always blue sky and blue sea. It's like a curtain--all the thingsone wants are on the other side of that. I want to know what's goingon behind it. I hate these divisions, don't you, Terence? One personall in the dark about another person. Now I liked the Dalloways,"she continued, "and they're gone. I shall never see them again.
　　Just by going on a ship we cut ourselves off entirely from the restof the world. I want to see England there--London there--all sortsof people--why shouldn't one? why should one be shut up all by oneselfin a room?"While she spoke thus half to herself and with increasing vagueness,because her eye was caught by a ship that had just come into the bay,she did not see that Terence had ceased to stare contentedly in frontof him, and was looking at her keenly and with dissatisfaction.
　　She seemed to be able to cut herself adrift from him, and to pass awayto unknown places where she had no need of him. The thought rousedhis jealousy.
　　"I sometimes think you're not in love with me and never will be,"he said energetically. She started and turned round at his words.
　　"I don't satisfy you in the way you satisfy me," he continued.
　　"There's something I can't get hold of in you. You don't want meas I want you--you're always wanting something else."He began pacing up and down the room.
　　"Perhaps I ask too much," he went on. "Perhaps it isn't reallypossible to have what I want. Men and women are too different.
　　You can't understand--you don't understand--"He came up to where she stood looking at him in silence.
　　It seemed to her now that what he was saying was perfectly true,and that she wanted many more things than the love of one human being--the sea, the sky. She turned again the looked at the distant blue,which was so smooth and serene where the sky met the sea; she couldnot possibly want only one human being.
　　"Or is it only this damnable engagement?" he continued. "Let's bemarried here, before we go back--or is it too great a risk?
　　Are we sure we want to marry each other?"They began pacing up and down the room, but although they camevery near each other in their pacing, they took care not to toucheach other. The hopelessness of their position overcame them both.
　　They were impotent; they could never love each other sufficientlyto overcome all these barriers, and they could never be satisfiedwith less. Realising this with intolerable keenness she stoppedin front of him and exclaimed:
　　"Let's break it off, then."The words did more to unite them than any amount of argument.
　　As if they stood on the edge of a precipice they clung together.
　　They knew that they could not separate; painful and terrible itmight be, but they were joined for ever. They lapsed into silence,and after a time crept together in silence. Merely to be so closesoothed them, and sitting side by side the divisions disappeared,and it seemed as if the world were once more solid and entire, and as if,in some strange way, they had grown larger and stronger.
　　It was long before they moved, and when they moved it was withgreat reluctance. They stood together in front of the looking-glass,and with a brush tried to make themselves look as if they had beenfeeling nothing all the morning, neither pain nor happiness.
　　But it chilled them to see themselves in the glass, for instead ofbeing vast and indivisible they were really very small and separate,the size of the glass leaving a large space for the reflectionof other things.
Chapter 23
    But no brush was able to efface completely the expression of happiness,so that Mrs. Ambrose could not treat them when they came downstairs as ifthey had spent the morning in a way that could be discussed naturally.
　　This being so, she joined in the world's conspiracy to considerthem for the time incapacitated from the business of life,struck by their intensity of feeling into enmity against life,and almost succeeded in dismissing them from her thoughts.
　　She reflected that she had done all that it was necessary to do inpractical matters. She had written a great many letters, and had obtainedWilloughby's consent. She had dwelt so often upon Mr. Hewet's prospects,his profession, his birth, appearance, and temperament, that she hadalmost forgotten what he was really like. When she refreshed herselfby a look at him, she used to wonder again what he was like, and then,concluding that they were happy at any rate, thought no more about it.
　　She might more profitably consider what would happen in three years'
　　time, or what might have happened if Rachel had been leftto explore the world under her father's guidance. The result,she was honest enough to own, might have been better--who knows?
　　She did not disguise from herself that Terence had faults. She wasinclined to think him too easy and tolerant, just as he was inclinedto think her perhaps a trifle hard--no, it was rather that shewas uncompromising. In some ways she found St. John preferable;but then, of course, he would never have suited Rachel.
　　Her friendship with St. John was established, for although shefluctuated between irritation and interest in a way that did creditto the candour of her disposition, she liked his company on the whole.
　　He took her outside this little world of love and emotion.
　　He had a grasp of facts. Supposing, for instance, that England madea sudden move towards some unknown port on the coast of Morocco,St. John knew what was at the back of it, and to hear him engagedwith her husband in argument about finance and the balance of power,gave her an odd sense of stability. She respected their argumentswithout always listening to them, much as she respected a solidbrick wall, or one of those immense municipal buildings which,although they compose the greater part of our cities, have been builtday after day and year after year by unknown hands. She liked to sitand listen, and even felt a little elated when the engaged couple,after showing their profound lack of interest, slipped from the room,and were seen pulling flowers to pieces in the garden. It was notthat she was jealous of them, but she did undoubtedly envy themtheir great unknown future that lay before them. Slipping fromone such thought to another, she was at the dining-room with fruitin her hands. Sometimes she stopped to straighten a candle stoopingwith the heat, or disturbed some too rigid arrangement of the chairs.
　　She had reason to suspect that Chailey had been balancing herselfon the top of a ladder with a wet duster during their absence,and the room had never been quite like itself since. Returning fromthe dining-room for the third time, she perceived that one ofthe arm-chairs was now occupied by St. John. He lay back in it,with his eyes half shut, looking, as he always did, curiously buttonedup in a neat grey suit and fenced against the exuberance of a foreignclimate which might at any moment proceed to take liberties with him.
　　Her eyes rested on him gently and then passed on over his head.
　　Finally she took the chair opposite.
　　"I didn't want to come here," he said at last, "but I was positivelydriven to it. . . . Evelyn M.," he groaned.
　　He sat up, and began to explain with mock solemnity how the detestablewoman was set upon marrying him.
　　"She pursues me about the place. This morning she appearedin the smoking-room. All I could do was to seize my hat and fly.
　　I didn't want to come, but I couldn't stay and face another mealwith her.""Well, we must make the best of it," Helen replied philosophically.
　　It was very hot, and they were indifferent to any amount of silence,so that they lay back in their chairs waiting for something to happen.
　　The bell rang for luncheon, but there was no sound of movement inthe house. Was there any news? Helen asked; anything in the papers?
　　St. John shook his head. O yes, he had a letter from home, a letterfrom his mother, describing the suicide of the parlour-maid. Shewas called Susan Jane, and she came into the kitchen one afternoon,and said that she wanted cook to keep her money for her; she hadtwenty pounds in gold. Then she went out to buy herself a hat.
　　She came in at half-past five and said that she had taken poison.
　　They had only just time to get her into bed and call a doctor beforeshe died.
　　"Well?" Helen enquired.
　　"There'll have to be an inquest," said St. John.
　　Why had she done it? He shrugged his shoulders. Why do peoplekill themselves? Why do the lower orders do any of the thingsthey do do? Nobody knows. They sat in silence.
　　"The bell's run fifteen minutes and they're not down," said Helenat length.
　　When they appeared, St. John explained why it had been necessaryfor him to come to luncheon. He imitated Evelyn's enthusiastictone as she confronted him in the smoking-room. "She thinks therecan be nothing _quite_ so thrilling as mathematics, so I've lenther a large work in two volumes. It'll be interesting to seewhat she makes of it."Rachel could now afford to laugh at him. She reminded him of Gibbon;she had the first volume somewhere still; if he were undertakingthe education of Evelyn, that surely was the test; or she had heardthat Burke, upon the American Rebellion--Evelyn ought to read themboth simultaneously. When St. John had disposed of her argumentand had satisfied his hunger, he proceeded to tell them that thehotel was seething with scandals, some of the most appalling kind,which had happened in their absence; he was indeed much givento the study of his kind.
　　"Evelyn M., for example--but that was told me in confidence.""Nonsense!" Terence interposed.
　　"You've heard about poor Sinclair, too?""Oh, yes, I've heard about Sinclair. He's retired to his minewith a revolver. He writes to Evelyn daily that he's thinking ofcommitting suicide. I've assured her that he's never been so happyin his life, and, on the whole, she's inclined to agree with me.""But then she's entangled herself with Perrott," St. John continued;"and I have reason to think, from something I saw in the passage,that everything isn't as it should be between Arthur and Susan.
　　There's a young female lately arrived from Manchester. A very goodthing if it were broken off, in my opinion. Their married life issomething too horrible to contemplate.
　　Oh, and I distinctly heard old Mrs. Paley rapping out the mostfearful oaths as I passed her bedroom door. It's supposed that shetortures her maid in private--it's practically certain she does.
　　One can tell it from the look in her eyes.""When you're eighty and the gout tweezes you, you'll be swearinglike a trooper," Terence remarked. "You'll be very fat, very testy,very disagreeable. Can't you imagine him--bald as a coot, with a pairof sponge-bag trousers, a little spotted tie, and a corporation?"After a pause Hirst remarked that the worst infamy had stillto be told. He addressed himself to Helen.
　　"They've hoofed out the prostitute. One night while we were away thatold numskull Thornbury was doddering about the passages very late.
　　(Nobody seems to have asked him what _he_ was up to.) He sawthe Signora Lola Mendoza, as she calls herself, cross the passagein her nightgown. He communicated his suspicions next morningto Elliot, with the result that Rodriguez went to the woman andgave her twenty-four hours in which to clear out of the place.
　　No one seems to have enquired into the truth of the story, or tohave asked Thornbury and Elliot what business it was of theirs;they had it entirely their own way. I propose that we should allsign a Round Robin, go to Rodriguez in a body, and insist upona full enquiry. Something's got to be done, don't you agree?"Hewet remarked that there could be no doubt as to the lady's profession.
　　"Still," he added, "it's a great shame, poor woman; only I don'tsee what's to be done--""I quite agree with you, St. John," Helen burst out. "It's monstrous.
　　The hypocritical smugness of the English makes my blood boil.
　　A man who's made a fortune in trade as Mr. Thornbury has is boundto be twice as bad as any prostitute."She respected St. John's morality, which she took far more seriouslythan any one else did, and now entered into a discussion with himas to the steps that were to be taken to enforce their peculiarview of what was right. The argument led to some profoundlygloomy statements of a general nature. Who were they, after all--what authority had they--what power against the mass of superstitionand ignorance? It was the English, of course; there must be somethingwrong in the English blood. Directly you met an English person,of the middle classes, you were conscious of an indefinable sensationof loathing; directly you saw the brown crescent of houses above Dover,the same thing came over you. But unfortunately St. John added,you couldn't trust these foreigners--They were interrupted by sounds of strife at the further endof the table. Rachel appealed to her aunt.
　　"Terence says we must go to tea with Mrs. Thornbury because she'sbeen so kind, but I don't see it; in fact, I'd rather have my righthand sawn in pieces--just imagine! the eyes of all those women!""Fiddlesticks, Rachel," Terence replied. "Who wants to look at you?
　　You're consumed with vanity! You're a monster of conceit!
　　Surely, Helen, you ought to have taught her by this time that she'sa person of no conceivable importance whatever--not beautiful,or well dressed, or conspicuous for elegance or intellect,or deportment. A more ordinary sight than you are," he concluded,"except for the tear across your dress has never been seen.
　　However, stay at home if you want to. I'm going."She appealed again to her aunt. It wasn't the being looked at, she explained,but the things people were sure to say. The women in particular.
　　She liked women, but where emotion was concerned they were as flieson a lump of sugar. They would be certain to ask her questions.
　　Evelyn M. would say: "Are you in love? Is it nice being in love?"And Mrs. Thornbury--her eyes would go up and down, up and down--she shuddered at the thought of it. Indeed, the retirementof their life since their engagement had made her so sensitive,that she was not exaggerating her case.
　　She found an ally in Helen, who proceeded to expound her viewsof the human race, as she regarded with complacency the pyramidof variegated fruits in the centre of the table. It wasn'tthat they were cruel, or meant to hurt, or even stupid exactly;but she had always found that the ordinary person had so littleemotion in his own life that the scent of it in the lives of otherswas like the scent of blood in the nostrils of a bloodhound.
　　Warming to the theme, she continued:
　　"Directly anything happens--it may be a marriage, or a birth,or a death--on the whole they prefer it to be a death--every onewants to see you. They insist upon seeing you. They've gotnothing to say; they don't care a rap for you; but you've got to goto lunch or to tea or to dinner, and if you don't you're damned.
　　It's the smell of blood," she continued; "I don't blame 'em; onlythey shan't have mind if I know it!"She looked about her as if she had called up a legion of human beings,all hostile and all disagreeable, who encircled the table,with mouths gaping for blood, and made it appear a little islandof neutral country in the midst of the enemy's country.
　　Her words roused her husband, who had been muttering rhythmicallyto himself, surveying his guests and his food and his wife with eyesthat were now melancholy and now fierce, according to the fortunesof the lady in his ballad. He cut Helen short with a protest.
　　He hated even the semblance of cynicism in women. "Nonsense, nonsense,"he remarked abruptly.
　　Terence and Rachel glanced at each other across the table, which meantthat when they were married they would not behave like that.
　　The entrance of Ridley into the conversation had a strange effect.
　　It became at once more formal and more polite. It would have beenimpossible to talk quite easily of anything that came into their heads,and to say the word prostitute as simply as any other word.
　　The talk now turned upon literature and politics, and Ridley toldstories of the distinguished people he had known in his youth.
　　Such talk was of the nature of an art, and the personalitiesand informalities of the young were silenced. As they rose to go,Helen stopped for a moment, leaning her elbows on the table.
　　"You've all been sitting here," she said, "for almost an hour,and you haven't noticed my figs, or my flowers, or the waythe light comes through, or anything. I haven't been listening,because I've been looking at you. You looked very beautiful;I wish you'd go on sitting for ever."She led the way to the drawing-room, where she took up her embroidery,and began again to dissuade Terence from walking down to thehotel in this heat. But the more she dissuaded, the more hewas determined to go. He became irritated and obstinate.
　　There were moments when they almost disliked each other.
　　He wanted other people; he wanted Rachel, to see them with him.
　　He suspected that Mrs. Ambrose would now try to dissuade herfrom going. He was annoyed by all this space and shade and beauty,and Hirst, recumbent, drooping a magazine from his wrist.
　　"I'm going," he repeated. "Rachel needn't come unless she wants to.""If you go, Hewet, I wish you'd make enquiries about the prostitute,"said Hirst. "Look here," he added, "I'll walk half the way with you."Greatly to their surprise he raised himself, looked at his watch,and remarked that, as it was now half an hour since luncheon,the gastric juices had had sufficient time to secrete; he was tryinga system, he explained, which involved short spells of exerciseinterspaced by longer intervals of rest.
　　"I shall be back at four," he remarked to Helen, "when I shall liedown on the sofa and relax all my muscles completely.""So you're going, Rachel?" Helen asked. "You won't stay with me?"She smiled, but she might have been sad.
　　Was she sad, or was she really laughing? Rachel could not tell, and shefelt for the moment very uncomfortable between Helen and Terence.
　　Then she turned away, saying merely that she would go with Terence,on condition that he did all the talking.
　　A narrow border of shadow ran along the road, which was broadenough for two, but not broad enough for three. St. John thereforedropped a little behind the pair, and the distance betweenthem increased by degrees. Walking with a view to digestion,and with one eye upon his watch, he looked from time to time atthe pair in front of him. They seemed to be so happy, so intimate,although they were walking side by side much as other people walk.
　　They turned slightly toward each other now and then, and saidsomething which he thought must be something very private.
