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Title: The Garotters

Author: William D. Howells

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One may as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister.

"Howards End,
"Tuesday.
"Dearest Meg,
"It isn't going
to be what we expected.

It is old and little,
and altogether delightful--red brick.

We can scarcely pack in as it is,
and the dear knows what will happen when Paul
(younger son)
arrives to-morrow.

From hall you go right or left into dining-room or drawing-room.

Hall itself is practically a room.

You open another door in it,
and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel
to the first-floor.

Three bed-rooms in a row there,
and three attics in a row above.

That isn't all the house really,
but it's all that one notices--nine windows as you look up from the front garden.

"Then there's a very big wych-elm--to the left as you look up--leaning a little over the house,
and standing on the boundary between the garden and meadow.

I quite love that tree already.

Also ordinary elms,
oaks--no nastier than ordinary oaks-- pear-trees,
apple-trees,
and a vine.

No silver birches,
though.

However,
I must get on
to my host and hostess.

I only wanted
to show that it isn't the least what we expected.

Why did we settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles,
and their garden all gamboge-coloured paths?

I believe simply because we associate them
with expensive hotels--Mrs. Wilcox trailing in beautiful dresses down long corridors,
Mr. Wilcox bullying porters,
etc.

We females are that unjust.

"I shall be back Saturday;
will let you know train later.

They are as angry as I am that you did not come too;
really Tibby is too tiresome,
he starts a new mortal disease every month.

How could he have got hay fever in London?

and even if he could,
it seems hard that you should give up a visit
to hear a schoolboy sneeze.

Tell him that Charles Wilcox
(the son who is here)
has hay fever too,
but he's brave,
and gets quite cross when we inquire after it.

Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of good.

But you won't agree,
and I'd better change the subject.

"This long letter is because I'm writing before breakfast.

Oh,
the beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered
with a vine.

I looked out earlier,
and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden.

She evidently loves it.

No wonder she sometimes looks tired.

She was watching the large red poppies come out.

Then she walked off the lawn
to the meadow,
whose corner
to the right I can just see.

Trail,
trail,
went her long dress over the sopping grass,
and she came back
with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday-- I suppose
for rabbits or something,
as she kept on smelling it.

The air here is delicious.

Later on I heard the noise of croquet balls,
and looked out again,
and it was Charles Wilcox practising;
they are keen on all games.

Presently he started sneezing and had
to stop.

Then I hear more clicketing,
and it is Mr. Wilcox practising,
and then,
'a-tissue,
a-tissue':

he has
to stop too.

Then Evie comes out,
and does some calisthenic exercises on a machine that is tacked on
to a green-gage-tree-- they put everything
to use--and then she says
'a-tissue,'
and in she goes.

And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears,
trail,
trail,
still smelling hay and looking at the flowers.

I inflict all this on you because once you said that life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama,
and one must learn
to distinguish tother from which,
and up
to now I have always put that down as
'Meg's clever nonsense.'

But this morning,
it really does seem not life but a play,
and it did amuse me enormously
to watch the W's.

Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.

"I am going
to wear [omission].

Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an [omission],
and Evie [omission].

So it isn't exactly a go-as-you-please place,
and if you shut your eyes it still seems the wiggly hotel that we expected.

Not if you open them.

The dog-roses are too sweet.

There is a great hedge of them over the lawn--magnificently tall,
so that they fall down in garlands,
and nice and thin at the bottom,
so that you can see ducks through it and a cow.

These belong
to the farm,
which is the only house near us.

There goes the breakfast gong.

Much love.

Modified love
to Tibby.

Love
to Aunt Juley;
how good of her
to come and keep you company,
but what a bore.

Burn this.

Will write again Thursday.

"HELEN."

Howards End Friday
"Dearest Meg,
"I am having a glorious time.

I like them all.

Mrs. Wilcox,
if quieter than in Germany,
is sweeter than ever,
and I never saw anything like her steady unselfishness,
and the best of it is that the others do not take advantage of her.

They are the very happiest,
jolliest family that you can imagine.

I do really feel that we are making friends.

The fun of it is that they think me a noodle,
and say so--at least,
Mr. Wilcox does--and when that happens,
and one doesn't mind,
it's a pretty sure test,
isn't it?

He says the most horrid things about woman's suffrage so nicely,
and when I said I believed in equality he just folded his arms and gave me such a setting down as I've never had.

Meg,
shall we ever learn
to talk less?

I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life.

I couldn't point
to a time when men had been equal,
nor even
to a time when the wish
to be equal had made them happier in other ways.

I couldn't say a word.

I had just picked up the notion that equality is good from some book--probably from poetry,
or you.

