some mathematical problem; if she went by the river she
would certainly begin to think about things that didn’t
exist—the forest, the ocean beach, the leafy solitudes,
the magnanimous hero. No, no, no! A thousand times
no!—it wouldn’t do; there was something repulsive in
such thoughts at present; she must take something else;
she was out of that mood at present. And then she thought
of Mary; the thought gave her confidence, even pleasure
of a sad sort, as if the triumph of Ralph and Mary proved
that the fault of her failure lay with herself and not with
life. An indistinct idea that the sight of Mary might be of
help, combined with her natural trust in her, suggested a
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visit; for, surely, her liking was of a kind that implied
liking upon Mary’s side also. After a moment’s hesitation
she decided, although she seldom acted upon impulse, to
act upon this one, and turned down a side street and
found Mary’s door. But her reception was not encouraging;
clearly Mary didn’t want to see her, had no help to
impart, and the half-formed desire to confide in her was
quenched immediately. She was slightly amused at her
own delusion, looked rather absent-minded, and swung
her gloves to and fro, as if doling out the few minutes
accurately before she could say good-by.
Those few minutes might very well be spent in asking
for information as to the exact position of the Suffrage
Bill, or in expounding her own very sensible view of the
situation. But there was a tone in her voice, or a shade in
her opinions, or a swing of her gloves which served to
irritate Mary Datchet, whose manner became increasingly
direct, abrupt, and even antagonistic. She became conscious
of a wish to make Katharine realize the importance
of this work, which she discussed so coolly, as
though she, too, had sacrificed what Mary herself had
sacrificed. The swinging of the gloves ceased, and
Katharine, after ten minutes, began to make movements
preliminary to departure. At the sight of this, Mary was
aware—she was abnormally aware of things to-night—of
another very strong desire; Katharine was not to be allowed
to go, to disappear into the free, happy world of
irresponsible individuals. She must be made to realize—
to feel.
“I don’t quite see,” she said, as if Katharine had challenged
her explicitly, “how, things being as they are, any
one can help trying, at least, to do something.”
“No. But how are things?”
Mary pressed her lips, and smiled ironically; she had
Katharine at her mercy; she could, if she liked, discharge
upon her head wagon-loads of revolting proof of the state
of things ignored by the casual, the amateur, the looker-
on, the cynical observer of life at a distance. And yet she
hesitated. As usual, when she found herself in talk with
Katharine, she began to feel rapid alternations of opinion
about her, arrows of sensation striking strangely
through the envelope of personality, which shelters us so
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conveniently from our fellows. What an egoist, how aloof
she was! And yet, not in her words, perhaps, but in her
voice, in her face, in her attitude, there were signs of a
soft brooding spirit, of a sensibility unblunted and profound,
playing over her thoughts and deeds, and investing
her manner with an habitual gentleness. The arguments
and phrases of Mr. Clacton fell flat against such
armor.
“You’ll be married, and you’ll have other things to think
of,” she said inconsequently, and with an accent of condescension.
She was not going to make Katharine understand
in a second, as she would, all she herself had learnt
at the cost of such pain. No. Katharine was to be happy;
Katharine was to be ignorant; Mary was to keep this knowledge
of the impersonal life for herself. The thought of
her morning’s renunciation stung her conscience, and she
tried to expand once more into that impersonal condition
which was so lofty and so painless. She must check
this desire to be an individual again, whose wishes were
in conflict with those of other people. She repented of
her bitterness.
Katharine now renewed her signs of leave-taking; she
had drawn on one of her gloves, and looked about her as
if in search of some trivial saying to end with. Wasn’t
there some picture, or clock, or chest of drawers which
might be singled out for notice? something peaceable
and friendly to end the uncomfortable interview? The
green-shaded lamp burnt in the corner, and illumined
books and pens and blotting-paper. The whole aspect of
the place started another train of thought and struck her
as enviably free; in such a room one could work—one
could have a life of one’s own.
