instinct demanded her doing; she had been swept
on the breast of a wave beyond her reckoning.
“I’ve told you,” she said, “because I want you to help
me. I don’t want to be jealous of you. And I am—I’m
fearfully jealous. The only way, I thought, was to tell
you.”
She hesitated, and groped in her endeavor to make her
feelings clear to herself.
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“If I tell you, then we can talk; and when I’m jealous, I
can tell you. And if I’m tempted to do something frightfully
mean, I can tell you; you could make me tell you. I
find talking so difficult; but loneliness frightens me. I
should shut it up in my mind. Yes, that’s what I’m afraid
of. Going about with something in my mind all my life
that never changes. I find it so difficult to change. When
I think a thing’s wrong I never stop thinking it wrong,
and Ralph was quite right, I see, when he said that there’s
no such thing as right and wrong; no such thing, I mean,
as judging people—”
“Ralph Denham said that?” said Katharine, with considerable
indignation. In order to have produced such suffering
in Mary, it seemed to her that he must have behaved
with extreme callousness. It seemed to her that he had
discarded the friendship, when it suited his convenience
to do so, with some falsely philosophical theory which
made his conduct all the worse. She was going on to express
herself thus, had not Mary at once interrupted her.
“No, no,” she said; “you don’t understand. If there’s
any fault it’s mine entirely; after all, if one chooses to
run risks—”
Her voice faltered into silence. It was borne in upon
her how completely in running her risk she had lost her
prize, lost it so entirely that she had no longer the right,
in talking of Ralph, to presume that her knowledge of
him supplanted all other knowledge. She no longer completely
possessed her love, since his share in it was doubtful;
and now, to make things yet more bitter, her clear
vision of the way to face life was rendered tremulous and
uncertain, because another was witness of it. Feeling her
desire for the old unshared intimacy too great to be borne
without tears, she rose, walked to the farther end of the
room, held the curtains apart, and stood there mastered
for a moment. The grief itself was not ignoble; the sting
of it lay in the fact that she had been led to this act of
treachery against herself. Trapped, cheated, robbed, first
by Ralph and then by Katharine, she seemed all dissolved
in humiliation, and bereft of anything she could call her
own. Tears of weakness welled up and rolled down her
cheeks. But tears, at least, she could control, and would
this instant, and then, turning, she would face Katharine,
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and retrieve what could be retrieved of the collapse of
her courage.
She turned. Katharine had not moved; she was leaning
a little forward in her chair and looking into the fire.
Something in the attitude reminded Mary of Ralph. So he
would sit, leaning forward, looking rather fixedly in front
of him, while his mind went far away, exploring, speculating,
until he broke off with his, “Well, Mary?”—and
the silence, that had been so full of romance to her, gave
way to the most delightful talk that she had ever known.
Something unfamiliar in the pose of the silent figure,
something still, solemn, significant about it, made her
hold her breath. She paused. Her thoughts were without
bitterness. She was surprised by her own quiet and confidence.
She came back silently, and sat once more by
Katharine’s side. Mary had no wish to speak. In the silence
she seemed to have lost her isolation; she was at
once the sufferer and the pitiful spectator of suffering;
she was happier than she had ever been; she was more
bereft; she was rejected, and she was immensely beloved.
Attempt to express these sensations was vain, and, more
over, she could not help believing that, without any words
on her side, they were shared. Thus for some time longer
they sat silent, side by side, while Mary fingered the fur
on the skirt of the old dress.
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CHAPTER XXII
The fact that she would be late in keeping her engagement
with William was not the only reason which sent
Katharine almost at racing speed along the Strand in the
direction of his rooms. Punctuality might have been
achieved by taking a cab, had she not wished the open
air to fan into flame the glow kindled by Mary’s words.
For among all the impressions of the evening’s talk one
was of the nature of a revelation and subdued the rest to
insignificance. Thus one looked; thus one spoke; such
was love.
“She sat up straight and looked at me, and then she
said, ‘I’m in love,’” Katharine mused, trying to set the
whole scene in motion. It was a scene to dwell on with so
much wonder that not a grain of pity occurred to her; it
was a flame blazing suddenly in the dark; by its light
Katharine perceived far too vividly for her comfort the
mediocrity, indeed the entirely fictitious character of her
own feelings so far as they pretended to correspond with
Mary’s feelings. She made up her mind to act instantly
upon the knowledge thus gained, and cast her mind in
amazement back to the scene upon the heath, when she
had yielded, heaven knows why, for reasons which seemed
now imperceptible. So in broad daylight one might revisit
the place where one has groped and turned and
succumbed to utter bewilderment in a fog.
“It’s all so simple,” she said to herself. “There can’t be
any doubt. I’ve only got to speak now. I’ve only got to
speak,” she went on saying, in time to her own footsteps,
and completely forgot Mary Datchet.
William Rodney, having come back earlier from the office
than he expected, sat down to pick out the melodies
in “The Magic Flute” upon the piano. Katharine was late,
but that was nothing new, and, as she had no particular
liking for music, and he felt in the mood for it, perhaps it
was as well. This defect in Katharine was the more strange,
William reflected, because, as a rule, the women of her
family were unusually musical. Her cousin, Cassandra
Otway, for example, had a very fine taste in music, and
he had charming recollections of her in a light fantastic
attitude, playing the flute in the morning-room at Stogdon
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Night and Day
House. He recalled with pleasure the amusing way in which
her nose, long like all the Otway noses, seemed to extend
itself into the flute, as if she were some inimitably graceful
species of musical mole. The little picture suggested
very happily her melodious and whimsical temperament.