　　They were really disputing about Helen's character, and Terence wastrying to explain why it was that she annoyed him so much sometimes.
　　But St. John thought that they were saying things which they didnot want him to hear, and was led to think of his own isolation.
　　These people were happy, and in some ways he despised them forbeing made happy so simply, and in other ways he envied them.
　　He was much more remarkable than they were, but he was not happy.
　　People never liked him; he doubted sometimes whether even Helenliked him. To be simple, to be able to say simply what one felt,without the terrific self-consciousness which possessed him,and showed him his own face and words perpetually in a mirror,that would be worth almost any other gift, for it made one happy.
　　Happiness, happiness, what was happiness? He was never happy.
　　He saw too clearly the little vices and deceits and flawsof life, and, seeing them, it seemed to him honest to take noticeof them. That was the reason, no doubt, why people generallydisliked him, and complained that he was heartless and bitter.
　　Certainly they never told him the things he wanted to be told,that he was nice and kind, and that they liked him. But it wastrue that half the sharp things that he said about them were saidbecause he was unhappy or hurt himself. But he admitted that hehad very seldom told any one that he cared for them, and when hehad been demonstrative, he had generally regretted it afterwards.
　　His feelings about Terence and Rachel were so complicated that hehad never yet been able to bring himself to say that he was gladthat they were going to be married. He saw their faults so clearly,and the inferior nature of a great deal of their feeling foreach other, and he expected that their love would not last.
　　He looked at them again, and, very strangely, for he was so usedto thinking that he seldom saw anything, the look of them filled himwith a simple emotion of affection in which there were some tracesof pity also. What, after all, did people's faults matter in comparisonwith what was good in them? He resolved that he would now tell themwhat he felt. He quickened his pace and came up with them justas they reached the corner where the lane joined the main road.
　　They stood still and began to laugh at him, and to ask him whetherthe gastric juices--but he stopped them and began to speak very quicklyand stiffly.
　　"D'you remember the morning after the dance?" he demanded.
　　"It was here we sat, and you talked nonsense, and Rachel made littleheaps of stones. I, on the other hand, had the whole meaningof life revealed to me in a flash." He paused for a second,and drew his lips together in a tight little purse. "Love," he said.
　　"It seems to me to explain everything. So, on the whole, I'm very gladthat you two are going to be married." He then turned round abruptly,without looking at them, and walked back to the villa. He felt bothexalted and ashamed of himself for having thus said what he felt.
　　Probably they were laughing at him, probably they thought hima fool, and, after all, had he really said what he felt?
　　It was true that they laughed when he was gone; but the disputeabout Helen which had become rather sharp, ceased, and they becamepeaceful and friendly.
Chapter 24
    They reached the hotel rather early in the afternoon, so that mostpeople were still lying down, or sitting speechless in their bedrooms,and Mrs. Thornbury, although she had asked them to tea, was nowhereto be seen. They sat down, therefore, in the shady hall,which was almost empty, and full of the light swishing sounds ofair going to and fro in a large empty space. Yes, this arm-chairwas the same arm-chair in which Rachel had sat that afternoon whenEvelyn came up, and this was the magazine she had been looking at,and this the very picture, a picture of New York by lamplight.
　　How odd it seemed--nothing had changed.
　　By degrees a certain number of people began to come down the stairsand to pass through the hall, and in this dim light their figurespossessed a sort of grace and beauty, although they were allunknown people. Sometimes they went straight through and out intothe garden by the swing door, sometimes they stopped for a few minutesand bent over the tables and began turning over the newspapers.
　　Terence and Rachel sat watching them through their half-closed eyelids--the Johnsons, the Parkers, the Baileys, the Simmons', the Lees,the Morleys, the Campbells, the Gardiners. Some were dressedin white flannels and were carrying racquets under their arms,some were short, some tall, some were only children, and some perhapswere servants, but they all had their standing, their reason forfollowing each other through the hall, their money, their position,whatever it might be. Terence soon gave up looking at them,for he was tired; and, closing his eyes, he fell half asleepin his chair. Rachel watched the people for some time longer;she was fascinated by the certainty and the grace of their movements,and by the inevitable way in which they seemed to follow each other,and loiter and pass on and disappear. But after a time her thoughtswandered, and she began to think of the dance, which had been heldin this room, only then the room itself looked quite different.
　　Glancing round, she could hardly believe that it was the same room.
　　It had looked so bare and so bright and formal on that nightwhen they came into it out of the darkness; it had been filled,too, with little red, excited faces, always moving, and people sobrightly dressed and so animated that they did not seem in the leastlike real people, nor did you feel that you could talk to them.
　　And now the room was dim and quiet, and beautiful silent peoplepassed through it, to whom you could go and say anything you liked.
　　She felt herself amazingly secure as she sat in her arm-chair, andable to review not only the night of the dance, but the entire past,tenderly and humorously, as if she had been turning in a fogfor a long time, and could now see exactly where she had turned.
　　For the methods by which she had reached her present position,seemed to her very strange, and the strangest thing about themwas that she had not known where they were leading her. That wasthe strange thing, that one did not know where one was going,or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret,always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing ledto another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing,and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty,and it was this process that people called living. Perhaps, then,every one really knew as she knew now where they were going;and things formed themselves into a pattern not only for her,but for them, and in that pattern lay satisfaction and meaning.
　　When she looked back she could see that a meaning of some kindwas apparent in the lives of her aunts, and in the brief visitof the Dalloways whom she would never see again, and in the life ofher father.
　　The sound of Terence, breathing deep in his slumber, confirmed herin her calm. She was not sleepy although she did not see anythingvery distinctly, but although the figures passing through the hallbecame vaguer and vaguer, she believed that they all knew exactlywhere they were going, and the sense of their certainty filled herwith comfort. For the moment she was as detached and disinterestedas if she had no longer any lot in life, and she thought that shecould now accept anything that came to her without being perplexedby the form in which it appeared. What was there to frighten orto perplex in the prospect of life? Why should this insight everagain desert her? The world was in truth so large, so hospitable,and after all it was so simple. "Love," St. John had said, "that seemsto explain it all." Yes, but it was not the love of man for woman,of Terence for Rachel. Although they sat so close together, they hadceased to be little separate bodies; they had ceased to struggleand desire one another. There seemed to be peace between them.
　　It might be love, but it was not the love of man for woman.
　　Through her half-closed eyelids she watched Terence lying backin his chair, and she smiled as she saw how big his mouth was,and his chin so small, and his nose curved like a switchbackwith a knob at the end. Naturally, looking like that he was lazy,and ambitious, and full of moods and faults. She rememberedtheir quarrels, and in particular how they had been quarreling aboutHelen that very afternoon, and she thought how often they wouldquarrel in the thirty, or forty, or fifty years in which they wouldbe living in the same house together, catching trains together,and getting annoyed because they were so different. But all thiswas superficial, and had nothing to do with the life that wenton beneath the eyes and the mouth and the chin, for that lifewas independent of her, and independent of everything else.
　　So too, although she was going to marry him and to live with himfor thirty, or forty, or fifty years, and to quarrel, and to beso close to him, she was independent of him; she was independentof everything else. Nevertheless, as St. John said, it was love thatmade her understand this, for she had never felt this independence,this calm, and this certainty until she fell in love with him,and perhaps this too was love. She wanted nothing else.
　　For perhaps two minutes Miss Allan had been standing at a little distancelooking at the couple lying back so peacefully in their arm-chairs.
　　She could not make up her mind whether to disturb them or not,and then, seeming to recollect something, she came across the hall.
　　The sound of her approach woke Terence, who sat up and rubbed his eyes.
　　He heard Miss Allan talking to Rachel.
　　"Well," she was saying, "this is very nice. It is very nice indeed.
　　Getting engaged seems to be quite the fashion. It cannot oftenhappen that two couples who have never seen each other before meetin the same hotel and decide to get married." Then she pausedand smiled, and seemed to have nothing more to say, so that Terencerose and asked her whether it was true that she had finished her book.
　　Some one had said that she had really finished it. Her face lit up;she turned to him with a livelier expression than usual.
　　"Yes, I think I can fairly say I have finished it," she said.
　　"That is, omitting Swinburne--Beowulf to Browning--I ratherlike the two B's myself. Beowulf to Browning," she repeated,"I think that is the kind of title which might catch one's eye ona railway book-stall."She was indeed very proud that she had finished her book, for no oneknew what an amount of determination had gone to the making of it.
　　Also she thought that it was a good piece of work, and, consideringwhat anxiety she had been in about her brother while she wrote it,she could not resist telling them a little more about it.
　　"I must confess," she continued, "that if I had known how manyclassics there are in English literature, and how verbose the bestof them contrive to be, I should never have undertaken the work.
　　They only allow one seventy thousand words, you see.""Only seventy thousand words!" Terence exclaimed.
　　"Yes, and one has to say something about everybody," Miss Allan added.
　　"That is what I find so difficult, saying something differentabout everybody." Then she thought that she had said enoughabout herself, and she asked whether they had come down to jointhe tennis tournament. "The young people are very keen about it.
　　It begins again in half an hour."Her gaze rested benevolently upon them both, and, after a momentarypause, she remarked, looking at Rachel as if she had rememberedsomething that would serve to keep her distinct from other people.
　　"You're the remarkable person who doesn't like ginger." But thekindness of the smile in her rather worn and courageous face made themfeel that although she would scarcely remember them as individuals,she had laid upon them the burden of the new generation.
　　"And in that I quite agree with her," said a voice behind;Mrs. Thornbury had overheard the last few words about not liking ginger.
　　"It's associated in my mind with a horrid old aunt of ours (poor thing,she suffered dreadfully, so it isn't fair to call her horrid)who used to give it to us when we were small, and we never hadthe courage to tell her we didn't like it. We just had to putit out in the shrubbery--she had a big house near Bath."They began moving slowly across the hall, when they were stoppedby the impact of Evelyn, who dashed into them, as though in runningdownstairs to catch them her legs had got beyond her control.
　　"Well," she exclaimed, with her usual enthusiasm, seizing Rachelby the arm, "I call this splendid! I guessed it was going to happenfrom the very beginning! I saw you two were made for each other.
　　Now you've just got to tell me all about it--when's it to be,where are you going to live--are you both tremendously happy?"But the attention of the group was diverted to Mrs. Elliot,who was passing them with her eager but uncertain movement,carrying in her hands a plate and an empty hot-water bottle.
　　She would have passed them, but Mrs. Thornbury went up and stopped her.
　　"Thank you, Hughling's better," she replied, in answer to Mrs. Thornbury'senquiry, "but he's not an easy patient. He wants to know what histemperature is, and if I tell him he gets anxious, and if I don'ttell him he suspects. You know what men are when they're ill!
　　And of course there are none of the proper appliances, and, though heseems very willing and anxious to help" (here she lowered her voicemysteriously), "one can't feel that Dr. Rodriguez is the sameas a proper doctor. If you would come and see him, Mr. Hewet,"she added, "I know it would cheer him up--lying there in bed all day--and the flies--But I must go and find Angelo--the food here--of course, with an invalid, one wants things particularly nice."And she hurried past them in search of the head waiter. The worryof nursing her husband had fixed a plaintive frown upon her forehead;she was pale and looked unhappy and more than usually inefficient,and her eyes wandered more vaguely than ever from point to point.
　　"Poor thing!" Mrs. Thornbury exclaimed. She told them that for somedays Hughling Elliot had been ill, and the only doctor availablewas the brother of the proprietor, or so the proprietor said,whose right to the title of doctor was not above suspicion.
　　"I know how wretched it is to be ill in a hotel," Mrs. Thornburyremarked, once more leading the way with Rachel to the garden.
　　"I spent six weeks on my honeymoon in having typhoid at Venice,"she continued. "But even so, I look back upon them as some of thehappiest weeks in my life. Ah, yes," she said, taking Rachel's arm,"you think yourself happy now, but it's nothing to the happinessthat comes afterwards. And I assure you I could find it in my heartto envy you young people! You've a much better time than we had,I may tell you. When I look back upon it, I can hardly believehow things have changed. When we were engaged I wasn't allowed to gofor walks with William alone--some one had always to be in the roomwith us--I really believe I had to show my parents all his letters!--though they were very fond of him too. Indeed, I may say theylooked upon him as their own son. It amuses me," she continued,"to think how strict they were to us, when I see how they spoiltheir grand-children!"The table was laid under the tree again, and taking her placebefore the teacups, Mrs. Thornbury beckoned and nodded until she hadcollected quite a number of people, Susan and Arthur and Mr. Pepper,who were strolling about, waiting for the tournament to begin.
　　A murmuring tree, a river brimming in the moonlight, Terence's wordscame back to Rachel as she sat drinking the tea and listeningto the words which flowed on so lightly, so kindly, and with suchsilvery smoothness. This long life and all these children hadleft her very smooth; they seemed to have rubbed away the marksof individuality, and to have left only what was old and maternal.
　　"And the things you young people are going to see!"Mrs. Thornbury continued. She included them all in her forecast,she included them all in her maternity, although the partycomprised William Pepper and Miss Allan, both of whom mighthave been supposed to have seen a fair share of the panorama.
　　"When I see how the world has changed in my lifetime," she went on,"I can set no limit to what may happen in the next fifty years.
　　Ah, no, Mr. Pepper, I don't agree with you in the least," she laughed,interrupting his gloomy remark about things going steadilyfrom bad to worse. "I know I ought to feel that, but I don't,I'm afraid. They're going to be much better people than we were.
　　Surely everything goes to prove that. All round me I see women,young women, women with household cares of every sort, going outand doing things that we should not have thought it possible to do."Mr. Pepper thought her sentimental and irrational like all old women,but her manner of treating him as if he were a cross old baby baffledhim and charmed him, and he could only reply to her with a curiousgrimace which was more a smile than a frown.
　　"And they remain women," Mrs. Thornbury added. "They give a greatdeal to their children."As she said this she smiled slightly in the direction of Susanand Rachel. They did not like to be included in the same lot,but they both smiled a little self-consciously, and Arthur and Terenceglanced at each other too. She made them feel that they were all inthe same boat together, and they looked at the women they were goingto marry and compared them. It was inexplicable how any one couldwish to marry Rachel, incredible that any one should be ready to spendhis life with Susan; but singular though the other's taste must be,they bore each other no ill-will on account of it; indeed, they likedeach other rather the better for the eccentricity of their choice.
　　"I really must congratulate you," Susan remarked, as she leantacross the table for the jam.
　　There seemed to be no foundation for St. John's gossip about Arthurand Susan. Sunburnt and vigorous they sat side by side, with theirracquets across their knees, not saying much but smiling slightlyall the time. Through the thin white clothes which they wore, it waspossible to see the lines of their bodies and legs, the beautifulcurves of their muscles, his leanness and her flesh, and it wasnatural to think of the firm-fleshed sturdy children that wouldbe theirs. Their faces had too little shape in them to be beautiful,but they had clear eyes and an appearance of great health and powerof endurance, for it seemed as if the blood would never ceaseto run in his veins, or to lie deeply and calmly in her cheeks.
　　Their eyes at the present moment were brighter than usual, and worethe peculiar expression of pleasure and self-confidence which isseen in the eyes of athletes, for they had been playing tennis,and they were both first-rate at the game.