Anyhow,
it's been knocked into pieces,
and,
like all people who are really strong,
Mr. Wilcox did it without hurting me.

On the other hand,
I laugh at them
for catching hay fever.

We live like fighting-cocks,
and Charles takes us out every day in the motor--a tomb
with trees in it,
a hermit's house,
a wonderful road that was made by the Kings of Mercia-- tennis--a cricket match--bridge and at night we squeeze up in this lovely house.

The whole clan's here now--it's like a rabbit warren.

Evie is a dear.

They want me
to stop over Sunday--I suppose it won't matter if I do.

Marvellous weather and the views marvellous--views westward
to the high ground.

Thank you
for your letter.

Burn this.

"Your affectionate
"HELEN."

"Howards End,
"Sunday.

"Dearest,
dearest Meg,--I do not know what you will say:

Paul and I are in love--the younger son who only came here Wednesday."

CHAPTER II Margaret glanced at her sister's note and pushed it over the breakfast-table
to her aunt.

There was a moment's hush,
and then the flood-gates opened.

"I can tell you nothing,
Aunt Juley.

I know no more than you do.

We met--we only met the father and mother abroad last spring.

I know so little that I didn't even know their son's name.

It's all so--"
She waved her hand and laughed a little.

"In that case it is far too sudden."

"Who knows,
Aunt Juley,
who knows?"
"But,
Margaret,
dear,
I mean,
we mustn't be unpractical now that we've come
to facts.

It is too sudden,
surely."

"Who knows!"
"But,
Margaret,
dear--"
"I'll go
for her other letters,"
said Margaret.

"No,
I won't,
I'll finish my breakfast.

In fact,
I haven't them.

We met the Wilcoxes on an awful expedition that we made from Heidelberg
to Speyer.

Helen and I had got it into our heads that there was a grand old cathedral at Speyer--the Archbishop of Speyer was one of the seven electors--you know--'Speyer,
Maintz,
and Koln.'

Those three sees once commanded the Rhine Valley and got it the name of Priest Street."

"I still feel quite uneasy about this business,
Margaret."

"The train crossed by a bridge of boats,
and at first sight it looked quite fine.

But oh,
in five minutes we had seen the whole thing.

The cathedral had been ruined,
absolutely ruined,
by restoration;
not an inch left of the original structure.

We wasted a whole day,
and came across the Wilcoxes as we were eating our sandwiches in the public gardens.

They too,
poor things,
had been taken in--they were actually stopping at Speyer--and they rather liked Helen's insisting that they must fly
with us
to Heidelberg.

As a matter of fact,
they did come on next day.

We all took some drives together.

They knew us well enough
to ask Helen
to come and see them--at least,
I was asked too,
but Tibby's illness prevented me,
so last Monday she went alone.

That's all.

You know as much as I do now.

It's a young man out of the unknown.

She was
to have come back Saturday,
but put off till Monday,
perhaps on account of--I don't know."

She broke off,
and listened
to the sounds of a London morning.

Their house was in Wickham Place,
and fairly quiet,
for a lofty promontory of buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare.

One had the sense of a backwater,
or rather of an estuary,
whose waters flowed in from the invisible sea,
and ebbed into a profound silence while the waves without were still beating.

Though the promontory consisted of flats--expensive,
with cavernous entrance halls,
full of concierges and palms--it fulfilled its purpose,
and gained
for the older houses opposite a certain measure of peace.

These,
too,
would be swept away in time,
and another promontory would arise upon their site,
as humanity piled itself higher and higher on the precious soil of London.

Mrs. Munt had her own method of interpreting her nieces.

She decided that Margaret was a little hysterical,
and was trying
to gain time by a torrent of talk.

Feeling very diplomatic,
she lamented the fate of Speyer,
and declared that never,
never should she be so misguided as
to visit it,
and added of her own accord that the principles of restoration were ill understood in Germany.

"The Germans,"
she said,
"are too thorough,
and this is all very well sometimes,
but at other times it does not do."

"Exactly,"
said Margaret;
"Germans are too thorough."

And her eyes began
to shine.

"Of course I regard you Schlegels as English,"
said Mrs. Munt hastily--"English
to the backbone."

Margaret leaned forward and stroked her hand.

"And that reminds me--Helen's letter."

"Oh yes,
Aunt Juley,
I am thinking all right about Helen's letter.

I know--I must go down and see her.

I am thinking about her all right.

I am meaning
to go down."

"But go
with some plan,"
said Mrs. Munt,
admitting into her kindly voice a note of exasperation.

"Margaret,
if I may interfere,
don't be taken by surprise.

What do you think of the Wilcoxes?

Are they our sort?