“I think you’re very lucky,” she observed. “I envy you,
living alone and having your own things”—and engaged
in this exalted way, which had no recognition or engage-
ment-ring, she added in her own mind.
Mary’s lips parted slightly. She could not conceive in what
respects Katharine, who spoke sincerely, could envy her.
“I don’t think you’ve got any reason to envy me,” she
said.
“Perhaps one always envies other people,” Katharine
observed vaguely.
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“Well, but you’ve got everything that any one can want.”
Katharine remained silent. She gazed into the fire quietly,
and without a trace of self-consciousness. The hostility
which she had divined in Mary’s tone had completely
disappeared, and she forgot that she had been upon the
point of going.
“Well, I suppose I have,” she said at length. “And yet I
sometimes think—” She paused; she did not know how
to express what she meant.
“It came over me in the Tube the other day,” she resumed,
with a smile; “what is it that makes these people
go one way rather than the other? It’s not love; it’s not
reason; I think it must be some idea. Perhaps, Mary, our
affections are the shadow of an idea. Perhaps there isn’t
any such thing as affection in itself… .” She spoke half-
mockingly, asking her question, which she scarcely troubled
to frame, not of Mary, or of any one in particular.
But the words seemed to Mary Datchet shallow, supercilious,
cold-blooded, and cynical all in one. All her natural
instincts were roused in revolt against them.
“I’m the opposite way of thinking, you see,” she said.
“Yes; I know you are,” Katharine replied, looking at her
as if now she were about, perhaps, to explain something
very important.
Mary could not help feeling the simplicity and good
faith that lay behind Katharine’s words.
“I think affection is the only reality,” she said.
“Yes,” said Katharine, almost sadly. She understood that
Mary was thinking of Ralph, and she felt it impossible to
press her to reveal more of this exalted condition; she
could only respect the fact that, in some few cases, life
arranged itself thus satisfactorily and pass on. She rose
to her feet accordingly. But Mary exclaimed, with unmistakable
earnestness, that she must not go; that they met
so seldom; that she wanted to talk to her so much… .
Katharine was surprised at the earnestness with which
she spoke. It seemed to her that there could be no indiscretion
in mentioning Ralph by name.
Seating herself “for ten minutes,” she said: “By the
way, Mr. Denham told me he was going to give up the Bar
and live in the country. Has he gone? He was beginning
to tell me about it, when we were interrupted.”
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“He thinks of it,” said Mary briefly. The color at once
came to her face.
“It would be a very good plan,” said Katharine in her
decided way.
“You think so?”
“Yes, because he would do something worth while; he
would write a book. My father always says that he’s the
most remarkable of the young men who write for him.”
Mary bent low over the fire and stirred the coal between
the bars with a poker. Katharine’s mention of Ralph
had roused within her an almost irresistible desire to
explain to her the true state of the case between herself
and Ralph. She knew, from the tone of her voice, that in
speaking of Ralph she had no desire to probe Mary’s secrets,
or to insinuate any of her own. Moreover, she liked
Katharine; she trusted her; she felt a respect for her. The
first step of confidence was comparatively simple; but a
further confidence had revealed itself, as Katharine spoke,
which was not so simple, and yet it impressed itself upon
her as a necessity; she must tell Katharine what it was
clear that she had no conception of—she must tell
Katharine that Ralph was in love with her.
“I don’t know what he means to do,” she said hurriedly,
seeking time against the pressure of her own conviction.
“I’ve not seen him since Christmas.”
Katharine reflected that this was odd; perhaps, after
all, she had misunderstood the position. She was in the
habit of assuming, however, that she was rather unobservant
of the finer shades of feeling, and she noted her
present failure as another proof that she was a practical,
abstract-minded person, better fitted to deal with figures
than with the feelings of men and women. Anyhow,
William Rodney would say so.
“And now—” she said.