　　Evelyn had not spoken, but she had been looking from Susanto Rachel. Well--they had both made up their minds very easily,they had done in a very few weeks what it sometimes seemed to herthat she would never be able to do. Although they were so different,she thought that she could see in each the same look of satisfactionand completion, the same calmness of manner, and the same slownessof movement. It was that slowness, that confidence, that contentwhich she hated, she thought to herself. They moved so slowlybecause they were not single but double, and Susan was attachedto Arthur, and Rachel to Terence, and for the sake of this one manthey had renounced all other men, and movement, and the real thingsof life. Love was all very well, and those snug domestic houses,with the kitchen below and the nursery above, which were so secludedand self-contained, like little islands in the torrents of the world;but the real things were surely the things that happened, the causes,the wars, the ideals, which happened in the great world outside,and went so independently of these women, turning so quietly andbeautifully towards the men. She looked at them sharply. Of coursethey were happy and content, but there must be better things than that.
　　Surely one could get nearer to life, one could get more out of life,one could enjoy more and feel more than they would ever do.
　　Rachel in particular looked so young--what could she know of life?
　　She became restless, and getting up, crossed over to sit beside Rachel.
　　She reminded her that she had promised to join her club.
　　"The bother is," she went on, "that I mayn't be able to start workseriously till October. I've just had a letter from a friend of minewhose brother is in business in Moscow. They want me to stay with them,and as they're in the thick of all the conspiracies and anarchists,I've a good mind to stop on my way home. It sounds too thrilling."She wanted to make Rachel see how thrilling it was. "My friendknows a girl of fifteen who's been sent to Siberia for life merelybecause they caught her addressing a letter to an anarchist.
　　And the letter wasn't from her, either. I'd give all I have inthe world to help on a revolution against the Russian government,and it's bound to come."She looked from Rachel to Terence. They were both a little touchedby the sight of her remembering how lately they had been listeningto evil words about her, and Terence asked her what her scheme was,and she explained that she was going to found a club--a club fordoing things, really doing them. She became very animated, as shetalked on and on, for she professed herself certain that if oncetwenty people--no, ten would be enough if they were keen--set aboutdoing things instead of talking about doing them, they could abolishalmost every evil that exists. It was brains that were needed.
　　If only people with brains--of course they would want a room,a nice room, in Bloomsbury preferably, where they could meet oncea week. . . .
　　As she talked Terence could see the traces of fading youth in her face,the lines that were being drawn by talk and excitement round her mouthand eyes, but he did not pity her; looking into those bright, rather hard,and very courageous eyes, he saw that she did not pity herself,or feel any desire to exchange her own life for the more refinedand orderly lives of people like himself and St. John, although,as the years went by, the fight would become harder and harder.
　　Perhaps, though, she would settle down; perhaps, after all,she would marry Perrott. While his mind was half occupied withwhat she was saying, he thought of her probable destiny, the lightclouds of tobacco smoke serving to obscure his face from her eyes.
　　Terence smoked and Arthur smoked and Evelyn smoked, so that the airwas full of the mist and fragrance of good tobacco. In the intervalswhen no one spoke, they heard far off the low murmur of the sea,as the waves quietly broke and spread the beach with a film of water,and withdrew to break again. The cool green light fell throughthe leaves of the tree, and there were soft crescents and diamondsof sunshine upon the plates and the tablecloth. Mrs. Thornbury,after watching them all for a time in silence, began to ask Rachelkindly questions--When did they all go back? Oh, they expectedher father. She must want to see her father--there would be agreat deal to tell him, and (she looked sympathetically at Terence)he would be so happy, she felt sure. Years ago, she continued,it might have been ten or twenty years ago, she remembered meetingMr. Vinrace at a party, and, being so much struck by his face,which was so unlike the ordinary face one sees at a party, that shehad asked who he was, and she was told that it was Mr. Vinrace,and she had always remembered the name,--an uncommon name,--and hehad a lady with him, a very sweet-looking woman, but it was one ofthose dreadful London crushes, where you don't talk,--you only lookat each other,--and although she had shaken hands with Mr. Vinrace,she didn't think they had said anything. She sighed very slightly,remembering the past.
　　Then she turned to Mr. Pepper, who had become very dependent on her,so that he always chose a seat near her, and attended to what shewas saying, although he did not often make any remark of his own.
　　"You who know everything, Mr. Pepper," she said, "tell us how didthose wonderful French ladies manage their salons? Did we everdo anything of the same kind in England, or do you think that thereis some reason why we cannot do it in England?"Mr. Pepper was pleased to explain very accurately why there hasnever been an English salon. There were three reasons, and they werevery good ones, he said. As for himself, when he went to a party,as one was sometimes obliged to, from a wish not to give offence--his niece, for example, had been married the other day--he walkedinto the middle of the room, said "Ha! ha!" as loud as ever he could,considered that he had done his duty, and walked away again.
　　Mrs. Thornbury protested. She was going to give a party directlyshe got back, and they were all to be invited, and she should setpeople to watch Mr. Pepper, and if she heard that he had been caughtsaying "Ha! ha!" she would--she would do something very dreadfulindeed to him. Arthur Venning suggested that what she must dowas to rig up something in the nature of a surprise--a portrait,for example, of a nice old lady in a lace cap, concealing a bathof cold water, which at a signal could be sprung on Pepper's head;or they'd have a chair which shot him twenty feet high directly he saton it.
　　Susan laughed. She had done her tea; she was feeling very wellcontented, partly because she had been playing tennis brilliantly,and then every one was so nice; she was beginning to find it so mucheasier to talk, and to hold her own even with quite clever people,for somehow clever people did not frighten her any more.
　　Even Mr. Hirst, whom she had disliked when she first met him,really wasn't disagreeable; and, poor man, he always looked so ill;perhaps he was in love; perhaps he had been in love with Rachel--she really shouldn't wonder; or perhaps it was Evelyn--she was ofcourse very attractive to men. Leaning forward, she went on withthe conversation. She said that she thought that the reason whyparties were so dull was mainly because gentlemen will not dress:
　　even in London, she stated, it struck her very much how peopledon't think it necessary to dress in the evening, and of courseif they don't dress in London they won't dress in the country.
　　It was really quite a treat at Christmas-time when there werethe Hunt balls, and the gentlemen wore nice red coats, but Arthurdidn't care for dancing, so she supposed that they wouldn't goeven to the ball in their little country town. She didn't thinkthat people who were fond of one sport often care for another,although her father was an exception. But then he was an exceptionin every way--such a gardener, and he knew all about birds and animals,and of course he was simply adored by all the old women in the village,and at the same time what he really liked best was a book.
　　You always knew where to find him if he were wanted; he would bein his study with a book. Very likely it would be an old, old book,some fusty old thing that no one else would dream of reading.
　　She used to tell him that he would have made a first-rate old bookwormif only he hadn't had a family of six to support, and six children,she added, charmingly confident of universal sympathy, didn't leaveone much time for being a bookworm.
　　Still talking about her father, of whom she was very proud, she rose,for Arthur upon looking at his watch found that it was time theywent back again to the tennis court. The others did not move.
　　"They're very happy!" said Mrs. Thornbury, looking benignantlyafter them. Rachel agreed; they seemed to be so certain of themselves;they seemed to know exactly what they wanted.
　　"D'you think they _are_ happy?" Evelyn murmured to Terence inan undertone, and she hoped that he would say that he did not thinkthem happy; but, instead, he said that they must go too--go home,for they were always being late for meals, and Mrs. Ambrose,who was very stern and particular, didn't like that. Evelyn laidhold of Rachel's skirt and protested. Why should they go?
　　It was still early, and she had so many things to say to them.
　　"No," said Terence, "we must go, because we walk so slowly. We stopand look at things, and we talk.""What d'you talk about?" Evelyn enquired, upon which he laughedand said that they talked about everything.
　　Mrs. Thornbury went with them to the gate, trailing very slowlyand gracefully across the grass and the gravel, and talking allthe time about flowers and birds. She told them that she had taken upthe study of botany since her daughter married, and it was wonderfulwhat a number of flowers there were which she had never seen,although she had lived in the country all her life and she was nowseventy-two. It was a good thing to have some occupation which wasquite independent of other people, she said, when one got old.
　　But the odd thing was that one never felt old. She always felt thatshe was twenty-five, not a day more or a day less, but, of course,one couldn't expect other people to agree to that.
　　"It must be very wonderful to be twenty-five, and not merely toimagine that you're twenty-five," she said, looking from one to theother with her smooth, bright glance. "It must be very wonderful,very wonderful indeed." She stood talking to them at the gatefor a long time; she seemed reluctant that they should go.
Chapter 25
    The afternoon was very hot, so hot that the breaking of the waves onthe shore sounded like the repeated sigh of some exhausted creature,and even on the terrace under an awning the bricks were hot,and the air danced perpetually over the short dry grass.
　　The red flowers in the stone basins were drooping with the heat,and the white blossoms which had been so smooth and thick only a fewweeks ago were now dry, and their edges were curled and yellow.
　　Only the stiff and hostile plants of the south, whose fleshy leavesseemed to be grown upon spines, still remained standing uprightand defied the sun to beat them down. It was too hot to talk,and it was not easy to find any book that would withstand the powerof the sun. Many books had been tried and then let fall, and nowTerence was reading Milton aloud, because he said the words of Miltonhad substance and shape, so that it was not necessary to understandwhat he was saying; one could merely listen to his words; one couldalmost handle them.
　　There is a gentle nymph not far from hence,he read,That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream.
　　Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure;Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine,That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
　　The words, in spite of what Terence had said, seemed to be ladenwith meaning, and perhaps it was for this reason that it was painfulto listen to them; they sounded strange; they meant different thingsfrom what they usually meant. Rachel at any rate could not keepher attention fixed upon them, but went off upon curious trains ofthought suggested by words such as "curb" and "Locrine" and "Brute,"which brought unpleasant sights before her eyes, independently oftheir meaning. Owing to the heat and the dancing air the gardentoo looked strange--the trees were either too near or too far,and her head almost certainly ached. She was not quite certain,and therefore she did not know, whether to tell Terence now,or to let him go on reading. She decided that she would wait untilhe came to the end of a stanza, and if by that time she had turnedher head this way and that, and it ached in every position undoubtedly,she would say very calmly that her head ached.
　　Sabrina fair,Listen where thou art sittingUnder the glassy, cool, translucent wave,In twisted braids of lilies knittingThe loose train of thy amber dropping hair,Listen for dear honour's sake,Goddess of the silver lake,Listen and save!
　　But her head ached; it ached whichever way she turned it.
　　She sat up and said as she had determined, "My head aches so thatI shall go indoors." He was half-way through the next verse,but he dropped the book instantly.
　　"Your head aches?" he repeated.
　　For a few moments they sat looking at one another in silence,holding each other's hands. During this time his sense of dismayand catastrophe were almost physically painful; all round him heseemed to hear the shiver of broken glass which, as it fell to earth,left him sitting in the open air. But at the end of two minutes,noticing that she was not sharing his dismay, but was only rathermore languid and heavy-eyed than usual, he recovered, fetched Helen,and asked her to tell him what they had better do, for Rachel hada headache.
　　Mrs. Ambrose was not discomposed, but advised that she should goto bed, and added that she must expect her head to ache if she sat upto all hours and went out in the heat, but a few hours in bed wouldcure it completely. Terence was unreasonably reassured by her words,as he had been unreasonably depressed the moment before. Helen's senseseemed to have much in common with the ruthless good sense of nature,which avenged rashness by a headache, and, like nature's good sense,might be depended upon.
　　Rachel went to bed; she lay in the dark, it seemed to her,for a very long time, but at length, waking from a transparentkind of sleep, she saw the windows white in front of her,and recollected that some time before she had gone to bed witha headache, and that Helen had said it would be gone when she woke.
　　She supposed, therefore, that she was now quite well again.
　　At the same time the wall of her room was painfully white,and curved slightly, instead of being straight and flat. Turning hereyes to the window, she was not reassured by what she saw there.
　　The movement of the blind as it filled with air and blew slowly out,drawing the cord with a little trailing sound along the floor, seemed toher terrifying, as if it were the movement of an animal in the room.
　　She shut her eyes, and the pulse in her head beat so stronglythat each thump seemed to tread upon a nerve, piercing her foreheadwith a little stab of pain. It might not be the same headache,but she certainly had a headache. She turned from side to side,in the hope that the coolness of the sheets would cure her, and thatwhen she next opened her eyes to look the room would be as usual.
　　After a considerable number of vain experiments, she resolved to putthe matter beyond a doubt. She got out of bed and stood upright,holding on to the brass ball at the end of the bedstead.
　　Ice-cold at first, it soon became as hot as the palm of her hand,and as the pains in her head and body and the instability of the floorproved that it would be far more intolerable to stand and walkthan to lie in bed, she got into bed again; but though the changewas refreshing at first, the discomfort of bed was soon as greatas the discomfort of standing up. She accepted the idea that shewould have to stay in bed all day long, and as she laid her headon the pillow, relinquished the happiness of the day.
　　When Helen came in an hour or two later, suddenly stopped hercheerful words, looked startled for a second and then unnaturally calm,the fact that she was ill was put beyond a doubt. It was confirmedwhen the whole household knew of it, when the song that someone was singing in the garden stopped suddenly, and when Maria,as she brought water, slipped past the bed with averted eyes.
　　There was all the morning to get through, and then all the afternoon,and at intervals she made an effort to cross over into the ordinary world,but she found that her heat and discomfort had put a gulf betweenher world and the ordinary world which she could not bridge.
　　At one point the door opened, and Helen came in with a littledark man who had--it was the chief thing she noticed about him--very hairy hands. She was drowsy and intolerably hot, and as heseemed shy and obsequious she scarcely troubled to answer him,although she understood that he was a doctor. At another pointthe door opened and Terence came in very gently, smiling too steadily,as she realised, for it to be natural. He sat down and talked to her,stroking her hands until it became irksome to her to lie any morein the same position and she turned round, and when she looked upagain Helen was beside her and Terence had gone. It did not matter;she would see him to-morrow when things would be ordinary again.
　　Her chief occupation during the day was to try to remember how thelines went:
　　Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,In twisted braids of lilies knittingThe loose train of thy amber dropping hair;and the effort worried her because the adjectives persistedin getting into the wrong places.
　　The second day did not differ very much from the first day,except that her bed had become very important, and the world outside,when she tried to think of it, appeared distinctly further off.
　　The glassy, cool, translucent wave was almost visible before her,curling up at the end of the bed, and as it was refreshingly coolshe tried to keep her mind fixed upon it. Helen was here, and Helenwas there all day long; sometimes she said that it was lunchtime,and sometimes that it was teatime; but by the next day all landmarkswere obliterated, and the outer world was so far away that thedifferent sounds, such as the sounds of people moving overhead,could only be ascribed to their cause by a great effort of memory.
　　The recollection of what she had felt, or of what she had beendoing and thinking three days before, had faded entirely.
　　On the other hand, every object in the room, and the bed itself,and her own body with its various limbs and their different sensationswere more and more important each day. She was completely cut off,and unable to communicate with the rest of the world, isolated alonewith her body.
　　Hours and hours would pass thus, without getting any further throughthe morning, or again a few minutes would lead from broad daylight tothe depths of the night. One evening when the room appeared very dim,either because it was evening or because the blinds were drawn,Helen said to her, "Some one is going to sit here to-night. Youwon't mind?"Opening her eyes, Rachel saw not only Helen but a nurse in spectacles,whose face vaguely recalled something that she had once seen.
