“Our engagement is at an end,” he said, with the utmost
stiffness.
“Has this been arrived at by your joint desire?”
After a perceptible pause William bent his head, and
Katharine said, as if by an afterthought:
“Oh, yes.”
Mr. Hilbery swayed to and fro, and moved his lips as if
to utter remarks which remained unspoken.
“I can only suggest that you should postpone any decision
until the effect of this misunderstanding has had
time to wear off. You have now known each other—” he
began.
“There’s been no misunderstanding,” Katharine interposed.
“Nothing at all.” She moved a few paces across
the room, as if she intended to leave them. Her preoccupied
naturalness was in strange contrast to her father’s
pomposity and to William’s military rigidity. He had not
once raised his eyes. Katharine’s glance, on the other
hand, ranged past the two gentlemen, along the books,
over the tables, towards the door. She was paying the
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least possible attention, it seemed, to what was happening.
Her father looked at her with a sudden clouding and
troubling of his expression. Somehow his faith in her stability
and sense was queerly shaken. He no longer felt
that he could ultimately entrust her with the whole conduct
of her own affairs after a superficial show of directing
them. He felt, for the first time in many years, responsible
for her.
“Look here, we must get to the bottom of this,” he
said, dropping his formal manner and addressing Rodney
as if Katharine were not present. “You’ve had some difference
of opinion, eh? Take my word for it, most people
go through this sort of thing when they’re engaged. I’ve
seen more trouble come from long engagements than from
any other form of human folly. Take my advice and put
the whole matter out of your minds—both of you. I prescribe
a complete abstinence from emotion. Visit some
cheerful seaside resort, Rodney.”
He was struck by William’s appearance, which seemed
to him to indicate profound feeling resolutely held in
check. No doubt, he reflected, Katharine had been very
trying, unconsciously trying, and had driven him to take
up a position which was none of his willing. Mr. Hilbery
certainly did not overrate William’s sufferings. No minutes
in his life had hitherto extorted from him such intensity
of anguish. He was now facing the consequences
of his insanity. He must confess himself entirely and fundamentally
other than Mr. Hilbery thought him. Everything
was against him. Even the Sunday evening and the
fire and the tranquil library scene were against him. Mr.
Hilbery’s appeal to him as a man of the world was terribly
against him. He was no longer a man of any world that
Mr. Hilbery cared to recognize. But some power compelled
him, as it had compelled him to come downstairs, to
make his stand here and now, alone and unhelped by any
one, without prospect of reward. He fumbled with various
phrases; and then jerked out:
“I love Cassandra.”
Mr. Hilbery’s face turned a curious dull purple. He looked
at his daughter. He nodded his head, as if to convey his
silent command to her to leave the room; but either she
did not notice it or preferred not to obey.
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“You have the impudence—” Mr. Hilbery began, in a
dull, low voice that he himself had never heard before,
when there was a scuffling and exclaiming in the hall,
and Cassandra, who appeared to be insisting against some
dissuasion on the part of another, burst into the room.
“Uncle Trevor,” she exclaimed, “I insist upon telling
you the truth!” She flung herself between Rodney and
her uncle, as if she sought to intercept their blows. As
her uncle stood perfectly still, looking very large and imposing,
and as nobody spoke, she shrank back a little,
and looked first at Katharine and then at Rodney. “You
must know the truth,” she said, a little lamely.
“You have the impudence to tell me this in Katharine’s
presence?” Mr. Hilbery continued, speaking with complete
disregard of Cassandra’s interruption.
“I am aware, quite aware—” Rodney’s words, which were
broken in sense, spoken after a pause, and with his eyes
upon the ground, nevertheless expressed an astonishing
amount of resolution. “I am quite aware what you must
think of me,” he brought out, looking Mr. Hilbery directly
in the eyes for the first time.
“I could express my views on the subject more fully if
we were alone,” Mr. Hilbery returned.
“But you forget me,” said Katharine. She moved a little
towards Rodney, and her movement seemed to testify
mutely to her respect for him, and her alliance with him.
“I think William has behaved perfectly rightly, and, after
all, it is I who am concerned—I and Cassandra.”
Cassandra, too, gave an indescribably slight movement
which seemed to draw the three of them into alliance
together. Katharine’s tone and glance made Mr. Hilbery
once more feel completely at a loss, and in addition,
painfully and angrily obsolete; but in spite of an awful
inner hollowness he was outwardly composed.
“Cassandra and Rodney have a perfect right to settle
their own affairs according to their own wishes; but I see
no reason why they should do so either in my room or in
my house… . I wish to be quite clear on this point, however;
you are no longer engaged to Rodney.”
He paused, and his pause seemed to signify that he
was extremely thankful for his daughter’s deliverance.
Cassandra turned to Katharine, who drew her breath as
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if to speak and checked herself; Rodney, too, seemed to
await some movement on her part; her father glanced at
her as if he half anticipated some further revelation. She
remained perfectly silent. In the silence they heard distinctly
steps descending the staircase, and Katharine went
straight to the door.
“Wait,” Mr. Hilbery commanded. “I wish to speak to
you—alone,” he added.
She paused, holding the door ajar.
“I’ll come back,” she said, and as she spoke she opened the
door and went out. They could hear her immediately speak to
some one outside, though the words were inaudible.
Mr. Hilbery was left confronting the guilty couple, who
remained standing as if they did not accept their dismissal,
and the disappearance of Katharine had brought
some change into the situation. So, in his secret heart,
Mr. Hilbery felt that it had, for he could not explain his
daughter’s behavior to his own satisfaction.
“Uncle Trevor,” Cassandra exclaimed impulsively, “don’t
be angry, please. I couldn’t help it; I do beg you to forgive
me.”
