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imagined her slipping farther and farther from him into
one of those states of mind in which he was unrepresented.
He wished to dominate her, to possess her.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery. She thanked Him
for a variety of blessings: for the conviction with which
the young man spoke; and not least for the prospect that
on her daughter’s wedding-day the noble cadences, the
stately periods, the ancient eloquence of the marriage
service would resound over the heads of a distinguished
congregation gathered together near the very spot where
her father lay quiescent with the other poets of England.
The tears filled her eyes; but she remembered simultaneously
that her carriage was waiting, and with dim eyes
she walked to the door. Denham followed her downstairs.
It was a strange drive. For Denham it was without exception
the most unpleasant he had ever taken. His only
wish was to go as straightly and quickly as possible to
Cheyne Walk; but it soon appeared that Mrs. Hilbery either
ignored or thought fit to baffle this desire by interposing
various errands of her own. She stopped the carriage
at post-offices, and coffee-shops, and shops of in
scrutable dignity where the aged attendants had to be
greeted as old friends; and, catching sight of the dome of
St. Paul’s above the irregular spires of Ludgate Hill, she
pulled the cord impulsively, and gave directions that
Anderson should drive them there. But Anderson had reasons
of his own for discouraging afternoon worship, and
kept his horse’s nose obstinately towards the west. After
some minutes, Mrs. Hilbery realized the situation, and
accepted it good-humoredly, apologizing to Ralph for his
disappointment.
“Never mind,” she said, “we’ll go to St. Paul’s another
day, and it may turn out, though I can’t promise that it
will, that he’ll take us past Westminster Abbey, which
would be even better.”
Ralph was scarcely aware of what she went on to say. Her
mind and body both seemed to have floated into another
region of quick-sailing clouds rapidly passing across each
other and enveloping everything in a vaporous indistinctness.
Meanwhile he remained conscious of his own concentrated
desire, his impotence to bring about anything
he wished, and his increasing agony of impatience.
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Suddenly Mrs. Hilbery pulled the cord with such decision
that even Anderson had to listen to the order which she
leant out of the window to give him. The carriage pulled
up abruptly in the middle of Whitehall before a large building
dedicated to one of our Government offices. In a second
Mrs. Hilbery was mounting the steps, and Ralph was left in
too acute an irritation by this further delay even to speculate
what errand took her now to the Board of Education.
He was about to jump from the carriage and take a cab,
when Mrs. Hilbery reappeared talking genially to a figure
who remained hidden behind her.
“There’s plenty of room for us all,” she was saying. “Plenty
of room. We could find space for four of you, William,” she
added, opening the door, and Ralph found that Rodney
had now joined their company. The two men glanced at
each other. If distress, shame, discomfort in its most acute
form were ever visible upon a human face, Ralph could
read them all expressed beyond the eloquence of words
upon the face of his unfortunate companion. But Mrs.
Hilbery was either completely unseeing or determined to
appear so. She went on talking; she talked, it seemed to
both the young men, to some one outside, up in the air.
She talked about Shakespeare, she apostrophized the human
race, she proclaimed the virtues of divine poetry, she
began to recite verses which broke down in the middle.
The great advantage of her discourse was that it was self-
supporting. It nourished itself until Cheyne Walk was
reached upon half a dozen grunts and murmurs.
“Now,” she said, alighting briskly at her door, “here we
are!”
There was something airy and ironical in her voice and
expression as she turned upon the doorstep and looked
at them, which filled both Rodney and Denham with the
same misgivings at having trusted their fortunes to such
an ambassador; and Rodney actually hesitated upon the
threshold and murmured to Denham:
“You go in, Denham. I …” He was turning tail, but the
door opening and the familiar look of the house asserting
its charm, he bolted in on the wake of the others,
and the door shut upon his escape. Mrs. Hilbery led the
way upstairs. She took them to the drawing-room. The
fire burnt as usual, the little tables were laid with china
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and silver. There was nobody there.
“Ah,” she said, “Katharine’s not here. She must be upstairs
in her room. You have something to say to her, I
know, Mr. Denham. You can find your way?” she vaguely
indicated the ceiling with a gesture of her hand. She had
become suddenly serious and composed, mistress in her
own house. The gesture with which she dismissed him
had a dignity that Ralph never forgot. She seemed to
make him free with a wave of her hand to all that she
possessed. He left the room.
The Hilberys’ house was tall, possessing many stories
and passages with closed doors, all, once he had passed
the drawing-room floor, unknown to Ralph. He mounted as
high as he could and knocked at the first door he came to.
“May I come in?” he asked.
A voice from within answered “Yes.”
He was conscious of a large window, full of light, of a
bare table, and of a long looking-glass. Katharine had
risen, and was standing with some white papers in her
hand, which slowly fluttered to the ground as she saw
her visitor. The explanation was a short one. The sounds
were inarticulate; no one could have understood the meaning
save themselves. As if the forces of the world were all
at work to tear them asunder they sat, clasping hands,
near enough to be taken even by the malicious eye of
Time himself for a united couple, an indivisible unit.
“Don’t move, don’t go,” she begged of him, when he
stooped to gather the papers she had let fall. But he took
them in his hands and, giving her by a sudden impulse
his own unfinished dissertation, with its mystical conclusion,
they read each other’s compositions in silence.
Katharine read his sheets to an end; Ralph followed her
figures as far as his mathematics would let him. They
came to the end of their tasks at about the same moment,
and sat for a time in silence.
“Those were the papers you left on the seat at Kew,”
said Ralph at length. “You folded them so quickly that I
couldn’t see what they were.”