　　She had seen her in the chapel. "Nurse McInnis," said Helen,and the nurse smiled steadily as they all did, and said that shedid not find many people who were frightened of her. After waitingfor a moment they both disappeared, and having turned on her pillowRachel woke to find herself in the midst of one of those interminablenights which do not end at twelve, but go on into the double figures--thirteen, fourteen, and so on until they reach the twenties,and then the thirties, and then the forties. She realised thatthere is nothing to prevent nights from doing this if they choose.
　　At a great distance an elderly woman sat with her head bent down;Rachel raised herself slightly and saw with dismay that she was playingcards by the light of a candle which stood in the hollow of a newspaper.
　　The sight had something inexplicably sinister about it, and shewas terrified and cried out, upon which the woman laid down hercards and came across the room, shading the candle with her hands.
　　Coming nearer and nearer across the great space of the room,she stood at last above Rachel's head and said, "Not asleep?
　　Let me make you comfortable."She put down the candle and began to arrange the bedclothes.
　　It struck Rachel that a woman who sat playing cards in a cavern allnight long would have very cold hands, and she shrunk from the touchof them.
　　"Why, there's a toe all the way down there!" the woman said,proceeding to tuck in the bedclothes. Rachel did not realisethat the toe was hers.
　　"You must try and lie still," she proceeded, "because if you lie stillyou will be less hot, and if you toss about you will make yourselfmore hot, and we don't want you to be any hotter than you are."She stood looking down upon Rachel for an enormous length of time.
　　"And the quieter you lie the sooner you will be well," she repeated.
　　Rachel kept her eyes fixed upon the peaked shadow on the ceiling,and all her energy was concentrated upon the desire that this shadowshould move. But the shadow and the woman seemed to be eternally fixedabove her. She shut her eyes. When she opened them again severalmore hours had passed, but the night still lasted interminably.
　　The woman was still playing cards, only she sat now in a tunnelunder a river, and the light stood in a little archway in the wallabove her. She cried "Terence!" and the peaked shadow again movedacross the ceiling, as the woman with an enormous slow movement rose,and they both stood still above her.
　　"It's just as difficult to keep you in bed as it was to keepMr. Forrest in bed," the woman said, "and he was such a tall gentleman."In order to get rid of this terrible stationary sight Rachel againshut her eyes, and found herself walking through a tunnel underthe Thames, where there were little deformed women sitting in archwaysplaying cards, while the bricks of which the wall was made oozedwith damp, which collected into drops and slid down the wall.
　　But the little old women became Helen and Nurse McInnis after a time,standing in the window together whispering, whispering incessantly.
　　Meanwhile outside her room the sounds, the movements, and the lives ofthe other people in the house went on in the ordinary light of the sun,throughout the usual succession of hours. When, on the first dayof her illness, it became clear that she would not be absolutely well,for her temperature was very high, until Friday, that daybeing Tuesday, Terence was filled with resentment, not against her,but against the force outside them which was separating them.
　　He counted up the number of days that would almost certainly bespoilt for them. He realised, with an odd mixture of pleasureand annoyance, that, for the first time in his life, he was sodependent upon another person that his happiness was in her keeping.
　　The days were completely wasted upon trifling, immaterial things,for after three weeks of such intimacy and intensity all the usualoccupations were unbearably flat and beside the point. The leastintolerable occupation was to talk to St. John about Rachel's illness,and to discuss every symptom and its meaning, and, when this subjectwas exhausted, to discuss illness of all kinds, and what caused them,and what cured them.
　　Twice every day he went in to sit with Rachel, and twiceevery day the same thing happened. On going into her room,which was not very dark, where the music was lying about as usual,and her books and letters, his spirits rose instantly. When hesaw her he felt completely reassured. She did not look very ill.
　　Sitting by her side he would tell her what he had been doing,using his natural voice to speak to her, only a few tones lowerdown than usual; but by the time he had sat there for five minuteshe was plunged into the deepest gloom. She was not the same;he could not bring them back to their old relationship; but althoughhe knew that it was foolish he could not prevent himself fromendeavouring to bring her back, to make her remember, and when thisfailed he was in despair. He always concluded as he left her roomthat it was worse to see her than not to see her, but by degrees,as the day wore on, the desire to see her returned and became almosttoo great to be borne.
　　On Thursday morning when Terence went into her room he felt the usualincrease of confidence. She turned round and made an effort to remembercertain facts from the world that was so many millions of miles away.
　　"You have come up from the hotel?" she asked.
　　"No; I'm staying here for the present," he said. "We've justhad luncheon," he continued, "and the mail has come in.
　　There's a bundle of letters for you--letters from England."Instead of saying, as he meant her to say, that she wished to see them,she said nothing for some time.
　　"You see, there they go, rolling off the edge of the hill,"she said suddenly.
　　"Rolling, Rachel? What do you see rolling? There's nothing rolling.""The old woman with the knife," she replied, not speaking to Terencein particular, and looking past him. As she appeared to be lookingat a vase on the shelf opposite, he rose and took it down.
　　"Now they can't roll any more," he said cheerfully. Nevertheless shelay gazing at the same spot, and paid him no further attentionalthough he spoke to her. He became so profoundly wretched that hecould not endure to sit with her, but wandered about until hefound St. John, who was reading _The_ _Times_ in the verandah.
　　He laid it aside patiently, and heard all that Terence had to sayabout delirium. He was very patient with Terence. He treated himlike a child.
　　By Friday it could not be denied that the illness was no longeran attack that would pass off in a day or two; it was a real illnessthat required a good deal of organisation, and engrossed the attentionof at least five people, but there was no reason to be anxious.
　　Instead of lasting five days it was going to last ten days.
　　Rodriguez was understood to say that there were well-known varietiesof this illness. Rodriguez appeared to think that they were treatingthe illness with undue anxiety. His visits were always markedby the same show of confidence, and in his interviews with Terencehe always waved aside his anxious and minute questions with a kindof flourish which seemed to indicate that they were all taking itmuch too seriously. He seemed curiously unwilling to sit down.
　　"A high temperature," he said, looking furtively about the room,and appearing to be more interested in the furniture and in Helen'sembroidery than in anything else. "In this climate you mustexpect a high temperature. You need not be alarmed by that.
　　It is the pulse we go by" (he tapped his own hairy wrist), "andthe pulse continues excellent."Thereupon he bowed and slipped out. The interview was conductedlaboriously upon both sides in French, and this, together with the factthat he was optimistic, and that Terence respected the medicalprofession from hearsay, made him less critical than he wouldhave been had he encountered the doctor in any other capacity.
　　Unconsciously he took Rodriguez' side against Helen, who seemedto have taken an unreasonable prejudice against him.
　　When Saturday came it was evident that the hours of the day mustbe more strictly organised than they had been. St. John offeredhis services; he said that he had nothing to do, and that he mightas well spend the day at the villa if he could be of use. As if theywere starting on a difficult expedition together, they parcelled outtheir duties between them, writing out an elaborate scheme of hoursupon a large sheet of paper which was pinned to the drawing-room door.
　　Their distance from the town, and the difficulty of procuringrare things with unknown names from the most unexpected places,made it necessary to think very carefully, and they found itunexpectedly difficult to do the simple but practical things thatwere required of them, as if they, being very tall, were askedto stoop down and arrange minute grains of sand in a pattern on the ground.
　　It was St. John's duty to fetch what was needed from the town,so that Terence would sit all through the long hot hours alone in thedrawing-room, near the open door, listening for any movement upstairs,or call from Helen. He always forgot to pull down the blinds,so that he sat in bright sunshine, which worried him without hisknowing what was the cause of it. The room was terribly stiffand uncomfortable. There were hats in the chairs, and medicine bottlesamong the books. He tried to read, but good books were too good,and bad books were too bad, and the only thing he could toleratewas the newspaper, which with its news of London, and the movementsof real people who were giving dinner-parties and making speeches,seemed to give a little background of reality to what was otherwisemere nightmare. Then, just as his attention was fixed on the print,a soft call would come from Helen, or Mrs. Chailey would bringin something which was wanted upstairs, and he would run upvery quietly in his socks, and put the jug on the little tablewhich stood crowded with jugs and cups outside the bedroom door;or if he could catch Helen for a moment he would ask, "How is she?""Rather restless. . . . On the whole, quieter, I think."The answer would be one or the other.
　　As usual she seemed to reserve something which she did not say,and Terence was conscious that they disagreed, and, without sayingit aloud, were arguing against each other. But she was too hurriedand pre-occupied to talk.
　　The strain of listening and the effort of making practical arrangementsand seeing that things worked smoothly, absorbed all Terence's power.
　　Involved in this long dreary nightmare, he did not attempt to thinkwhat it amounted to. Rachel was ill; that was all; he must see thatthere was medicine and milk, and that things were ready when theywere wanted. Thought had ceased; life itself had come to a standstill.
　　Sunday was rather worse than Saturday had been, simply becausethe strain was a little greater every day, although nothing elsehad changed. The separate feelings of pleasure, interest, and pain,which combine to make up the ordinary day, were merged in one long-drawnsensation of sordid misery and profound boredom. He had never beenso bored since he was shut up in the nursery alone as a child.
　　The vision of Rachel as she was now, confused and heedless,had almost obliterated the vision of her as she had been oncelong ago; he could hardly believe that they had ever been happy,or engaged to be married, for what were feelings, what was thereto be felt? Confusion covered every sight and person, and heseemed to see St. John, Ridley, and the stray people who came upnow and then from the hotel to enquire, through a mist; the onlypeople who were not hidden in this mist were Helen and Rodriguez,because they could tell him something definite about Rachel.
　　Nevertheless the day followed the usual forms. At certain hoursthey went into the dining-room, and when they sat round the tablethey talked about indifferent things. St. John usually made ithis business to start the talk and to keep it from dying out.
　　"I've discovered the way to get Sancho past the white house,"said St. John on Sunday at luncheon. "You crackle a piece of paperin his ear, then he bolts for about a hundred yards, but he goeson quite well after that.""Yes, but he wants corn. You should see that he has corn.""I don't think much of the stuff they give him; and Angelo seemsa dirty little rascal."There was then a long silence. Ridley murmured a few lines ofpoetry under his breath, and remarked, as if to conceal the factthat he had done so, "Very hot to-day.""Two degrees higher than it was yesterday," said St. John.
　　"I wonder where these nuts come from," he observed, taking a nutout of the plate, turning it over in his fingers, and looking atit curiously.
　　"London, I should think," said Terence, looking at the nut too.
　　"A competent man of business could make a fortune here in no time,"St. John continued. "I suppose the heat does something funny topeople's brains. Even the English go a little queer. Anyhow they'rehopeless people to deal with. They kept me three-quarters of an hourwaiting at the chemist's this morning, for no reason whatever."There was another long pause. Then Ridley enquired, "Rodriguezseems satisfied?""Quite," said Terence with decision. "It's just got to run its course."Whereupon Ridley heaved a deep sigh. He was genuinely sorryfor every one, but at the same time he missed Helen considerably,and was a little aggrieved by the constant presence of the twoyoung men.
　　They moved back into the drawing-room.
　　"Look here, Hirst," said Terence, "there's nothing to be donefor two hours." He consulted the sheet pinned to the door.
　　"You go and lie down. I'll wait here. Chailey sits with Rachelwhile Helen has her luncheon."It was asking a good deal of Hirst to tell him to go without waitingfor a sight of Helen. These little glimpses of Helen were the onlyrespites from strain and boredom, and very often they seemed to makeup for the discomfort of the day, although she might not have anythingto tell them. However, as they were on an expedition together,he had made up his mind to obey.
　　Helen was very late in coming down. She looked like a person who hasbeen sitting for a long time in the dark. She was pale and thinner,and the expression of her eyes was harassed but determined.
　　She ate her luncheon quickly, and seemed indifferent to what shewas doing. She brushed aside Terence's enquiries, and at last,as if he had not spoken, she looked at him with a slight frownand said:
　　"We can't go on like this, Terence. Either you've got to findanother doctor, or you must tell Rodriguez to stop coming, and I'llmanage for myself. It's no use for him to say that Rachel's better;she's not better; she's worse."Terence suffered a terrific shock, like that which he had sufferedwhen Rachel said, "My head aches." He stilled it by reflectingthat Helen was overwrought, and he was upheld in this opinionby his obstinate sense that she was opposed to him in the argument.
　　"Do you think she's in danger?" he asked.
　　"No one can go on being as ill as that day after day--" Helen replied.
　　She looked at him, and spoke as if she felt some indignationwith somebody.
　　"Very well, I'll talk to Rodriguez this afternoon," he replied.
　　Helen went upstairs at once.
　　Nothing now could assuage Terence's anxiety. He could not read,nor could he sit still, and his sense of security was shaken, in spiteof the fact that he was determined that Helen was exaggerating,and that Rachel was not very ill. But he wanted a third personto confirm him in his belief.
　　Directly Rodriguez came down he demanded, "Well, how is she?
　　Do you think her worse?""There is no reason for anxiety, I tell you--none," Rodriguez repliedin his execrable French, smiling uneasily, and making littlemovements all the time as if to get away.
　　Hewet stood firmly between him and the door. He was determinedto see for himself what kind of man he was. His confidence inthe man vanished as he looked at him and saw his insignificance,his dirty appearance, his shiftiness, and his unintelligent,hairy face. It was strange that he had never seen this before.
　　"You won't object, of course, if we ask you to consult another doctor?"he continued.
　　At this the little man became openly incensed.
　　"Ah!" he cried. "You have not confidence in me? You objectto my treatment? You wish me to give up the case?""Not at all," Terence replied, "but in serious illness of this kind--"Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders.
　　"It is not serious, I assure you. You are overanxious. The younglady is not seriously ill, and I am a doctor. The lady of courseis frightened," he sneered. "I understand that perfectly.""The name and address of the doctor is--?" Terence continued.
　　"There is no other doctor," Rodriguez replied sullenly. "Every onehas confidence in me. Look! I will show you."He took out a packet of old letters and began turning them overas if in search of one that would confute Terence's suspicions.
　　As he searched, he began to tell a story about an English lordwho had trusted him--a great English lord, whose name he had,unfortunately, forgotten.
　　"There is no other doctor in the place," he concluded, still turningover the letters.
　　"Never mind," said Terence shortly. "I will make enquiries for myself."Rodriguez put the letters back in his pocket.
　　"Very well," he remarked. "I have no objection."He lifted his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, as if to repeatthat they took the illness much too seriously and that there wasno other doctor, and slipped out, leaving behind him an impressionthat he was conscious that he was distrusted, and that his malicewas aroused.
　　After this Terence could no longer stay downstairs. He went up,knocked at Rachel's door, and asked Helen whether he might seeher for a few minutes. He had not seen her yesterday. She madeno objection, and went and sat at a table in the window.
　　Terence sat down by the bedside. Rachel's face was changed.
　　She looked as though she were entirely concentrated upon the effortof keeping alive. Her lips were drawn, and her cheeks were sunkenand flushed, though without colour. Her eyes were not entirely shut,the lower half of the white part showing, not as if she saw,but as if they remained open because she was too much exhaustedto close them. She opened them completely when he kissed her.
　　But she only saw an old woman slicing a man's head off with a knife.
　　"There it falls!" she murmured. She then turned to Terence andasked him anxiously some question about a man with mules, which hecould not understand. "Why doesn't he come? Why doesn't he come?"she repeated. He was appalled to think of the dirty little man downstairsin connection with illness like this, and turning instinctivelyto Helen, but she was doing something at a table in the window,and did not seem to realise how great the shock to him must be.