Her uncle still refused to acknowledge her identity, and
still talked over her head as if she did not exist.
“I suppose you have communicated with the Otways,”
he said to Rodney grimly.
“Uncle Trevor, we wanted to tell you,” Cassandra replied
for him. “We waited—” she looked appealingly at
Rodney, who shook his head ever so slightly.
“Yes? What were you waiting for?” her uncle asked
sharply, looking at her at last.
The words died on her lips. It was apparent that she
was straining her ears as if to catch some sound outside
the room that would come to her help. He received no
answer. He listened, too.
“This is a most unpleasant business for all parties,” he
concluded, sinking into his chair again, hunching his
shoulders and regarding the flames. He seemed to speak
to himself, and Rodney and Cassandra looked at him in
silence.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he said suddenly. He spoke
gruffly, but the force of his anger was evidently spent, or
some preoccupation had turned his mood to other re
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gions. While Cassandra accepted his invitation, Rodney
remained standing.
“I think Cassandra can explain matters better in my
absence,” he said, and left the room, Mr. Hilbery giving
his assent by a slight nod of the head.
Meanwhile, in the dining-room next door, Denham and
Katharine were once more seated at the mahogany table.
They seemed to be continuing a conversation broken off
in the middle, as if each remembered the precise point at
which they had been interrupted, and was eager to go on
as quickly as possible. Katharine, having interposed a
short account of the interview with her father, Denham
made no comment, but said:
“Anyhow, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t see each
other.”
“Or stay together. It’s only marriage that’s out of the
question,” Katharine replied.
“But if I find myself coming to want you more and
more?”
“If our lapses come more and more often?”
He sighed impatiently, and said nothing for a moment.
“But at least,” he renewed, “we’ve established the fact
that my lapses are still in some odd way connected with
you; yours have nothing to do with me. Katharine,” he
added, his assumption of reason broken up by his agitation,
“I assure you that we are in love—what other people
call love. Remember that night. We had no doubts whatever
then. We were absolutely happy for half an hour. You
had no lapse until the day after; I had no lapse until yesterday
morning. We’ve been happy at intervals all day until
I—went off my head, and you, quite naturally, were bored.”
“Ah,” she exclaimed, as if the subject chafed her, “I can’t
make you understand. It’s not boredom—I’m never bored.
Reality—reality,” she ejaculated, tapping her finger upon
the table as if to emphasize and perhaps explain her isolated
utterance of this word. “I cease to be real to you. It’s
the faces in a storm again—the vision in a hurricane. We
come together for a moment and we part. It’s my fault,
too. I’m as bad as you are—worse, perhaps.”
They were trying to explain, not for the first time, as
their weary gestures and frequent interruptions showed,
what in their common language they had christened their
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“lapses”; a constant source of distress to them, in the
past few days, and the immediate reason why Ralph was
on his way to leave the house when Katharine, listening
anxiously, heard him and prevented him. What was the
cause of these lapses? Either because Katharine looked
more beautiful, or more strange, because she wore something
different, or said something unexpected, Ralph’s
sense of her romance welled up and overcame him either
into silence or into inarticulate expressions, which
Katharine, with unintentional but invariable perversity,
interrupted or contradicted with some severity or assertion
of prosaic fact. Then the vision disappeared, and
Ralph expressed vehemently in his turn the conviction
that he only loved her shadow and cared nothing for her
reality. If the lapse was on her side it took the form of
gradual detachment until she became completely absorbed
in her own thoughts, which carried her away with such
intensity that she sharply resented any recall to her
companion’s side. It was useless to assert that these
trances were always originated by Ralph himself, however
little in their later stages they had to do with him.
The fact remained that she had no need of him and was
very loath to be reminded of him. How, then, could they
be in love? The fragmentary nature of their relationship
was but too apparent.
Thus they sat depressed to silence at the dining-room
table, oblivious of everything, while Rodney paced the
drawing-room overhead in such agitation and exaltation
of mind as he had never conceived possible, and Cassandra
remained alone with her uncle. Ralph, at length, rose
and walked gloomily to the window. He pressed close to
the pane. Outside were truth and freedom and the immensity
only to be apprehended by the mind in loneliness,
and never communicated to another. What worse
sacrilege was there than to attempt to violate what he
perceived by seeking to impart it? Some movement behind
him made him reflect that Katharine had the power,
if she chose, to be in person what he dreamed of her
spirit. He turned sharply to implore her help, when again
he was struck cold by her look of distance, her expression
of intentness upon some far object. As if conscious of his
look upon her she rose and came to him, standing close
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by his side, and looking with him out into the dusky
atmosphere. Their physical closeness was to him a bitter
enough comment upon the distance between their minds.
Yet distant as she was, her presence by his side transformed
the world. He saw himself performing wonderful
deeds of courage; saving the drowning, rescuing the forlorn.
Impatient with this form of egotism, he could not
shake off the conviction that somehow life was wonderful,
romantic, a master worth serving so long as she stood
there. He had no wish that she should speak; he did not
look at her or touch her; she was apparently deep in her
own thoughts and oblivious of his presence.
The door opened without their hearing the sound. Mr.
Hilbery looked round the room, and for a moment failed
to discover the two figures in the window. He started
with displeasure when he saw them, and observed them
keenly before he appeared able to make up his mind to
say anything. He made a movement finally that warned
them of his presence; they turned instantly. Without speaking,
he beckoned to Katharine to come to him, and, keeping
his eyes from the region of the room where Denham
stood, he shepherded her in front of him back to the
study. When Katharine was inside the room he shut the
study door carefully behind him as if to secure himself
from something that he disliked.
“Now, Katharine,” he said, taking up his stand in front
of the fire, “you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain—”
She remained silent. “What inferences do you
expect me to draw?” he said sharply… . “You tell me that