She blushed very deeply; but as she did not move or
attempt to hide her face she had the appearance of some
one disarmed of all defences, or Ralph likened her to a
wild bird just settling with wings trembling to fold them
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selves within reach of his hand. The moment of exposure
had been exquisitely painful—the light shed startlingly
vivid. She had now to get used to the fact that some one
shared her loneliness. The bewilderment was half shame
and half the prelude to profound rejoicing. Nor was she
unconscious that on the surface the whole thing must
appear of the utmost absurdity. She looked to see whether
Ralph smiled, but found his gaze fixed on her with such
gravity that she turned to the belief that she had committed
no sacrilege but enriched herself, perhaps immeasurably,
perhaps eternally. She hardly dared steep herself
in the infinite bliss. But his glance seemed to ask for
some assurance upon another point of vital interest to
him. It beseeched her mutely to tell him whether what
she had read upon his confused sheet had any meaning
or truth to her. She bent her head once more to the papers
she held.
“I like your little dot with the flames round it,” she
said meditatively.
Ralph nearly tore the page from her hand in shame and
despair when he saw her actually contemplating the idi
otic symbol of his most confused and emotional moments.
He was convinced that it could mean nothing to another,
although somehow to him it conveyed not only
Katharine herself but all those states of mind which had
clustered round her since he first saw her pouring out tea
on a Sunday afternoon. It represented by its circumference
of smudges surrounding a central blot all that encircling
glow which for him surrounded, inexplicably, so many
of the objects of life, softening their sharp outline, so
that he could see certain streets, books, and situations
wearing a halo almost perceptible to the physical eye.
Did she smile? Did she put the paper down wearily, condemning
it not only for its inadequacy but for its falsity?
Was she going to protest once more that he only loved
the vision of her? But it did not occur to her that this
diagram had anything to do with her. She said simply,
and in the same tone of reflection:
“Yes, the world looks something like that to me too.”
He received her assurance with profound joy. Quietly
and steadily there rose up behind the whole aspect of
life that soft edge of fire which gave its red tint to the
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atmosphere and crowded the scene with shadows so deep
and dark that one could fancy pushing farther into their
density and still farther, exploring indefinitely. Whether
there was any correspondence between the two prospects
now opening before them they shared the same sense of
the impending future, vast, mysterious, infinitely stored
with undeveloped shapes which each would unwrap for
the other to behold; but for the present the prospect of
the future was enough to fill them with silent adoration.
At any rate, their further attempts to communicate articulately
were interrupted by a knock on the door, and
the entrance of a maid who, with a due sense of mystery,
announced that a lady wished to see Miss Hilbery, but
refused to allow her name to be given.
When Katharine rose, with a profound sigh, to resume
her duties, Ralph went with her, and neither of them formulated
any guess, on their way downstairs, as to who
this anonymous lady might prove to be. Perhaps the fantastic
notion that she was a little black hunchback provided
with a steel knife, which she would plunge into
Katharine’s heart, appeared to Ralph more probable than
another, and he pushed first into the dining-room to avert
the blow. Then he exclaimed “Cassandra!” with such heartiness
at the sight of Cassandra Otway standing by the
dining-room table that she put her finger to her lips and
begged him to be quiet.
“Nobody must know I’m here,” she explained in a sepulchral
whisper. “I missed my train. I have been wandering
about London all day. I can bear it no longer.
Katharine, what am I to do?”
Katharine pushed forward a chair; Ralph hastily found
wine and poured it out for her. If not actually fainting,
she was very near it.
“William’s upstairs,” said Ralph, as soon as she appeared
to be recovered. “I’ll go and ask him to come down to
you.” His own happiness had given him a confidence that
every one else was bound to be happy too. But Cassandra
had her uncle’s commands and anger too vividly in her
mind to dare any such defiance. She became agitated
and said that she must leave the house at once. She was
not in a condition to go, had they known where to send
her. Katharine’s common sense, which had been in abey
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ance for the past week or two, still failed her, and she
could only ask, “But where’s your luggage?” in the vague
belief that to take lodgings depended entirely upon a
sufficiency of luggage. Cassandra’s reply, “I’ve lost my
luggage,” in no way helped her to a conclusion.
“You’ve lost your luggage,” she repeated. Her eyes rested
upon Ralph, with an expression which seemed better fitted
to accompany a profound thanksgiving for his existence
or some vow of eternal devotion than a question
about luggage. Cassandra perceived the look, and saw
that it was returned; her eyes filled with tears. She faltered
in what she was saying. She began bravely again to
discuss the question of lodging when Katharine, who
seemed to have communicated silently with Ralph, and
obtained his permission, took her ruby ring from her finger
and giving it to Cassandra, said: “I believe it will fit
you without any alteration.”
These words would not have been enough to convince
Cassandra of what she very much wished to believe had
not Ralph taken the bare hand in his and demanded:
“Why don’t you tell us you’re glad?” Cassandra was so
glad that the tears ran down her cheeks. The certainty of
Katharine’s engagement not only relieved her of a thousand
vague fears and self-reproaches, but entirely
quenched that spirit of criticism which had lately impaired
her belief in Katharine. Her old faith came back to
her. She seemed to behold her with that curious intensity
which she had lost; as a being who walks just beyond our
sphere, so that life in their presence is a heightened process,
illuminating not only ourselves but a considerable
stretch of the surrounding world. Next moment she contrasted
her own lot with theirs and gave back the ring.
“I won’t take that unless William gives it me himself,”
she said. “Keep it for me, Katharine.”
“I assure you everything’s perfectly all right,” said Ralph.
“Let me tell William—”
He was about, in spite of Cassandra’s protest, to reach
the door, when Mrs. Hilbery, either warned by the parlor-
maid or conscious with her usual prescience of the need
for her intervention, opened the door and smilingly surveyed
them.
“My dear Cassandra!” she exclaimed. “How delightful to
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