　　He rose to go, for he could not endure to listen any longer;his heart beat quickly and painfully with anger and misery.
　　As he passed Helen she asked him in the same weary, unnatural,but determined voice to fetch her more ice, and to have the jugoutside filled with fresh milk.
　　When he had done these errands he went to find Hirst. Exhausted andvery hot, St. John had fallen asleep on a bed, but Terence wokehim without scruple.
　　"Helen thinks she's worse," he said. "There's no doubt she'sfrightfully ill. Rodriguez is useless. We must get another doctor.""But there is no other doctor," said Hirst drowsily, sitting upand rubbing his eyes.
　　"Don't be a damned fool!" Terence exclaimed. "Of course there'sanother doctor, and, if there isn't, you've got to find one. It oughtto have been done days ago. I'm going down to saddle the horse."He could not stay still in one place.
　　In less than ten minutes St. John was riding to the town in thescorching heat in search of a doctor, his orders being to findone and bring him back if he had to be fetched in a special train.
　　"We ought to have done it days ago," Hewet repeated angrily.
　　When he went back into the drawing-room he found that Mrs. Flushingwas there, standing very erect in the middle of the room,having arrived, as people did in these days, by the kitchenor through the garden unannounced.
　　"She's better?" Mrs. Flushing enquired abruptly; they did notattempt to shake hands.
　　"No," said Terence. "If anything, they think she's worse."Mrs. Flushing seemed to consider for a moment or two, looking straightat Terence all the time.
　　"Let me tell you," she said, speaking in nervous jerks, "it's alwaysabout the seventh day one begins to get anxious. I daresay you'vebeen sittin' here worryin' by yourself. You think she's bad,but any one comin' with a fresh eye would see she was better.
　　Mr. Elliot's had fever; he's all right now," she threw out.
　　"It wasn't anythin' she caught on the expedition. What's it matter--a few days' fever? My brother had fever for twenty-six days once.
　　And in a week or two he was up and about. We gave him nothin' but milkand arrowroot--"Here Mrs. Chailey came in with a message.
　　"I'm wanted upstairs," said Terence.
　　"You see--she'll be better," Mrs. Flushing jerked out as heleft the room. Her anxiety to persuade Terence was very great,and when he left her without saying anything she felt dissatisfiedand restless; she did not like to stay, but she could not bear to go.
　　She wandered from room to room looking for some one to talk to,but all the rooms were empty.
　　Terence went upstairs, stood inside the door to take Helen's directions,looked over at Rachel, but did not attempt to speak to her.
　　She appeared vaguely conscious of his presence, but it seemed todisturb her, and she turned, so that she lay with her back to him.
　　For six days indeed she had been oblivious of the world outside,because it needed all her attention to follow the hot, red,quick sights which passed incessantly before her eyes.
　　She knew that it was of enormous importance that she should attendto these sights and grasp their meaning, but she was always beingjust too late to hear or see something which would explain it all.
　　For this reason, the faces,--Helen's face, the nurse's, Terence's,the doctor's,--which occasionally forced themselves very close to her,were worrying because they distracted her attention and she mightmiss the clue. However, on the fourth afternoon she was suddenlyunable to keep Helen's face distinct from the sights themselves;her lips widened as she bent down over the bed, and she began togabble unintelligibly like the rest. The sights were all concernedin some plot, some adventure, some escape. The nature of whatthey were doing changed incessantly, although there was alwaysa reason behind it, which she must endeavour to grasp. Now theywere among trees and savages, now they were on the sea, now theywere on the tops of high towers; now they jumped; now they flew.
　　But just as the crisis was about to happen, something invariably slippedin her brain, so that the whole effort had to begin over again.
　　The heat was suffocating. At last the faces went further away;she fell into a deep pool of sticky water, which eventually closedover her head. She saw nothing and heard nothing but a faintbooming sound, which was the sound of the sea rolling over her head.
　　While all her tormentors thought that she was dead, she wasnot dead, but curled up at the bottom of the sea. There she lay,sometimes seeing darkness, sometimes light, while every now and thensome one turned her over at the bottom of the sea.
　　After St. John had spent some hours in the heat of the sun wranglingwith evasive and very garrulous natives, he extracted the informationthat there was a doctor, a French doctor, who was at present awayon a holiday in the hills. It was quite impossible, so they said,to find him. With his experience of the country, St. John thought itunlikely that a telegram would either be sent or received; but havingreduced the distance of the hill town, in which he was staying,from a hundred miles to thirty miles, and having hired a carriageand horses, he started at once to fetch the doctor himself.
　　He succeeded in finding him, and eventually forced the unwillingman to leave his young wife and return forthwith. They reachedthe villa at midday on Tuesday.
　　Terence came out to receive them, and St. John was struck by the factthat he had grown perceptibly thinner in the interval; he was white too;his eyes looked strange. But the curt speech and the sulky masterfulmanner of Dr. Lesage impressed them both favourably, although atthe same time it was obvious that he was very much annoyed at thewhole affair. Coming downstairs he gave his directions emphatically,but it never occurred to him to give an opinion either because ofthe presence of Rodriguez who was now obsequious as well as malicious,or because he took it for granted that they knew already what was to be known.
　　"Of course," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, when Terenceasked him, "Is she very ill?"They were both conscious of a certain sense of relief when Dr. Lesagewas gone, leaving explicit directions, and promising another visitin a few hours' time; but, unfortunately, the rise of their spiritsled them to talk more than usual, and in talking they quarrelled.
　　They quarrelled about a road, the Portsmouth Road. St. John said thatit is macadamised where it passes Hindhead, and Terence knew as wellas he knew his own name that it is not macadamised at that point.
　　In the course of the argument they said some very sharp thingsto each other, and the rest of the dinner was eaten in silence,save for an occasional half-stifled reflection from Ridley.
　　When it grew dark and the lamps were brought in, Terence feltunable to control his irritation any longer. St. John went to bedin a state of complete exhaustion, bidding Terence good-nightwith rather more affection than usual because of their quarrel,and Ridley retired to his books. Left alone, Terence walked upand down the room; he stood at the open window.
　　The lights were coming out one after another in the town beneath,and it was very peaceful and cool in the garden, so that he steppedout on to the terrace. As he stood there in the darkness, able onlyto see the shapes of trees through the fine grey light, he was overcomeby a desire to escape, to have done with this suffering, to forgetthat Rachel was ill. He allowed himself to lapse into forgetfulnessof everything. As if a wind that had been raging incessantly suddenlyfell asleep, the fret and strain and anxiety which had been pressingon him passed away. He seemed to stand in an unvexed space of air,on a little island by himself; he was free and immune from pain.
　　It did not matter whether Rachel was well or ill; it did not matterwhether they were apart or together; nothing mattered--nothing mattered.
　　The waves beat on the shore far away, and the soft wind passedthrough the branches of the trees, seeming to encircle him withpeace and security, with dark and nothingness. Surely the worldof strife and fret and anxiety was not the real world, but this wasthe real world, the world that lay beneath the superficial world,so that, whatever happened, one was secure. The quiet and peaceseemed to lap his body in a fine cool sheet, soothing every nerve;his mind seemed once more to expand, and become natural.
　　But when he had stood thus for a time a noise in the house roused him;he turned instinctively and went into the drawing-room. Thesight of the lamp-lit room brought back so abruptly all that hehad forgotten that he stood for a moment unable to move.
　　He remembered everything, the hour, the minute even, what point theyhad reached, and what was to come. He cursed himself for makingbelieve for a minute that things were different from what they are.
　　The night was now harder to face than ever.
　　Unable to stay in the empty drawing-room, he wandered out and saton the stairs half-way up to Rachel's room. He longed for someone to talk to, but Hirst was asleep, and Ridley was asleep;there was no sound in Rachel's room. The only sound in the housewas the sound of Chailey moving in the kitchen. At last there was arustling on the stairs overhead, and Nurse McInnis came down fasteningthe links in her cuffs, in preparation for the night's watch.
　　Terence rose and stopped her. He had scarcely spoken to her,but it was possible that she might confirm him in the belief whichstill persisted in his own mind that Rachel was not seriously ill.
　　He told her in a whisper that Dr. Lesage had been and what hehad said.
　　"Now, Nurse," he whispered, "please tell me your opinion. Do youconsider that she is very seriously ill? Is she in any danger?""The doctor has said--" she began.
　　"Yes, but I want your opinion. You have had experience of manycases like this?""I could not tell you more than Dr. Lesage, Mr. Hewet," she repliedcautiously, as though her words might be used against her. "The caseis serious, but you may feel quite certain that we are doing all we canfor Miss Vinrace." She spoke with some professional self-approbation.
　　But she realised perhaps that she did not satisfy the young man,who still blocked her way, for she shifted her feet slightly upon thestair and looked out of the window where they could see the moon over the sea.
　　"If you ask me," she began in a curiously stealthy tone, "I neverlike May for my patients.""May?" Terence repeated.
　　"It may be a fancy, but I don't like to see anybody fall ill in May,"she continued. "Things seem to go wrong in May. Perhaps it's the moon.
　　They say the moon affects the brain, don't they, Sir?"He looked at her but he could not answer her; like all the others,when one looked at her she seemed to shrivel beneath one's eyesand become worthless, malicious, and untrustworthy.
　　She slipped past him and disappeared.
　　Though he went to his room he was unable even to take his clothes off.
　　For a long time he paced up and down, and then leaning out ofthe window gazed at the earth which lay so dark against the palerblue of the sky. With a mixture of fear and loathing he looked atthe slim black cypress trees which were still visible in the garden,and heard the unfamiliar creaking and grating sounds which showthat the earth is still hot. All these sights and sounds appearedsinister and full of hostility and foreboding; together withthe natives and the nurse and the doctor and the terrible forceof the illness itself they seemed to be in conspiracy against him.
　　They seemed to join together in their effort to extract the greatestpossible amount of suffering from him. He could not get used tohis pain, it was a revelation to him. He had never realised beforethat underneath every action, underneath the life of every day,pain lies, quiescent, but ready to devour; he seemed to be ableto see suffering, as if it were a fire, curling up over the edgesof all action, eating away the lives of men and women. He thoughtfor the first time with understanding of words which had beforeseemed to him empty: the struggle of life; the hardness of life.
　　Now he knew for himself that life is hard and full of suffering.
　　He looked at the scattered lights in the town beneath, and thoughtof Arthur and Susan, or Evelyn and Perrott venturing out unwittingly,and by their happiness laying themselves open to suffering suchas this. How did they dare to love each other, he wondered; how hadhe himself dared to live as he had lived, rapidly and carelessly,passing from one thing to another, loving Rachel as he had loved her?
　　Never again would he feel secure; he would never believe in the stabilityof life, or forget what depths of pain lie beneath small happinessand feelings of content and safety. It seemed to him as he looked backthat their happiness had never been so great as his pain was now.
　　There had always been something imperfect in their happiness,something they had wanted and had not been able to get. It had beenfragmentary and incomplete, because they were so young and had notknown what they were doing.
　　The light of his candle flickered over the boughs of a treeoutside the window, and as the branch swayed in the darkness therecame before his mind a picture of all the world that lay outsidehis window; he thought of the immense river and the immense forest,the vast stretches of dry earth and the plains of the sea thatencircled the earth; from the sea the sky rose steep and enormous,and the air washed profoundly between the sky and the sea.
　　How vast and dark it must be tonight, lying exposed to the wind;and in all this great space it was curious to think how fewthe towns were, and how small little rings of light, or singleglow-worms he figured them, scattered here and there, among theswelling uncultivated folds of the world. And in those townswere little men and women, tiny men and women. Oh, it was absurd,when one thought of it, to sit here in a little room sufferingand caring. What did anything matter? Rachel, a tiny creature,lay ill beneath him, and here in his little room he suffered onher account. The nearness of their bodies in this vast universe,and the minuteness of their bodies, seemed to him absurd and laughable.
　　Nothing mattered, he repeated; they had no power, no hope.
　　He leant on the window-sill, thinking, until he almost forgot the timeand the place. Nevertheless, although he was convinced that itwas absurd and laughable, and that they were small and hopeless,he never lost the sense that these thoughts somehow formed partof a life which he and Rachel would live together.
　　Owing perhaps to the change of doctor, Rachel appeared to be ratherbetter next day. Terribly pale and worn though Helen looked,there was a slight lifting of the cloud which had hung all thesedays in her eyes.
　　"She talked to me," she said voluntarily. "She asked me what dayof the week it was, like herself."Then suddenly, without any warning or any apparent reason,the tears formed in her eyes and rolled steadily down her cheeks.
　　She cried with scarcely any attempt at movement of her features,and without any attempt to stop herself, as if she did not knowthat she was crying. In spite of the relief which her wordsgave him, Terence was dismayed by the sight; had everythinggiven way? Were there no limits to the power of this illness?
　　Would everything go down before it? Helen had always seemedto him strong and determined, and now she was like a child.
　　He took her in his arms, and she clung to him like a child,crying softly and quietly upon his shoulder. Then she roused herselfand wiped her tears away; it was silly to behave like that, she said;very silly, she repeated, when there could be no doubt that Rachelwas better. She asked Terence to forgive her for her folly.
　　She stopped at the door and came back and kissed him withoutsaying anything.
　　On this day indeed Rachel was conscious of what went on round her.
　　She had come to the surface of the dark, sticky pool, and a waveseemed to bear her up and down with it; she had ceased to haveany will of her own; she lay on the top of the wave consciousof some pain, but chiefly of weakness. The wave was replaced bythe side of a mountain. Her body became a drift of melting snow,above which her knees rose in huge peaked mountains of bare bone.
　　It was true that she saw Helen and saw her room, but everythinghad become very pale and semi-transparent. Sometimes she could seethrough the wall in front of her. Sometimes when Helen went awayshe seemed to go so far that Rachel's eyes could hardly follow her.
　　The room also had an odd power of expanding, and though she pushedher voice out as far as possible until sometimes it became a birdand flew away, she thought it doubtful whether it ever reached theperson she was talking to. There were immense intervals or chasms,for things still had the power to appear visibly before her,between one moment and the next; it sometimes took an hour for Helento raise her arm, pausing long between each jerky movement, and pourout medicine. Helen's form stooping to raise her in bed appearedof gigantic size, and came down upon her like the ceiling falling.
　　But for long spaces of time she would merely lie conscious of her bodyfloating on the top of the bed and her mind driven to some remotecorner of her body, or escaped and gone flitting round the room.
　　All sights were something of an effort, but the sight of Terencewas the greatest effort, because he forced her to join mind to bodyin the desire to remember something. She did not wish to remember;it troubled her when people tried to disturb her loneliness;she wished to be alone. She wished for nothing else in the world.
　　Although she had cried, Terence observed Helen's greater hopefulnesswith something like triumph; in the argument between them she hadmade the first sign of admitting herself in the wrong. He waitedfor Dr. Lesage to come down that afternoon with considerable anxiety,but with the same certainty at the back of his mind that he wouldin time force them all to admit that they were in the wrong.
　　As usual, Dr. Lesage was sulky in his manner and very shortin his answers. To Terence's demand, "She seems to be better?"he replied, looking at him in an odd way, "She has a chance of life."The door shut and Terence walked across to the window. He leanthis forehead against the pane.
　　"Rachel," he repeated to himself. "She has a chance of life. Rachel."How could they say these things of Rachel? Had any one yesterdayseriously believed that Rachel was dying? They had been engagedfor four weeks. A fortnight ago she had been perfectly well.