Are they likely people?

Could they appreciate Helen,
who is
to my mind a very special sort of person?

Do they care about Literature and Art?

That is most important when you come
to think of it.

Literature and Art.

Most important.

How old would the son be?

She says
'younger son.'

Would he be in a position
to marry?

Is he likely
to make Helen happy?

Did you gather--"
"I gathered nothing."

They began
to talk at once.

"Then in that case--"
"In that case I can make no plans,
don't you see."

"On the contrary--"
"I hate plans.

I hate lines of action.

Helen isn't a baby."

"Then in that case,
my dear,
why go down?"
Margaret was silent.

If her aunt could not see why she must go down,
she was not going
to tell her.

She was not going
to say,
"I love my dear sister;
I must be near her at this crisis of her life."

The affections are more reticent than the passions,
and their expression more subtle.

If she herself should ever fall in love
with a man,
she,
like Helen,
would proclaim it from the housetops,
but as she loved only a sister she used the voiceless language of sympathy.

"I consider you odd girls,"
continued Mrs. Munt,
"and very wonderful girls,
and in many ways far older than your years.

But--you won't be offended?

frankly,
I feel you are not up
to this business.

It requires an older person.

Dear,
I have nothing
to call me back
to Swanage."

She spread out her plump arMs. "I am all at your disposal.

Let me go down
to this house whose name I forget instead of you."

"Aunt Juley"--she jumped up and kissed her--"I must,
must go
to Howards End myself.

You don't exactly understand,
though I can never thank you properly
for offering."

"I do understand,"
retorted Mrs. Munt,
with immense confidence.

"I go down in no spirit of interference,
but
to make inquiries.

Inquiries are necessary.

Now,
I am going
to be rude.

You would say the wrong thing;
to a certainty you would.

In your anxiety
for Helen's happiness you would offend the whole of these Wilcoxes by asking one of your impetuous questions--not that one minds offending them."

"I shall ask no questions.

I have it in Helen's writing that she and a man are in love.

There is no question
to ask as long as she keeps
to that.

All the rest isn't worth a straw.

A long engagement if you like,
but inquiries,
questions,
plans,
lines of action--no,
Aunt Juley,
no."

Away she hurried,
not beautiful,
not supremely brilliant,
but filled
with something that took the place of both qualities-- something best described as a profound vivacity,
a continual and sincere response
to all that she encountered in her path through life.

"If Helen had written the same
to me about a shop assistant or a penniless clerk--"
"Dear Margaret,
do come into the library and shut the door.

Your good maids are dusting the banisters."

"--or if she had wanted
to marry the man who calls
for Carter Paterson,
I should have said the same."

Then,
with one of those turns that convinced her aunt that she was not mad really,
and convinced observers of another type that she was not a barren theorist,
she added:

"Though in the case of Carter Paterson I should want it
to be a very long engagement indeed,
I must say."

"I should think so,"
said Mrs. Munt;
"and,
indeed,
I can scarcely follow you.

Now,
just imagine if you said anything of that sort
to the Wilcoxes.

I understand it,
but most good people would think you mad.

Imagine how disconcerting
for Helen! What is wanted is a person who will go slowly,
slowly in this business,
and see how things are and where they are likely
to lead to."

Margaret was down on this.

"But you implied just now that the engagement must be broken off."

"I think probably it must;
but slowly."

"Can you break an engagement off slowly?"
Her eyes lit up.

"What's an engagement made of,
do you suppose?

I think it's made of some hard stuff that may snap,
but can't break.

It is different
to the other ties of life.

They stretch or bend.

They admit of degree.

They're different."

"Exactly so.

But won't you let me just run down
to Howards House,
and save you all the discomfort?

I will really not interfere,
but I do so thoroughly understand the kind of thing you Schlegels want that one quiet look round will be enough
for me."

Margaret again thanked her,
again kissed her,
and then ran upstairs
to see her brother.

He was not so well.

The hay fever had worried him a good deal all night.

His head ached,
his eyes were wet,
his mucous membrane,
he informed her,
in a most unsatisfactory condition.

The only thing that made life worth living was the thought of Walter Savage Landor,
from whose Imaginary Conversations she had promised
to read at frequent intervals during the day.

It was rather difficult.

Something must be done about Helen.

She must be assured that it is not a criminal offence
to love at first sight.

A telegram
to this effect would be cold and cryptic,
a personal visit seemed each moment more impossible.

Now the doctor arrived,
and said that Tibby was quite bad.

Might it really be best
to accept Aunt Juley's kind offer,
and
to send her down
to Howards End
with a note?

Certainly Margaret was impulsive.

She did swing rapidly from one decision
to another.