“Oh, please stay!” Mary exclaimed, putting out her hand
to stop her. Directly Katharine moved she felt, inarticulately
and violently, that she could not bear to let her go.
If Katharine went, her only chance of speaking was lost;
her only chance of saying something tremendously important
was lost. Half a dozen words were sufficient to
wake Katharine’s attention, and put flight and further
silence beyond her power. But although the words came
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to her lips, her throat closed upon them and drove them
back. After all, she considered, why should she speak?
Because it is right, her instinct told her; right to expose
oneself without reservations to other human beings. She
flinched from the thought. It asked too much of one already
stripped bare. Something she must keep of her own.
But if she did keep something of her own? Immediately
she figured an immured life, continuing for an immense
period, the same feelings living for ever, neither dwindling
nor changing within the ring of a thick stone wall.
The imagination of this loneliness frightened her, and
yet to speak—to lose her loneliness, for it had already
become dear to her, was beyond her power.
Her hand went down to the hem of Katharine’s skirt,
and, fingering a line of fur, she bent her head as if to
examine it.
“I like this fur,” she said, “I like your clothes. And you
mustn’t think that I’m going to marry Ralph,” she continued,
in the same tone, “because he doesn’t care for me at
all. He cares for some one else.” Her head remained bent,
and her hand still rested upon the skirt.
“It’s a shabby old dress,” said Katharine, and the only
sign that Mary’s words had reached her was that she spoke
with a little jerk.
“You don’t mind my telling you that?” said Mary, raising
herself.
“No, no,” said Katharine; “but you’re mistaken, aren’t
you?” She was, in truth, horribly uncomfortable, dismayed,
indeed, disillusioned. She disliked the turn things had
taken quite intensely. The indecency of it afflicted her.
The suffering implied by the tone appalled her. She looked
at Mary furtively, with eyes that were full of apprehension.
But if she had hoped to find that these words had
been spoken without understanding of their meaning,
she was at once disappointed. Mary lay back in her chair,
frowning slightly, and looking, Katharine thought, as if
she had lived fifteen years or so in the space of a few
minutes.
“There are some things, don’t you think, that one can’t
be mistaken about?” Mary said, quietly and almost coldly.
“That is what puzzles me about this question of being in
love. I’ve always prided myself upon being reasonable,”
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she added. “I didn’t think I could have felt this—I mean
if the other person didn’t. I was foolish. I let myself
pretend.” Here she paused. “For, you see, Katharine,” she
proceeded, rousing herself and speaking with greater
energy, “I am in love. There’s no doubt about that… . I’m
tremendously in love … with Ralph.” The little forward
shake of her head, which shook a lock of hair, together
with her brighter color, gave her an appearance at once
proud and defiant.
Katharine thought to herself, “That’s how it feels then.”
She hesitated, with a feeling that it was not for her to
speak; and then said, in a low tone, “You’ve got that.”
“Yes,” said Mary; “I’ve got that. One wouldn’t not be in
love… . But I didn’t mean to talk about that; I only
wanted you to know. There’s another thing I want to tell
you …” She paused. “I haven’t any authority from Ralph
to say it; but I’m sure of this—he’s in love with you.”
Katharine looked at her again, as if her first glance
must have been deluded, for, surely, there must be some
outward sign that Mary was talking in an excited, or bewildered,
or fantastic manner. No; she still frowned, as if
she sought her way through the clauses of a difficult
argument, but she still looked more like one who reasons
than one who feels.
“That proves that you’re mistaken—utterly mistaken,”
said Katharine, speaking reasonably, too. She had no need
to verify the mistake by a glance at her own recollections,
when the fact was so clearly stamped upon her
mind that if Ralph had any feeling towards her it was one
of critical hostility. She did not give the matter another
thought, and Mary, now that she had stated the fact, did
not seek to prove it, but tried to explain to herself, rather
than to Katharine, her motives in making the statement.
She had nerved herself to do what some large and imperious