　　What could fourteen days have done to bring her from that state to this?
　　To realise what they meant by saying that she had a chance of lifewas beyond him, knowing as he did that they were engaged. He turned,still enveloped in the same dreary mist, and walked towards the door.
　　Suddenly he saw it all. He saw the room and the garden, and the treesmoving in the air, they could go on without her; she could die.
　　For the first time since she fell ill he remembered exactly whatshe looked like and the way in which they cared for each other.
　　The immense happiness of feeling her close to him mingled with a moreintense anxiety than he had felt yet. He could not let her die;he could not live without her. But after a momentary struggle,the curtain fell again, and he saw nothing and felt nothing clearly.
　　It was all going on--going on still, in the same way as before.
　　Save for a physical pain when his heart beat, and the fact thathis fingers were icy cold, he did not realise that he was anxiousabout anything. Within his mind he seemed to feel nothing about Rachelor about any one or anything in the world. He went on giving orders,arranging with Mrs. Chailey, writing out lists, and every now and thenhe went upstairs and put something quietly on the table outsideRachel's door. That night Dr. Lesage seemed to be less sulky than usual.
　　He stayed voluntarily for a few moments, and, addressing St. John andTerence equally, as if he did not remember which of them was engagedto the young lady, said, "I consider that her condition to-night isvery grave."Neither of them went to bed or suggested that the other should go to bed.
　　They sat in the drawing-room playing picquet with the door open.
　　St. John made up a bed upon the sofa, and when it was ready insistedthat Terence should lie upon it. They began to quarrel as to who shouldlie on the sofa and who should lie upon a couple of chairs coveredwith rugs. St. John forced Terence at last to lie down upon the sofa.
　　"Don't be a fool, Terence," he said. "You'll only get ill if youdon't sleep.""Old fellow," he began, as Terence still refused, and stopped abruptly,fearing sentimentality; he found that he was on the verge of tears.
　　He began to say what he had long been wanting to say, that he wassorry for Terence, that he cared for him, that he cared for Rachel.
　　Did she know how much he cared for her--had she said anything,asked perhaps? He was very anxious to say this, but he refrained,thinking that it was a selfish question after all, and whatwas the use of bothering Terence to talk about such things?
　　He was already half asleep. But St. John could not sleep at once.
　　If only, he thought to himself, as he lay in the darkness,something would happen--if only this strain would come to an end.
　　He did not mind what happened, so long as the succession of thesehard and dreary days was broken; he did not mind if she died.
　　He felt himself disloyal in not minding it, but it seemed to him thathe had no feelings left.
　　All night long there was no call or movement, except the openingand shutting of the bedroom door once. By degrees the lightreturned into the untidy room. At six the servants began to move;at seven they crept downstairs into the kitchen; and half an hourlater the day began again.
　　Nevertheless it was not the same as the days that had gone before,although it would have been hard to say in what the difference consisted.
　　Perhaps it was that they seemed to be waiting for something.
　　There were certainly fewer things to be done than usual. People driftedthrough the drawing-room--Mr. Flushing, Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury.
　　They spoke very apologetically in low tones, refusing to sit down,but remaining for a considerable time standing up, although the onlything they had to say was, "Is there anything we can do?" and therewas nothing they could do.
　　Feeling oddly detached from it all, Terence remembered how Helen had saidthat whenever anything happened to you this was how people behaved.
　　Was she right, or was she wrong? He was too little interestedto frame an opinion of his own. He put things away in his mind,as if one of these days he would think about them, but not now.
　　The mist of unreality had deepened and deepened until it hadproduced a feeling of numbness all over his body. Was it his body?
　　Were those really his own hands?
　　This morning also for the first time Ridley found it impossibleto sit alone in his room. He was very uncomfortable downstairs,and, as he did not know what was going on, constantly in the way;but he would not leave the drawing-room. Too restless to read,and having nothing to do, he began to pace up and down reciting poetryin an undertone. Occupied in various ways--now in undoing parcels,now in uncorking bottles, now in writing directions, the soundof Ridley's song and the beat of his pacing worked into the mindsof Terence and St. John all the morning as a half comprehended refrain.
　　They wrestled up, they wrestled down,They wrestled sore and still:
　　The fiend who blinds the eyes of men,That night he had his will.
　　Like stags full spent, among the bentThey dropped awhile to rest--"Oh, it's intolerable!" Hirst exclaimed, and then checked himself,as if it were a breach of their agreement. Again and again Terencewould creep half-way up the stairs in case he might be able to gleannews of Rachel. But the only news now was of a very fragmentary kind;she had drunk something; she had slept a little; she seemed quieter.
　　In the same way, Dr. Lesage confined himself to talking about details,save once when he volunteered the information that he had just beencalled in to ascertain, by severing a vein in the wrist, that an oldlady of eighty-five was really dead. She had a horror of beingburied alive.
　　"It is a horror," he remarked, "that we generally find in the very old,and seldom in the young." They both expressed their interest in whathe told them; it seemed to them very strange. Another strange thingabout the day was that the luncheon was forgotten by all of them untilit was late in the afternoon, and then Mrs. Chailey waited on them,and looked strange too, because she wore a stiff print dress,and her sleeves were rolled up above her elbows. She seemedas oblivious of her appearance, however, as if she had been calledout of her bed by a midnight alarm of fire, and she had forgotten,too, her reserve and her composure; she talked to them quitefamiliarly as if she had nursed them and held them naked on her knee.
　　She assured them over and over again that it was their duty to eat.
　　The afternoon, being thus shortened, passed more quickly thanthey expected. Once Mrs. Flushing opened the door, but on seeingthem shut it again quickly; once Helen came down to fetch something,but she stopped as she left the room to look at a letter addressedto her. She stood for a moment turning it over, and the extraordinaryand mournful beauty of her attitude struck Terence in the waythings struck him now--as something to be put away in his mindand to be thought about afterwards. They scarcely spoke,the argument between them seeming to be suspended or forgotten.
　　Now that the afternoon sun had left the front of the house,Ridley paced up and down the terrace repeating stanzas of a long poem,in a subdued but suddenly sonorous voice. Fragments of the poemwere wafted in at the open window as he passed and repassed.
　　Peor and BaalimForsake their Temples dim,With that twice batter'd God of PalestineAnd mooned Astaroth--The sound of these words were strangely discomforting to both theyoung men, but they had to be borne. As the evening drew on and the redlight of the sunset glittered far away on the sea, the same senseof desperation attacked both Terence and St. John at the thoughtthat the day was nearly over, and that another night was at hand.
　　The appearance of one light after another in the town beneath themproduced in Hirst a repetition of his terrible and disgusting desireto break down and sob. Then the lamps were brought in by Chailey.
　　She explained that Maria, in opening a bottle, had been so foolishas to cut her arm badly, but she had bound it up; it was unfortunatewhen there was so much work to be done. Chailey herself limpedbecause of the rheumatism in her feet, but it appeared to her merewaste of time to take any notice of the unruly flesh of servants.
　　The evening went on. Dr. Lesage arrived unexpectedly, and stayedupstairs a very long time. He came down once and drank a cupof coffee.
　　"She is very ill," he said in answer to Ridley's question.
　　All the annoyance had by this time left his manner, he was graveand formal, but at the same time it was full of consideration,which had not marked it before. He went upstairs again.
　　The three men sat together in the drawing-room. Ridley was quitequiet now, and his attention seemed to be thoroughly awakened.
　　Save for little half-voluntary movements and exclamationsthat were stifled at once, they waited in complete silence.
　　It seemed as if they were at last brought together face to facewith something definite.
　　It was nearly eleven o'clock when Dr. Lesage again appeared in the room.
　　He approached them very slowly, and did not speak at once.
　　He looked first at St. John and then at Terence, and said to Terence,"Mr. Hewet, I think you should go upstairs now."Terence rose immediately, leaving the others seated with Dr. Lesagestanding motionless between them.
　　Chailey was in the passage outside, repeating over and over again,"It's wicked--it's wicked."Terence paid her no attention; he heard what she was saying,but it conveyed no meaning to his mind. All the way upstairs hekept saying to himself, "This has not happened to me. It is notpossible that this has happened to me."He looked curiously at his own hand on the banisters. The stairs werevery steep, and it seemed to take him a long time to surmount them.
　　Instead of feeling keenly, as he knew that he ought to feel,he felt nothing at all. When he opened the door he saw Helen sittingby the bedside. There were shaded lights on the table, and the room,though it seemed to be full of a great many things, was very tidy.
　　There was a faint and not unpleasant smell of disinfectants.
　　Helen rose and gave up her chair to him in silence. As they passedeach other their eyes met in a peculiar level glance, he wonderedat the extraordinary clearness of his eyes, and at the deep calmand sadness that dwelt in them. He sat down by the bedside,and a moment afterwards heard the door shut gently behind her.
　　He was alone with Rachel, and a faint reflection of the sense of reliefthat they used to feel when they were left alone possessed him.
　　He looked at her. He expected to find some terrible change in her,but there was none. She looked indeed very thin, and, as far as hecould see, very tired, but she was the same as she had always been.
　　Moreover, she saw him and knew him. She smiled at him and said,"Hullo, Terence."The curtain which had been drawn between them for so longvanished immediately.
　　"Well, Rachel," he replied in his usual voice, upon which sheopened her eyes quite widely and smiled with her familiar smile.
　　He kissed her and took her hand.
　　"It's been wretched without you," he said.
　　She still looked at him and smiled, but soon a slight look of fatigueor perplexity came into her eyes and she shut them again.
　　"But when we're together we're perfectly happy," he said.
　　He continued to hold her hand.
　　The light being dim, it was impossible to see any change in her face.
　　An immense feeling of peace came over Terence, so that he had nowish to move or to speak. The terrible torture and unrealityof the last days were over, and he had come out now into perfectcertainty and peace. His mind began to work naturally againand with great ease. The longer he sat there the more profoundlywas he conscious of the peace invading every corner of his soul.
　　Once he held his breath and listened acutely; she was still breathing;he went on thinking for some time; they seemed to be thinking together;he seemed to be Rachel as well as himself; and then he listened again;no, she had ceased to breathe. So much the better--this was death.
　　It was nothing; it was to cease to breathe. It was happiness,it was perfect happiness. They had now what they had always wantedto have, the union which had been impossible while they lived.
　　Unconscious whether he thought the words or spoke them aloud,he said, "No two people have ever been so happy as we have been.
　　No one has ever loved as we have loved."It seemed to him that their complete union and happiness filledthe room with rings eddying more and more widely. He had no wishin the world left unfulfilled. They possessed what could neverbe taken from them.
　　He was not conscious that any one had come into the room, but later,moments later, or hours later perhaps, he felt an arm behind him.
　　The arms were round him. He did not want to have arms round him,and the mysterious whispering voices annoyed him. He laid Rachel's hand,which was now cold, upon the counterpane, and rose from his chair,and walked across to the window. The windows were uncurtained,and showed the moon, and a long silver pathway upon the surface ofthe waves.
　　"Why," he said, in his ordinary tone of voice, "look at the moon.
　　There's a halo round the moon. We shall have rain to-morrow."The arms, whether they were the arms of man or of woman, were roundhim again; they were pushing him gently towards the door. He turnedof his own accord and walked steadily in advance of the arms,conscious of a little amusement at the strange way in which peoplebehaved merely because some one was dead. He would go if theywished it, but nothing they could do would disturb his happiness.
　　As he saw the passage outside the room, and the table with the cupsand the plates, it suddenly came over him that here was a worldin which he would never see Rachel again.
　　"Rachel! Rachel!" he shrieked, trying to rush back to her.
　　But they prevented him, and pushed him down the passage and intoa bedroom far from her room. Downstairs they could hear the thudof his feet on the floor, as he struggled to break free; and twicethey heard him shout, "Rachel, Rachel!"
Chapter 26
    For two or three hours longer the moon poured its light throughthe empty air. Unbroken by clouds it fell straightly, and layalmost like a chill white frost over the sea and the earth.
　　During these hours the silence was not broken, and the only movementwas caused by the movement of trees and branches which stirred slightly,and then the shadows that lay across the white spaces of the landmoved too. In this profound silence one sound only was audible,the sound of a slight but continuous breathing which never ceased,although it never rose and never fell. It continued after the birdshad begun to flutter from branch to branch, and could be heardbehind the first thin notes of their voices. It continuedall through the hours when the east whitened, and grew red,and a faint blue tinged the sky, but when the sun rose it ceased,and gave place to other sounds.
　　The first sounds that were heard were little inarticulate cries,the cries, it seemed, of children or of the very poor, of people whowere very weak or in pain. But when the sun was above the horizon,the air which had been thin and pale grew every moment richerand warmer, and the sounds of life became bolder and more fullof courage and authority. By degrees the smoke began to ascendin wavering breaths over the houses, and these slowly thickened,until they were as round and straight as columns, and instead ofstriking upon pale white blinds, the sun shone upon dark windows,beyond which there was depth and space.
　　The sun had been up for many hours, and the great dome of air waswarmed through and glittering with thin gold threads of sunlight,before any one moved in the hotel. White and massive it stoodin the early light, half asleep with its blinds down.
　　At about half-past nine Miss Allan came very slowly into the hall,and walked very slowly to the table where the morning paperswere laid, but she did not put out her hand to take one; she stoodstill, thinking, with her head a little sunk upon her shoulders.
　　She looked curiously old, and from the way in which she stood,a little hunched together and very massive, you could see whatshe would be like when she was really old, how she would sitday after day in her chair looking placidly in front of her.
　　Other people began to come into the room, and to pass her, but shedid not speak to any of them or even look at them, and at last,as if it were necessary to do something, she sat down in a chair,and looked quietly and fixedly in front of her. She feltvery old this morning, and useless too, as if her life had beena failure, as if it had been hard and laborious to no purpose.
　　She did not want to go on living, and yet she knew that she would.
　　She was so strong that she would live to be a very old woman.
　　She would probably live to be eighty, and as she was now fifty,that left thirty years more for her to live. She turned her handsover and over in her lap and looked at them curiously; her old hands,that had done so much work for her. There did not seem to be muchpoint in it all; one went on, of course one went on. . . . Shelooked up to see Mrs. Thornbury standing beside her, with lines drawnupon her forehead, and her lips parted as if she were about to aska question.
　　Miss Allan anticipated her.
　　"Yes," she said. "She died this morning, very early, about three o'clock."Mrs. Thornbury made a little exclamation, drew her lips together,and the tears rose in her eyes. Through them she looked atthe hall which was now laid with great breadths of sunlight,and at the careless, casual groups of people who were standingbeside the solid arm-chairs and tables. They looked to her unreal,or as people look who remain unconscious that some great explosionis about to take place beside them. But there was no explosion,and they went on standing by the chairs and the tables. Mrs. Thornburyno longer saw them, but, penetrating through them as though theywere without substance, she saw the house, the people in the house,the room, the bed in the room, and the figure of the dead lying stillin the dark beneath the sheets. She could almost see the dead.
　　She could almost hear the voices of the mourners.
　　"They expected it?" she asked at length.
　　Miss Allan could only shake her head.