Running downstairs into the library,
she cried:

"Yes,
I have changed my mind;
I do wish that you would go."

There was a train from King's Cross at eleven.

At half-past ten Tibby,
with rare self-effacement,
fell asleep,
and Margaret was able
to drive her aunt
to the station.

"You will remember,
Aunt Juley,
not
to be drawn into discussing the engagement.

Give my letter
to Helen,
and say whatever you feel yourself,
but do keep clear of the relatives.

We have scarcely got their names straight yet,
and,
besides,
that sort of thing is so uncivilised and wrong."

"So uncivilised?"
queried Mrs. Munt,
fearing that she was losing the point of some brilliant remark.

"Oh,
I used an affected word.

I only meant would you please talk the thing over only
with Helen."

"Only
with Helen."

"Because--"
But it was no moment
to expound the personal nature of love.

Even Margaret shrank from it,
and contented herself
with stroking her good aunt's hand,
and
with meditating,
half sensibly and half poetically,
on the journey that was about
to begin from King's Cross.

Like many others who have lived long in a great capital,
she had strong feelings about the various railway termini.

They are our gates
to the glorious and the unknown.

Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine,
to them,
alas! we return.

In Paddington all Cornwall is latent and the remoter west;
down the inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands and the illimitable Broads;
Scotland is through the pylons of Euston;
Wessex behind the poised chaos of Waterloo.

Italians realise this,
as is natural;
those of them who are so unfortunate as
to serve as waiters in Berlin call the Anhalt Bahnhof the Stazione d'Italia,
because by it they must return
to their homes.

And he is a chilly Londoner who does not endow his stations
with some personality,
and extend
to them,
however shyly,
the emotions of fear and love.

To Margaret--I hope that it will not set the reader against her-- the station of King's Cross had always suggested Infinity.

Its very situation--withdrawn a little behind the facile splendours of St. Pancras--implied a comment on the materialism of life.

Those two great arches,
colourless,
indifferent,
shouldering between them an unlovely clock,
were fit portals
for some eternal adventure,
whose issue might be prosperous,
but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity.

If you think this ridiculous,
remember that it is not Margaret who is telling you about it;
and let me hasten
to add that they were in plenty of time
for the train;
that Mrs. Munt,
though she took a second-class ticket,
was put by the guard into a first
(only two
"seconds"
on the train,
one smoking and the other babies--one cannot be expected
to travel
with babies);
and that Margaret,
on her return
to Wickham Place,
was confronted
with the following telegram:

"All over.

Wish I had never written.

Tell no one--,
HELEN."

But Aunt Juley was gone--gone irrevocably,
and no power on earth could stop her.

CHAPTER III Most complacently did Mrs. Munt rehearse her mission.

Her nieces were independent young women,
and it was not often that she was able
to help them.

Emily's daughters had never been quite like other girls.

They had been left motherless when Tibby was born,
when Helen was five and Margaret herself but thirteen.

It was before the passing of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill,
so Mrs. Munt could without impropriety offer
to go and keep house at Wickham Place.

But her brother-in-law,
who was peculiar and a German,
had referred the question
to Margaret,
who
with the crudity of youth had answered,
"No,
they could manage much better alone."

Five years later Mr. Schlegel had died too,
and Mrs. Munt had repeated her offer.

Margaret,
crude no longer,
had been grateful and extremely nice,
but the substance of her answer had been the same.

"I must not interfere a third time,"
thought Mrs. Munt.

However,
of course she did.

She learnt,
to her horror,
that Margaret,
now of age,
was taking her money out of the old safe investments and putting it into Foreign Things,
which always smash.

Silence would have been criminal.

Her own fortune was invested in Home Rails,
and most ardently did she beg her niece
to imitate her.

"Then we should be together,
dear."

Margaret,
out of politeness,
invested a few hundreds in the Nottingham and Derby Railway,
and though the Foreign Things did admirably and the Nottingham and Derby declined
with the steady dignity of which only Home Rails are capable,
Mrs. Munt never ceased
to rejoice,
and
to say,
"I did manage that,
at all events.

When the smash comes poor Margaret will have a nest-egg
to fall back upon."

This year Helen came of age,
and exactly the same thing happened in Helen's case;
she also would shift her money out of Consols,
but she,
too,
almost without being pressed,
consecrated a fraction of it
to the Nottingham and Derby Railway.

So far so good,
but in social matters their aunt had accomplished nothing.

Sooner or later the girls would enter on the process known as throwing themselves away,
and if they had delayed hitherto,
it was only that they might throw themselves more vehemently in the future.