The enthusiasms of a young girl of distinguished upbringing
appealed to William, and suggested a thousand ways
in which, with his training and accomplishments, he could
be of service to her. She ought to be given the chance of
hearing good music, as it is played by those who have
inherited the great tradition. Moreover, from one or two
remarks let fall in the course of conversation, he thought
it possible that she had what Katharine professed to lack,
a passionate, if untaught, appreciation of literature. He
had lent her his play. Meanwhile, as Katharine was certain
to be late, and “The Magic Flute” is nothing without
a voice, he felt inclined to spend the time of waiting in
writing a letter to Cassandra, exhorting her to read Pope
in preference to Dostoevsky, until her feeling for form
was more highly developed. He set himself down to compose
this piece of advice in a shape which was light and
playful, and yet did no injury to a cause which he had
near at heart, when he heard Katharine upon the stairs.
A moment later it was plain that he had been mistaken,
it was not Katharine; but he could not settle himself to
his letter. His temper had changed from one of urbane
contentment—indeed of delicious expansion—to one of
uneasiness and expectation. The dinner was brought in,
and had to be set by the fire to keep hot. It was now a
quarter of an hour beyond the specified time. He bethought
him of a piece of news which had depressed him
in the earlier part of the day. Owing to the illness of one
of his fellow-clerks, it was likely that he would get no
holiday until later in the year, which would mean the
postponement of their marriage. But this possibility, after
all, was not so disagreeable as the probability which
forced itself upon him with every tick of the clock that
Katharine had completely forgotten her engagement. Such
things had happened less frequently since Christmas, but
what if they were going to begin to happen again? What
if their marriage should turn out, as she had said, a farce?
He acquitted her of any wish to hurt him wantonly, but
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there was something in her character which made it impossible
for her to help hurting people. Was she cold?
Was she self-absorbed? He tried to fit her with each of
these descriptions, but he had to own that she puzzled
him.
“There are so many things that she doesn’t understand,”
he reflected, glancing at the letter to Cassandra which he
had begun and laid aside. What prevented him from finishing
the letter which he had so much enjoyed beginning?
The reason was that Katharine might, at any moment,
enter the room. The thought, implying his bondage
to her, irritated him acutely. It occurred to him that
he would leave the letter lying open for her to see, and
he would take the opportunity of telling her that he had
sent his play to Cassandra for her to criticize. Possibly,
but not by any means certainly, this would annoy her—
and as he reached the doubtful comfort of this conclusion,
there was a knock on the door and Katharine came
in. They kissed each other coldly and she made no apology
for being late. Nevertheless, her mere presence moved
him strangely; but he was determined that this should
not weaken his resolution to make some kind of stand
against her; to get at the truth about her. He let her
make her own disposition of clothes and busied himself
with the plates.
“I’ve got a piece of news for you, Katharine,” he said
directly they sat down to table; “I shan’t get my holiday
in April. We shall have to put off our marriage.”
He rapped the words out with a certain degree of briskness.
Katharine started a little, as if the announcement
disturbed her thoughts.
“That won’t make any difference, will it? I mean the
lease isn’t signed,” she replied. “But why? What has happened?”
He told her, in an off-hand way, how one of his fellow-
clerks had broken down, and might have to be away for
months, six months even, in which case they would have
to think over their position. He said it in a way which
struck her, at last, as oddly casual. She looked at him.
There was no outward sign that he was annoyed with her.
Was she well dressed? She thought sufficiently so. Perhaps
she was late? She looked for a clock.
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“It’s a good thing we didn’t take the house then,” she
repeated thoughtfully.
“It’ll mean, too, I’m afraid, that I shan’t be as free for
a considerable time as I have been,” he continued. She
had time to reflect that she gained something by all this,
though it was too soon to determine what. But the light
which had been burning with such intensity as she came
along was suddenly overclouded, as much by his manner
as by his news. She had been prepared to meet opposition,
which is simple to encounter compared with—she
did not know what it was that she had to encounter. The
meal passed in quiet, well-controlled talk about indifferent
things. Music was not a subject about which she knew
anything, but she liked him to tell her things; and could,
she mused, as he talked, fancy the evenings of married
life spent thus, over the fire; spent thus, or with a book,
perhaps, for then she would have time to read her books,
and to grasp firmly with every muscle of her unused mind
what she longed to know. The atmosphere was very free.
Suddenly William broke off. She looked up apprehensively,
brushing aside these thoughts with annoyance.
“Where should I address a letter to Cassandra?” he asked
her. It was obvious again that William had some meaning
or other to-night, or was in some mood. “We’ve struck up
a friendship,” he added.
“She’s at home, I think,” Katharine replied.
“They keep her too much at home,” said William. “Why
don’t you ask her to stay with you, and let her hear a
little good music? I’ll just finish what I was saying, if you
don’t mind, because I’m particularly anxious that she
should hear to-morrow.”
Katharine sank back in her chair, and Rodney took the
paper on his knees, and went on with his sentence. “Style,
you know, is what we tend to neglect—”; but he was far
more conscious of Katharine’s eye upon him than of what
he was saying about style. He knew that she was looking
at him, but whether with irritation or indifference he
could not guess.
In truth, she had fallen sufficiently into his trap to feel
uncomfortably roused and disturbed and unable to proceed
on the lines laid down for herself. This indifferent,
if not hostile, attitude on William’s part made it impos
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sible to break off without animosity, largely and completely.
Infinitely preferable was Mary’s state, she thought,
where there was a simple thing to do and one did it. In
fact, she could not help supposing that some littleness
of nature had a part in all the refinements, reserves, and
subtleties of feeling for which her friends and family were
so distinguished. For example, although she liked
Cassandra well enough, her fantastic method of life struck
her as purely frivolous; now it was socialism, now it was