　　"I know nothing," she replied, "except what Mrs. Flushing's maidtold me. She died early this morning."The two women looked at each other with a quiet significant gaze,and then, feeling oddly dazed, and seeking she did not knowexactly what, Mrs. Thornbury went slowly upstairs and walkedquietly along the passages, touching the wall with her fingersas if to guide herself. Housemaids were passing briskly from roomto room, but Mrs. Thornbury avoided them; she hardly saw them;they seemed to her to be in another world. She did not even lookup directly when Evelyn stopped her. It was evident that Evelynhad been lately in tears, and when she looked at Mrs. Thornbury shebegan to cry again. Together they drew into the hollow of a window,and stood there in silence. Broken words formed themselves at lastamong Evelyn's sobs. "It was wicked," she sobbed, "it was cruel--they were so happy."Mrs. Thornbury patted her on the shoulder.
　　"It seems hard--very hard," she said. She paused and looked outover the slope of the hill at the Ambroses' villa; the windows wereblazing in the sun, and she thought how the soul of the dead hadpassed from those windows. Something had passed from the world.
　　It seemed to her strangely empty.
　　"And yet the older one grows," she continued, her eyes regainingmore than their usual brightness, "the more certain one becomes thatthere is a reason. How could one go on if there were no reason?"she asked.
　　She asked the question of some one, but she did not ask it of Evelyn.
　　Evelyn's sobs were becoming quieter. "There must be a reason,"she said. "It can't only be an accident. For it was an accident--it need never have happened."Mrs. Thornbury sighed deeply.
　　"But we must not let ourselves think of that," she added, "and letus hope that they don't either. Whatever they had done it mighthave been the same. These terrible illnesses--""There's no reason--I don't believe there's any reason at all!"Evelyn broke out, pulling the blind down and letting it fly backwith a little snap.
　　"Why should these things happen? Why should people suffer?
　　I honestly believe," she went on, lowering her voice slightly,"that Rachel's in Heaven, but Terence. . . .""What's the good of it all?" she demanded.
　　Mrs. Thornbury shook her head slightly but made no reply,and pressing Evelyn's hand she went on down the passage.
　　Impelled by a strong desire to hear something, although she didnot know exactly what there was to hear, she was making her wayto the Flushings' room. As she opened their door she felt thatshe had interrupted some argument between husband and wife.
　　Mrs. Flushing was sitting with her back to the light, and Mr. Flushingwas standing near her, arguing and trying to persuade her of something.
　　"Ah, here is Mrs. Thornbury," he began with some relief in his voice.
　　"You have heard, of course. My wife feels that she was in someway responsible. She urged poor Miss Vinrace to come on the expedition.
　　I'm sure you will agree with me that it is most unreasonable to feel that.
　　We don't even know--in fact I think it most unlikely--that she caughther illness there. These diseases--Besides, she was set on going.
　　She would have gone whether you asked her or not, Alice.""Don't, Wilfrid," said Mrs. Flushing, neither moving nor takingher eyes off the spot on the floor upon which they rested.
　　"What's the use of talking? What's the use--?" She ceased.
　　"I was coming to ask you," said Mrs. Thornbury, addressing Wilfrid,for it was useless to speak to his wife. "Is there anything youthink that one could do? Has the father arrived? Could one goand see?"The strongest wish in her being at this moment was to be able todo something for the unhappy people--to see them--to assure them--to help them. It was dreadful to be so far away from them.
　　But Mr. Flushing shook his head; he did not think that now--later perhaps one might be able to help. Here Mrs. Flushing rose stiffly,turned her back to them, and walked to the dressing-room opposite.
　　As she walked, they could see her breast slowly rise and slowly fall.
　　But her grief was silent. She shut the door behind her.
　　When she was alone by herself she clenched her fists together, and beganbeating the back of a chair with them. She was like a wounded animal.
　　She hated death; she was furious, outraged, indignant with death,as if it were a living creature. She refused to relinquish herfriends to death. She would not submit to dark and nothingness.
　　She began to pace up and down, clenching her hands, and makingno attempt to stop the quick tears which raced down her cheeks.
　　She sat still at last, but she did not submit. She looked stubbornand strong when she had ceased to cry.
　　In the next room, meanwhile, Wilfrid was talking to Mrs. Thornburywith greater freedom now that his wife was not sitting there.
　　"That's the worst of these places," he said. "People will behaveas though they were in England, and they're not. I've no doubt myselfthat Miss Vinrace caught the infection up at the villa itself.
　　She probably ran risks a dozen times a day that might have givenher the illness. It's absurd to say she caught it with us."If he had not been sincerely sorry for them he would have been annoyed.
　　"Pepper tells me," he continued, "that he left the house becausehe thought them so careless. He says they never washed theirvegetables properly. Poor people! It's a fearful price to pay.
　　But it's only what I've seen over and over again--people seemto forget that these things happen, and then they do happen,and they're surprised.
　　Mrs. Thornbury agreed with him that they had been very careless,and that there was no reason whatever to think that she had caughtthe fever on the expedition; and after talking about other thingsfor a short time, she left him and went sadly along the passageto her own room. There must be some reason why such things happen,she thought to herself, as she shut the door. Only at first itwas not easy to understand what it was. It seemed so strange--so unbelievable. Why, only three weeks ago--only a fortnight ago,she had seen Rachel; when she shut her eyes she could almostsee her now, the quiet, shy girl who was going to be married.
　　She thought of all that she would have missed had she died atRachel's age, the children, the married life, the unimaginabledepths and miracles that seemed to her, as she looked back,to have lain about her, day after day, and year after year.
　　The stunned feeling, which had been making it difficult for herto think, gradually gave way to a feeling of the opposite nature;she thought very quickly and very clearly, and, looking back overall her experiences, tried to fit them into a kind of order.
　　There was undoubtedly much suffering, much struggling, but, on the whole,surely there was a balance of happiness--surely order did prevail.
　　Nor were the deaths of young people really the saddest things in life--they were saved so much; they kept so much. The dead--she calledto mind those who had died early, accidentally--were beautiful;she often dreamt of the dead. And in time Terence himself wouldcome to feel--She got up and began to wander restlessly aboutthe room.
　　For an old woman of her age she was very restless, and for one ofher clear, quick mind she was unusually perplexed. She could notsettle to anything, so that she was relieved when the door opened.
　　She went up to her husband, took him in her arms, and kissed himwith unusual intensity, and then as they sat down together she beganto pat him and question him as if he were a baby, an old, tired,querulous baby. She did not tell him about Miss Vinrace's death,for that would only disturb him, and he was put out already.
　　She tried to discover why he was uneasy. Politics again?
　　What were those horrid people doing? She spent the whole morningin discussing politics with her husband, and by degrees she becamedeeply interested in what they were saying. But every now and thenwhat she was saying seemed to her oddly empty of meaning.
　　At luncheon it was remarked by several people that the visitorsat the hotel were beginning to leave; there were fewer every day.
　　There were only forty people at luncheon, instead of the sixty thatthere had been. So old Mrs. Paley computed, gazing about her with herfaded eyes, as she took her seat at her own table in the window.
　　Her party generally consisted of Mr. Perrott as well as Arthurand Susan, and to-day Evelyn was lunching with them also.
　　She was unusually subdued. Having noticed that her eyes were red,and guessing the reason, the others took pains to keep upan elaborate conversation between themselves. She suffered itto go on for a few minutes, leaning both elbows on the table,and leaving her soup untouched, when she exclaimed suddenly,"I don't know how you feel, but I can simply think of nothing else!"The gentlemen murmured sympathetically, and looked grave.
　　Susan replied, "Yes--isn't it perfectly awful? When you thinkwhat a nice girl she was--only just engaged, and this neednever have happened--it seems too tragic." She looked at Arthuras though he might be able to help her with something more suitable.
　　"Hard lines," said Arthur briefly. "But it was a foolish thingto do--to go up that river." He shook his head. "They should haveknown better. You can't expect Englishwomen to stand roughingit as the natives do who've been acclimatised. I'd half a mindto warn them at tea that day when it was being discussed. But it'sno good saying these sort of things--it only puts people's backs up--it never makes any difference."Old Mrs. Paley, hitherto contented with her soup, here intimated,by raising one hand to her ear, that she wished to know what wasbeing said.
　　"You heard, Aunt Emma, that poor Miss Vinrace has died of the fever,"Susan informed her gently. She could not speak of death loudlyor even in her usual voice, so that Mrs. Paley did not catch a word.
　　Arthur came to the rescue.
　　"Miss Vinrace is dead," he said very distinctly.
　　Mrs. Paley merely bent a little towards him and asked, "Eh?""Miss Vinrace is dead," he repeated. It was only by stiffening allthe muscles round his mouth that he could prevent himself from burstinginto laughter, and forced himself to repeat for the third time,"Miss Vinrace. . . . She's dead."Let alone the difficulty of hearing the exact words, facts thatwere outside her daily experience took some time to reachMrs. Paley's consciousness. A weight seemed to rest uponher brain, impeding, though not damaging its action. She satvague-eyed for at least a minute before she realised what Arthur meant.
　　"Dead?" she said vaguely. "Miss Vinrace dead? Dear me . . . that'svery sad. But I don't at the moment remember which she was.
　　We seem to have made so many new acquaintances here." She looked atSusan for help. "A tall dark girl, who just missed being handsome,with a high colour?""No," Susan interposed. "She was--" then she gave it up in despair.
　　There was no use in explaining that Mrs. Paley was thinking ofthe wrong person.
　　"She ought not to have died," Mrs. Paley continued. "She lookedso strong. But people will drink the water. I can never make out why.
　　It seems such a simple thing to tell them to put a bottle of Seltzerwater in your bedroom. That's all the precaution I've ever taken,and I've been in every part of the world, I may say--Italy a dozentimes over. . . . But young people always think they know better,and then they pay the penalty. Poor thing--I am very sorry for her."But the difficulty of peering into a dish of potatoes and helpingherself engrossed her attention.
　　Arthur and Susan both secretly hoped that the subject was now disposed of,for there seemed to them something unpleasant in this discussion.
　　But Evelyn was not ready to let it drop. Why would people nevertalk about the things that mattered?
　　"I don't believe you care a bit!" she said, turning savagely uponMr. Perrott, who had sat all this time in silence.
　　"I? Oh, yes, I do," he answered awkwardly, but with obvious sincerity.
　　Evelyn's questions made him too feel uncomfortable.
　　"It seems so inexplicable," Evelyn continued. "Death, I mean.
　　Why should she be dead, and not you or I? It was only a fortnightago that she was here with the rest of us. What d'you believe?"she demanded of mr. Perrott. "D'you believe that things go on,that she's still somewhere--or d'you think it's simply a game--we crumble up to nothing when we die? I'm positive Rachel'snot dead."Mr. Perrott would have said almost anything that Evelyn wanted himto say, but to assert that he believed in the immortality of the soulwas not in his power. He sat silent, more deeply wrinkled than usual,crumbling his bread.
　　Lest Evelyn should next ask him what he believed, Arthur, after makinga pause equivalent to a full stop, started a completely different topic.
　　"Supposing," he said, "a man were to write and tell you that he wantedfive pounds because he had known your grandfather, what would you do?
　　It was this way. My grandfather--""Invented a stove," said Evelyn. "I know all about that.
　　We had one in the conservatory to keep the plants warm.""Didn't know I was so famous," said Arthur. "Well," he continued,determined at all costs to spin his story out at length, "the old chap,being about the second best inventor of his day, and a capablelawyer too, died, as they always do, without making a will.
　　Now Fielding, his clerk, with how much justice I don't know,always claimed that he meant to do something for him. The poor old boy'scome down in the world through trying inventions on his own account,lives in Penge over a tobacconist's shop. I've been to see him there.
　　The question is--must I stump up or not? What does the abstractspirit of justice require, Perrott? Remember, I didn't benefitunder my grandfather's will, and I've no way of testing the truthof the story.""I don't know much about the abstract spirit of justice," said Susan,smiling complacently at the others, "but I'm certain of one thing--he'll get his five pounds!"As Mr. Perrott proceeded to deliver an opinion, and Evelyn insistedthat he was much too stingy, like all lawyers, thinking of the letterand not of the spirit, while Mrs. Paley required to be kept informedbetween the courses as to what they were all saying, the luncheonpassed with no interval of silence, and Arthur congratulated himselfupon the tact with which the discussion had been smoothed over.
　　As they left the room it happened that Mrs. Paley's wheeledchair ran into the Elliots, who were coming through the door,as she was going out. Brought thus to a standstill for a moment,Arthur and Susan congratulated Hughling Elliot upon his convalescence,--he was down, cadaverous enough, for the first time,--and Mr. Perrotttook occasion to say a few words in private to Evelyn.
　　"Would there be any chance of seeing you this afternoon,about three-thirty say? I shall be in the garden, by the fountain."The block dissolved before Evelyn answered. But as she left themin the hall, she looked at him brightly and said, "Half-past three,did you say? That'll suit me."She ran upstairs with the feeling of spiritual exaltation and quickenedlife which the prospect of an emotional scene always aroused in her.
　　That Mr. Perrott was again about to propose to her, she had no doubt,and she was aware that on this occasion she ought to be preparedwith a definite answer, for she was going away in three days' time.
　　But she could not bring her mind to bear upon the question. To cometo a decision was very difficult to her, because she had a naturaldislike of anything final and done with; she liked to go on and on--always on and on. She was leaving, and, therefore, she occupiedherself in laying her clothes out side by side upon the bed.
　　She observed that some were very shabby. She took the photographof her father and mother, and, before she laid it away in her box,she held it for a minute in her hand. Rachel had looked at it.
　　Suddenly the keen feeling of some one's personality, which things thatthey have owned or handled sometimes preserves, overcame her; she feltRachel in the room with her; it was as if she were on a ship at sea,and the life of the day was as unreal as the land in the distance.
　　But by degrees the feeling of Rachel's presence passed away,and she could no longer realise her, for she had scarcely known her.
　　But this momentary sensation left her depressed and fatigued.
　　What had she done with her life? What future was there before her?
　　What was make-believe, and what was real? Were these proposals andintimacies and adventures real, or was the contentment which she hadseen on the faces of Susan and Rachel more real than anything she hadever felt?
　　She made herself ready to go downstairs, absentmindedly, but her fingerswere so well trained that they did the work of preparing her almostof their own accord. When she was actually on the way downstairs,the blood began to circle through her body of its own accord too,for her mind felt very dull.
　　Mr. Perrott was waiting for her. Indeed, he had gone straightinto the garden after luncheon, and had been walking up and downthe path for more than half an hour, in a state of acute suspense.
　　"I'm late as usual!" she exclaimed, as she caught sight of him.
　　"Well, you must forgive me; I had to pack up. . . . My word!
　　It looks stormy! And that's a new steamer in the bay, isn't it?"She looked at the bay, in which a steamer was just dropping anchor,the smoke still hanging about it, while a swift black shudder ranthrough the waves. "One's quite forgotten what rain looks like,"she added.
　　But Mr. Perrott paid no attention to the steamer or to the weather.
　　"Miss Murgatroyd," he began with his usual formality, "I asked youto come here from a very selfish motive, I fear. I do not thinkyou need to be assured once more of my feelings; but, as you areleaving so soon, I felt that I could not let you go without askingyou to tell me--have I any reason to hope that you will ever cometo care for me?"He was very pale, and seemed unable to say any more.
　　The little gush of vitality which had come into Evelyn as sheran downstairs had left her, and she felt herself impotent.
　　There was nothing for her to say; she felt nothing. Now that hewas actually asking her, in his elderly gentle words, to marry him,she felt less for him than she had ever felt before.
　　"Let's sit down and talk it over," she said rather unsteadily.
　　Mr. Perrott followed her to a curved green seat under a tree.