They saw too many people at Wickham Place--unshaven musicians,
an actress even,
German cousins
(one knows what foreigners are),
acquaintances picked up at Continental hotels
(one knows what they are too).

It was interesting,
and down at Swanage no one appreciated culture more than Mrs. Munt;
but it was dangerous,
and disaster was bound
to come.

How right she was,
and how lucky
to be on the spot when the disaster came! The train sped northward,
under innumerable tunnels.

It was only an hour's journey,
but Mrs. Munt had
to raise and lower the window again and again.

She passed through the South Welwyn Tunnel,
saw light
for a moment,
and entered the North Welwyn Tunnel,
of tragic fame.

She traversed the immense viaduct,
whose arches span untroubled meadows and the dreamy flow of Tewin Water.

She skirted the parks of politicians.

At times the Great North Road accompanied her,
more suggestive of infinity than any railway,
awakening,
after a nap of a hundred years,
to such life as is conferred by the stench of motor-cars,
and
to such culture as is implied by the advertisements of antibilious pills.

To history,
to tragedy,
to the past,
to the future,
Mrs. Munt remained equally indifferent;
hers but
to concentrate on the end of her journey,
and
to rescue poor Helen from this dreadful mess.

The station
for Howards End was at Hilton,
one of the large villages that are strung so frequently along the North Road,
and that owe their size
to the traffic of coaching and pre-coaching days.

Being near London,
it had not shared in the rural decay,
and its long High Street had budded out right and left into residential estates.

For about a mile a series of tiled and slated houses passed before Mrs. Munt's inattentive eyes,
a series broken at one point by six Danish tumuli that stood shoulder
to shoulder along the highroad,
tombs of soldiers.

Beyond these tumuli,
habitations thickened,
and the train came
to a standstill in a tangle that was almost a town.

The station,
like the scenery,
like Helen's letters,
struck an indeterminate note.

Into which country will it lead,
England or Suburbia?

It was new,
it had island platforms and a subway,
and the superficial comfort exacted by business men.

But it held hints of local life,
personal intercourse,
as even Mrs. Munt was
to discover.

"I want a house,"
she confided
to the ticket boy.

"Its name is Howards Lodge.

Do you know where it is?"
"Mr. Wilcox!"
the boy called.

A young man in front of them turned around.

"She's wanting Howards End."

There was nothing
for it but
to go forward,
though Mrs. Munt was too much agitated even
to stare at the stranger.

But remembering that there were two brothers,
she had the sense
to say
to him,
"Excuse me asking,
but are you the younger Mr. Wilcox or the elder?"
"The younger.

Can I do anything
for you?"
"Oh,
well"--she controlled herself
with difficulty.

"Really.

Are you?

I--"
She moved;
away from the ticket boy and lowered her voice.

"I am Miss Schlegel's aunt.

I ought
to introduce myself,
oughtn't I?

My name is Mrs. Munt."

She was conscious that he raised his cap and said quite coolly,
"Oh,
rather;
Miss Schlegel is stopping
with us.

Did you want
to see her?"
"Possibly."

"I'll call you a cab.

No;
wait a mo--"
He thought.

"Our motor's here.

I'll run you up in it."

"That is very kind."

"Not at all,
if you'll just wait till they bring out a parcel from the office.

This way."

"My niece is not
with you by any chance?"
"No;
I came over
with my father.

He has gone on north in your train.

You'll see Miss Schlegel at lunch.

You're coming up
to lunch,
I hope?"
"I should like
to come UP,"
said Mrs. Munt,
not committing herself
to nourishment until she had studied Helen's lover a little more.

He seemed a gentleman,
but had so rattled her round that her powers of observation were numbed.

She glanced at him stealthily.

To a feminine eye there was nothing amiss in the sharp depressions at the corners of his mouth,
or in the rather box-like construction of his forehead.

He was dark,
clean-shaven,
and seemed accustomed
to command.

"In front or behind?

Which do you prefer?

It may be windy in front."

"In front if I may;
then we can talk."

"But excuse me one moment--I can't think what they're doing
with that parcel."

He strode into the booking-office,
and called
with a new voice:

"Hi! hi,
you there! Are you going
to keep me waiting all day?

Parcel
for Wilcox,
Howards End.

Just look sharp!"
Emerging,
he said in quieter tones:

"This station's abominably organised;
if I had my way,
the whole lot of
'em should get the sack.

May I help you in?"
"This is very good of you,"
said Mrs. Munt,
as she settled herself into a luxurious cavern of red leather,
and suffered her person
to be padded
with rugs and shawls.

She was more civil than she had intended,
but really this young man was very kind.

Moreover,
she was a little afraid of him;
his self-possession was extraordinary.

"Very good indeed,"
she repeated,
adding:

"It is just what I should have wished."

"Very good of you
to say so,"
he replied,
with a slight look of surprise,
which,
like most slight looks,
escaped Mrs. Munt's attention.

"I was just tooling my father over
to catch the down train."

"You see,
we heard from Helen this morning."

Young Wilcox was pouring in petrol,
starting his engine,
and performing other actions
with which this story has no concern.

The great car began
to rock,
and the form of Mrs. Munt,
trying
to explain things,
sprang agreeably up and down among the red cushions.

"The mater will be very glad
to see you,"
he mumbled.

"Hi! I say.

Parcel.

Parcel
for Howards End.

Bring it out.

Hi!"
A bearded porter emerged
with the parcel in one hand and an entry book in the other.

With the gathering whir of the motor these ejaculations mingled:

"Sign,
must I?

Why the--should I sign after all this bother?

Not even got a pencil on you?

Remember next time I report you
to the station-master.

My time's of value,
though yours mayn't be.

Here"--here being a tip.

"Extremely sorry,
Mrs. Munt."

"Not at all,
Mr. Wilcox."

"And do you object
to going through the village?

It is rather a longer spin,
but I have one or two commissions."

"I should love going through the village.

Naturally I am very anxious
to talk things over
with you."

As she said this she felt ashamed,
for she was disobeying Margaret's instructions.

Only disobeying them in the letter,
surely.

Margaret had only warned her against discussing the incident
with outsiders.

Surely it was not
"uncivilised or wrong"
to discuss it
with the young man himself,
since chance had thrown them together.

A reticent fellow,
he made no reply.

Mounting by her side,
he put on gloves and spectacles,
and off they drove,
the bearded porter --life is a mysterious business--looking after them
with admiration.

The wind was in their faces down the station road,
blowing the dust into Mrs. Munt's eyes.

But as soon as they turned into the Great North Road she opened fire.

"You can well imagine,"
she said,
"that the news was a great shock
to us."

"What news?"
"Mr. Wilcox,"
she said frankly,
"Margaret has told me everything --everything.

I have seen Helen's letter."

He could not look her in the face,
as his eyes were fixed on his work;
he was travelling as quickly as he dared down the High Street.

But he inclined his head in her direction,
and said:

"I beg your pardon;
I didn't catch."

"About Helen.

Helen,
of course.

Helen is a very exceptional person--I am sure you will let me say this,
feeling towards her as you do--indeed,
all the Schlegels are exceptional.

I come in no spirit of interference,
but it was a great shock."

They drew up opposite a draper's.

Without replying,
he turned round in his seat,
and contemplated the cloud of dust that they had raised in their passage through the village.

It was settling again,
but not all into the road from which he had taken it.

Some of it had percolated through the open windows,
some had whitened the roses and gooseberries of the wayside gardens,
while a certain proportion had entered the lungs of the villagers.

"I wonder when they'll learn wisdom and tar the roads,"
was his comment.

Then a man ran out of the draper's
with a roll of oilcloth,
and off they went again.

"Margaret could not come herself,
on account of poor Tibby,
so I am here
to represent her and
to have a good talk."

"I'm sorry
to be so dense,"
said the young man,
again drawing up outside a shop.

"But I still haven't quite understood."

"Helen,
Mr. Wilcox--my niece and you."

He pushed up his goggles and gazed at her,
absolutely bewildered.

Horror smote her
to the heart,
for even she began
to suspect that they were at cross-purposes,
and that she had commenced her mission by some hideous blunder.

"Miss Schlegel and myself?"
he asked,
compressing his lips.

"I trust there has been no misunderstanding,"
quavered Mrs. Munt.

"Her letter certainly read that way."

"What way?"
"That you and she--"
She paused,
then drooped her eyelids.

"I think I catch your meaning,"
he said stickily.

"What an extraordinary mistake!"
"Then you didn't the least--"
she stammered,
getting blood-red in the face,
and wishing she had never been born.

"Scarcely,
as I am already engaged
to another lady."

There was a moment's silence,
and then he caught his breath and exploded with,
"Oh,
good God! Don't tell me it
's some silliness of Paul's."

"But you are Paul."

"I'm not."

"Then why did you say so at the station?"
"I said nothing of the sort."

"I beg your pardon,
you did."

"I beg your pardon,
I did not.

My name is Charles."

"Younger"
may mean son as opposed
to father,
or second brother as opposed
to first.

There is much
to be said
for either view,
and later on they said it.

But they had other questions before them now.

"Do you mean
to tell me that Paul--"
But she did not like his voice.

He sounded as if he was talking
to a porter,
and,
certain that he had deceived her at the station,
she too grew angry.