　　They looked at the fountain in front of them, which had long ceasedto play. Evelyn kept looking at the fountain instead of thinkingof what she was saying; the fountain without any water seemed to bethe type of her own being.
　　"Of course I care for you," she began, rushing her words out ina hurry; "I should be a brute if I didn't. I think you're quite oneof the nicest people I've ever known, and one of the finest too.
　　But I wish . . . I wish you didn't care for me in that way.
　　Are you sure you do?" For the moment she honestly desired that heshould say no.
　　"Quite sure," said Mr. Perrott.
　　"You see, I'm not as simple as most women," Evelyn continued.
　　"I think I want more. I don't know exactly what I feel."He sat by her, watching her and refraining from speech.
　　"I sometimes think I haven't got it in me to care very much forone person only. Some one else would make you a better wife.
　　I can imagine you very happy with some one else.""If you think that there is any chance that you will come to carefor me, I am quite content to wait," said Mr. Perrott.
　　"Well--there's no hurry, is there?" said Evelyn. "Suppose I thoughtit over and wrote and told you when I get back? I'm going to Moscow;I'll write from Moscow."But Mr. Perrott persisted.
　　"You cannot give me any kind of idea. I do not ask for a date .
　　. . that would be most unreasonable." He paused, looking downat the gravel path.
　　As she did not immediately answer, he went on.
　　"I know very well that I am not--that I have not much to offer youeither in myself or in my circumstances. And I forget; it cannotseem the miracle to you that it does to me. Until I met you Ihad gone on in my own quiet way--we are both very quiet people,my sister and I--quite content with my lot. My friendship with Arthurwas the most important thing in my life. Now that I know you,all that has changed. You seem to put such a spirit into everything.
　　Life seems to hold so many possibilities that I had never dreamt of.""That's splendid!" Evelyn exclaimed, grasping his hand.
　　"Now you'll go back and start all kinds of things and make a greatname in the world; and we'll go on being friends, whatever happens. . . we'll be great friends, won't we?""Evelyn!" he moaned suddenly, and took her in his arms, and kissed her.
　　She did not resent it, although it made little impression on her.
　　As she sat upright again, she said, "I never see why one shouldn'tgo on being friends--though some people do. And friendships do makea difference, don't they? They are the kind of things that matterin one's life?"He looked at her with a bewildered expression as if he did not reallyunderstand what she was saying. With a considerable effort hecollected himself, stood up, and said, "Now I think I have told youwhat I feel, and I will only add that I can wait as long as ever you wish."Left alone, Evelyn walked up and down the path. What did matter than?
　　What was the meaning of it all?
Chapter 27
    All that evening the clouds gathered, until they closed entirely overthe blue of the sky. They seemed to narrow the space between earthand heaven, so that there was no room for the air to move in freely;and the waves, too, lay flat, and yet rigid, as if they were restrained.
　　The leaves on the bushes and trees in the garden hung closely together,and the feeling of pressure and restraint was increased by the shortchirping sounds which came from birds and insects.
　　So strange were the lights and the silence that the busy humof voices which usually filled the dining-room at meal timeshad distinct gaps in it, and during these silences the clatterof the knives upon plates became audible. The first roll of thunderand the first heavy drop striking the pane caused a little stir.
　　"It's coming!" was said simultaneously in many different languages.
　　There was then a profound silence, as if the thunder had withdrawninto itself. People had just begun to eat again, when a gust of coldair came through the open windows, lifting tablecloths and skirts,a light flashed, and was instantly followed by a clap of thunderright over the hotel. The rain swished with it, and immediatelythere were all those sounds of windows being shut and doors slammingviolently which accompany a storm.
　　The room grew suddenly several degrees darker, for the windseemed to be driving waves of darkness across the earth. No oneattempted to eat for a time, but sat looking out at the garden,with their forks in the air. The flashes now came frequently,lighting up faces as if they were going to be photographed,surprising them in tense and unnatural expressions. The clapfollowed close and violently upon them. Several women half rosefrom their chairs and then sat down again, but dinner was continueduneasily with eyes upon the garden. The bushes outside wereruffled and whitened, and the wind pressed upon them so that theyseemed to stoop to the ground. The waiters had to press dishesupon the diners' notice; and the diners had to draw the attentionof waiters, for they were all absorbed in looking at the storm.
　　As the thunder showed no signs of withdrawing, but seemed massedright overhead, while the lightning aimed straight at the gardenevery time, an uneasy gloom replaced the first excitement.
　　Finishing the meal very quickly, people congregated in the hall,where they felt more secure than in any other place because they couldretreat far from the windows, and although they heard the thunder,they could not see anything. A little boy was carried away sobbingin the arms of his mother.
　　While the storm continued, no one seemed inclined to sit down,but they collected in little groups under the central skylight,where they stood in a yellow atmosphere, looking upwards.
　　Now and again their faces became white, as the lightning flashed,and finally a terrific crash came, making the panes of the skylightlift at the joints.
　　"Ah!" several voices exclaimed at the same moment.
　　"Something struck," said a man's voice.
　　The rain rushed down. The rain seemed now to extinguish the lightningand the thunder, and the hall became almost dark.
　　After a minute or two, when nothing was heard but the rattle of waterupon the glass, there was a perceptible slackening of the sound,and then the atmosphere became lighter.
　　"It's over," said another voice.
　　At a touch, all the electric lights were turned on, and revealeda crowd of people all standing, all looking with rather strained facesup at the skylight, but when they saw each other in the artificiallight they turned at once and began to move away. For some minutesthe rain continued to rattle upon the skylight, and the thundergave another shake or two; but it was evident from the clearingof the darkness and the light drumming of the rain upon the roof,that the great confused ocean of air was travelling away from them,and passing high over head with its clouds and its rods of fire,out to sea. The building, which had seemed so small in the tumultof the storm, now became as square and spacious as usual.
　　As the storm drew away, the people in the hall of the hotel sat down;and with a comfortable sense of relief, began to tell each other storiesabout great storms, and produced in many cases their occupationsfor the evening. The chess-board was brought out, and Mr. Elliot,who wore a stock instead of a collar as a sign of convalescence, but wasotherwise much as usual, challenged Mr. Pepper to a final contest.
　　Round them gathered a group of ladies with pieces of needlework,or in default of needlework, with novels, to superintend the game,much as if they were in charge of two small boys playing marbles.
　　Every now and then they looked at the board and made some encouragingremark to the gentlemen.
　　Mrs. Paley just round the corner had her cards arranged in long laddersbefore her, with Susan sitting near to sympathise but not to correct,and the merchants and the miscellaneous people who had never beendiscovered to possess names were stretched in their arm-chairswith their newspapers on their knees. The conversation in thesecircumstances was very gentle, fragmentary, and intermittent,but the room was full of the indescribable stir of life. Every nowand then the moth, which was now grey of wing and shiny of thorax,whizzed over their heads, and hit the lamps with a thud.
　　A young woman put down her needlework and exclaimed, "Poor creature!
　　it would be kinder to kill it." But nobody seemed disposed to rousehimself in order to kill the moth. They watched it dash from lampto lamp, because they were comfortable, and had nothing to do.
　　On the sofa, beside the chess-players, Mrs. Elliot was impartinga new stitch in knitting to Mrs. Thornbury, so that their headscame very near together, and were only to be distinguishedby the old lace cap which Mrs. Thornbury wore in the evening.
　　Mrs. Elliot was an expert at knitting, and disclaimed a complimentto that effect with evident pride.
　　"I suppose we're all proud of something," she said, "and I'm proud ofmy knitting. I think things like that run in families. We all knit well.
　　I had an uncle who knitted his own socks to the day of his death--and he did it better than any of his daughters, dear old gentleman.
　　Now I wonder that you, Miss Allan, who use your eyes so much,don't take up knitting in the evenings. You'd find it such a relief,I should say--such a rest to the eyes--and the bazaars are so gladof things." Her voice dropped into the smooth half-conscious toneof the expert knitter; the words came gently one after another.
　　"As much as I do I can always dispose of, which is a comfort, for thenI feel that I am not wasting my time--"Miss Allan, being thus addressed, shut her novel and observedthe others placidly for a time. At last she said, "It is surelynot natural to leave your wife because she happens to be in lovewith you. But that--as far as I can make out--is what the gentlemanin my story does.""Tut, tut, that doesn't sound good--no, that doesn't soundat all natural," murmured the knitters in their absorbed voices.
　　"Still, it's the kind of book people call very clever," Miss Allan added.
　　"_Maternity_--by Michael Jessop--I presume," Mr. Elliot put in,for he could never resist the temptation of talking while heplayed chess.
　　"D'you know," said Mrs. Elliot, after a moment, "I don't think people_do_ write good novels now--not as good as they used to, anyhow."No one took the trouble to agree with her or to disagree with her.
　　Arthur Venning who was strolling about, sometimes looking at the game,sometimes reading a page of a magazine, looked at Miss Allan,who was half asleep, and said humorously, "A penny for your thoughts,Miss Allan."The others looked up. They were glad that he had not spoken to them.
　　But Miss Allan replied without any hesitation, "I was thinkingof my imaginary uncle. Hasn't every one got an imaginary uncle?"she continued. "I have one--a most delightful old gentleman.
　　He's always giving me things. Sometimes it's a gold watch;sometimes it's a carriage and pair; sometimes it's a beautiful littlecottage in the New Forest; sometimes it's a ticket to the place I mostwant to see."She set them all thinking vaguely of the things they wanted.
　　Mrs. Elliot knew exactly what she wanted; she wanted a child;and the usual little pucker deepened on her brow.
　　"We're such lucky people," she said, looking at her husband.
　　"We really have no wants." She was apt to say this, partly in orderto convince herself, and partly in order to convince other people.
　　But she was prevented from wondering how far she carried convictionby the entrance of Mr. and Mrs. Flushing, who came through the halland stopped by the chess-board. Mrs. Flushing looked wilder than ever.
　　A great strand of black hair looped down across her brow, her cheekswere whipped a dark blood red, and drops of rain made wet marksupon them.
　　Mr. Flushing explained that they had been on the roof watchingthe storm.
　　"It was a wonderful sight," he said. "The lightning went rightout over the sea, and lit up the waves and the ships far away.
　　You can't think how wonderful the mountains looked too, with the lightson them, and the great masses of shadow. It's all over now."He slid down into a chair, becoming interested in the final struggleof the game.
　　"And you go back to-morrow?" said Mrs. Thornbury, looking atMrs. Flushing.
　　"Yes," she replied.
　　"And indeed one is not sorry to go back," said Mrs. Elliot,assuming an air of mournful anxiety, "after all this illness.""Are you afraid of dyin'?" Mrs. Flushing demanded scornfully.
　　"I think we are all afraid of that," said Mrs. Elliot with dignity.
　　"I suppose we're all cowards when it comes to the point,"said Mrs. Flushing, rubbing her cheek against the back of the chair.
　　"I'm sure I am.""Not a bit of it!" said Mr. Flushing, turning round, for Mr. Peppertook a very long time to consider his move. "It's not cowardlyto wish to live, Alice. It's the very reverse of cowardly.
　　Personally, I'd like to go on for a hundred years--granted, of course,that I had the full use of my faculties. Think of all the things thatare bound to happen!" "That is what I feel," Mrs. Thornbury rejoined.
　　"The changes, the improvements, the inventions--and beauty.
　　D'you know I feel sometimes that I couldn't bear to die and ceaseto see beautiful things about me?""It would certainly be very dull to die before they have discoveredwhether there is life in Mars," Miss Allan added.
　　"Do you really believe there's life in Mars?" asked Mrs. Flushing,turning to her for the first time with keen interest. "Who tellsyou that? Some one who knows? D'you know a man called--?"Here Mrs. Thornbury laid down her knitting, and a look of extremesolicitude came into her eyes.
　　"There is Mr. Hirst," she said quietly.
　　St. John had just come through the swing door. He was ratherblown about by the wind, and his cheeks looked terribly pale,unshorn, and cavernous. After taking off his coat he was goingto pass straight through the hall and up to his room, but he couldnot ignore the presence of so many people he knew, especially asMrs. Thornbury rose and went up to him, holding out her hand.
　　But the shock of the warm lamp-lit room, together with the sightof so many cheerful human beings sitting together at their ease,after the dark walk in the rain, and the long days of strainand horror, overcame him completely. He looked at Mrs. Thornburyand could not speak.
　　Every one was silent. Mr. Pepper's hand stayed upon his Knight.
　　Mrs. Thornbury somehow moved him to a chair, sat herself beside him,and with tears in her own eyes said gently, "You have done everythingfor your friend."Her action set them all talking again as if they had never stopped,and Mr. Pepper finished the move with his Knight.
　　"There was nothing to be done," said St. John. He spoke very slowly.
　　"It seems impossible--"He drew his hand across his eyes as if some dream came between himand the others and prevented him from seeing where he was.
　　"And that poor fellow," said Mrs. Thornbury, the tears fallingagain down her cheeks.
　　"Impossible," St. John repeated.
　　"Did he have the consolation of knowing--?" Mrs. Thornbury beganvery tentatively.
　　But St. John made no reply. He lay back in his chair, half-seeingthe others, half-hearing what they said. He was terribly tired,and the light and warmth, the movements of the hands, and the softcommunicative voices soothed him; they gave him a strange senseof quiet and relief. As he sat there, motionless, this feelingof relief became a feeling of profound happiness. Without anysense of disloyalty to Terence and Rachel he ceased to thinkabout either of them. The movements and the voices seemed to drawtogether from different parts of the room, and to combine themselvesinto a pattern before his eyes; he was content to sit silentlywatching the pattern build itself up, looking at what he hardly saw.
　　The game was really a good one, and Mr. Pepper and Mr. Elliot werebecoming more and more set upon the struggle. Mrs. Thornbury,seeing that St. John did not wish to talk, resumed her knitting.
　　"Lightning again!" Mrs. Flushing suddenly exclaimed. A yellowlight flashed across the blue window, and for a second they sawthe green trees outside. She strode to the door, pushed it open,and stood half out in the open air.
　　But the light was only the reflection of the storm which was over.
　　The rain had ceased, the heavy clouds were blown away, and the airwas thin and clear, although vapourish mists were being driven swiftlyacross the moon. The sky was once more a deep and solemn blue,and the shape of the earth was visible at the bottom of the air,enormous, dark, and solid, rising into the tapering mass of the mountain,and pricked here and there on the slopes by the tiny lights of villas.
　　The driving air, the drone of the trees, and the flashing lightwhich now and again spread a broad illumination over the earthfilled Mrs. Flushing with exultation. Her breasts rose and fell.
　　"Splendid! Splendid!" she muttered to herself. Then she turned backinto the hall and exclaimed in a peremptory voice, "Come outsideand see, Wilfrid; it's wonderful."Some half-stirred; some rose; some dropped their balls of wooland began to stoop to look for them.
　　"To bed--to bed," said Miss Allan.
　　"It was the move with your Queen that gave it away, Pepper,"exclaimed Mr. Elliot triumphantly, sweeping the pieces togetherand standing up. He had won the game.
　　"What? Pepper beaten at last? I congratulate you!" said ArthurVenning, who was wheeling old Mrs. Paley to bed.
　　All these voices sounded gratefully in St. John's ears as he layhalf-asleep, and yet vividly conscious of everything around him.
　　Across his eyes passed a procession of objects, black and indistinct,the figures of people picking up their books, their cards, their ballsof wool, their work-baskets, and passing him one after another ontheir way to bed.
 
The End