"Do you mean
to tell me that Paul and your niece--"
Mrs. Munt--such is human nature--determined that she would champion the lovers.

She was not going
to be bullied by a severe young man.

"Yes,
they care
for one another very much indeed,"
she said.

"I dare say they will tell you about it by-and-by.

We heard this morning."

And Charles clenched his fist and cried,
"The idiot,
the idiot,
the little fool!"
Mrs. Munt tried
to divest herself of her rugs.

"If that is your attitude,
Mr. Wilcox,
I prefer
to walk."

"I beg you will do no such thing.

I take you up this moment
to the house.

Let me tell you the thing's impossible,
and must be stopped."

Mrs. Munt did not often lose her temper,
and when she did it was only
to protect those whom she loved.

On this occasion she blazed out.

"I quite agree,
sir.

The thing is impossible,
and I will come up and stop it.

My niece is a very exceptional person,
and I am not inclined
to sit still while she throws herself away on those who will not appreciate her."

Charles worked his jaws.

"Considering she has only known your brother since Wednesday,
and only met your father and mother at a stray hotel--"
"Could you possibly lower your voice?

The shopman will overhear."

Esprit de classe--if one may coin the phrase--was strong in Mrs. Munt.

She sat quivering while a member of the lower orders deposited a metal funnel,
a saucepan,
and a garden squirt beside the roll of oilcloth.

"Right behind?"
"Yes,
sir."

And the lower orders vanished in a cloud of dust.

"I warn you:

Paul hasn't a penny;
it's useless."

"No need
to warn us,
Mr. Wilcox,
I assure you.

The warning is all the other way.

My niece has been very foolish,
and I shall give her a good scolding and take her back
to London
with me."

"He has
to make his way out in Nigeria.

He couldn't think of marrying
for years,
and when he does it must be a woman who can stand the climate,
and is in other ways-- Why hasn't he told us?

Of course he's ashamed.

He knows he's been a fool.

And so he has --a downright fool."

She grew furious.

"Whereas Miss Schlegel has lost no time in publishing the news."

"If I were a man,
Mr. Wilcox,
for that last remark I'd box your ears.

You're not fit
to clean my niece's boots,
to sit in the same room
with her,
and you dare--you actually dare-- I decline
to argue
with such a person."

"All I know is,
she's spread the thing and he hasn't,
and my father's away and I--"
"And all that I know is--"
"Might I finish my sentence,
please?"
"No."

Charles clenched his teeth and sent the motor swerving all over the lane.

She screamed.

So they played the game of Capping Families,
a round of which is always played when love would unite two members of our race.

But they played it
with unusual vigour,
stating in so many words that Schlegels were better than Wilcoxes,
Wilcoxes better than Schlegels.

They flung decency aside.

The man was young,
the woman deeply stirred;
in both a vein of coarseness was latent.

Their quarrel was no more surprising than are most quarrels--inevitable at the time,
incredible afterwards.

But it was more than usually futile.

A few minutes,
and they were enlightened.

The motor drew up at Howards End,
and Helen,
looking very pale,
ran out
to meet her aunt.

"Aunt Juley,
I have just had a telegram from Margaret;
I--I meant
to stop your coming.

It isn't--it's over."

The climax was too much
for Mrs. Munt.

She burst into tears.

"Aunt Juley dear,
don't.

Don't let them know I've been so silly.

It wasn't anything.

Do bear up
for my sake."

"Paul,"
cried Charles Wilcox,
pulling his gloves off.

"Don't let them know.

They are never
to know."

"Oh,
my darling Helen--"
"Paul! Paul!"
A very young man came out of the house.

"Paul,
is there any truth in this?"
"I didn't--I don't--"
"Yes or no,
man;
plain question,
plain answer.

Did or didn't Miss Schlegel--"
"Charles,
dear,"
said a voice from the garden.

"Charles,
dear Charles,
one doesn't ask plain questions.

There aren't such things."

They were all silent.

It was Mrs. Wilcox.

She approached just as Helen's letter had described her,
trailing noiselessly over the lawn,
and there was actually a wisp of hay in her hands.

She seemed
to belong not
to the young people and their motor,
but
to the house,
and
to the tree that overshadowed it.

One knew that she worshipped the past,
and that the instinctive wisdom the past can alone bestow had descended upon her--that wisdom
to which we give the clumsy name of aristocracy.

High born she might not be.

But assuredly she cared about her ancestors,
and let them help her.

When she saw Charles angry,
Paul frightened,
and Mrs. Munt in tears,
she heard her ancestors say,
"Separate those human beings who will hurt each other most.

The rest can wait."

So she did not ask questions.

Still less did she pretend that nothing had happened,
as a competent society hostess would have done.

She said:

"Miss Schlegel,
would you take your aunt up
to your room or
to my room,
whichever you think best.

Paul,
do find Evie,
and tell her lunch
for six,
but I'm not sure whether we shall all be downstairs
for it."

And when they had obeyed her,
she turned
to her elder son,
who still stood in the throbbing,
stinking car,
and smiled at him
with tenderness,
and without saying a word,
turned away from him towards her flowers.

"Mother,"
he called,
"are you aware that Paul has been playing the fool again?"
"It is all right,
dear.

They have broken off the engagement."

"Engagement--!"
"They do not love any longer,
if you prefer it put that way,"
said Mrs. Wilcox,
stooping down
to smell a rose.

CHAPTER IV Helen and her aunt returned
to Wickham Place in a state of collapse,
and
for a little time Margaret had three invalids on her hands.

Mrs. Munt soon recovered.

She possessed
to a remarkable degree the power of distorting the past,
and before many days were over she had forgotten the part played by her own imprudence in the catastrophe.

Even at the crisis she had cried,
"Thank goodness,
poor Margaret is saved this!"
which during the journey
to London evolved into,
"It had
to be gone through by some one,"
which in its turn ripened into the permanent form of
"The one time I really did help Emily's girls was over the Wilcox business."

But Helen was a more serious patient.

New ideas had burst upon her like a thunderclap,
and by them and by their reverberations she had been stunned.

The truth was that she had fallen in love,
not
with an individual,
but
with a family.

Before Paul arrived she had,
as it were,
been tuned up into his key.

The energy of the Wilcoxes had fascinated her,
had created new images of beauty in her responsive mind.

To be all day
with them in the open air,
to sleep at night under their roof,
had seemed the supreme joy of life,
and had led
to that abandonment of personality that is a possible prelude
to love.

She had liked giving in
to Mr. Wilcox,
or Evie,
or Charles;
she had liked being told that her notions of life were sheltered or academic;
that Equality was nonsense,
Votes
for Women nonsense,
Socialism nonsense,
Art and Literature,
except when conducive
to strengthening the character,
nonsense.

One by one the Schlegel fetiches had been overthrown,
and,
though professing
to defend them,
she had rejoiced.

When Mr. Wilcox said that one sound man of business did more good
to the world than a dozen of your social reformers,
she had swallowed the curious assertion without a gasp,
and had leant back luxuriously among the cushions of his motorcar.

When Charles said,
"Why be so polite
to servants?

they don't understand it,"
she had not given the Schlegel retort of,
"If they don't understand it,
I do."

No;
she had vowed
to be less polite
to servants in the future.

"I am swathed in cant,"
she thought,
"and it is good
for me
to be stripped of it."

And all that she thought or did or breathed was a quiet preparation
for Paul.

Paul was inevitable.

Charles was taken up
with another girl,
Mr. Wilcox was so old,
Evie so young,
Mrs. Wilcox so different.

Round the absent brother she began
to throw the halo of Romance,
to irradiate him
with all the splendour of those happy days,
to feel that in him she should draw nearest
to the robust ideal.

He and she were about the same age,
Evie said.

Most people thought Paul handsomer than his brother.

He was certainly a better shot,
though not so good at golf.

And when Paul appeared,
flushed
with the triumph of getting through an examination,
and ready
to flirt
with any pretty girl,
Helen met him halfway,
or more than halfway,
and turned towards him on the Sunday evening.

He had been talking of his approaching exile in Nigeria,
and he should have continued
to talk of it,
and allowed their guest
to recover.

But the heave of her bosom flattered him.

Passion was possible,
and he became passionate.

Deep down in him something whispered,
"This girl would let you kiss her;
you might not have such a chance again."

That was
"how it happened,"
or,
rather,
how Helen described it
to her sister,
using words even more unsympathetic than my own.

But the poetry of that kiss,
the wonder of it,
the magic that there was in life
for hours after it--who can describe that?

It is so easy
for an Englishman
to sneer at these chance collisions of human beings.

To the insular cynic and the insular moralist they offer an equal opportunity.

It is so easy
to talk of
"passing emotion,"
and
to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it passed.

Our impulse
to sneer,
to forget,
is at root a good one.

We recognise that emotion is not enough,
and that men and women are personalities capable of sustained relations,
not mere opportunities
for an electrical discharge.

Yet we rate the impulse too highly.

We do not admit that by collisions of this trivial sort the doors of heaven may be shaken open.

To Helen,
at all events,
her life was
to bring nothing more intense than the embrace of this boy who played no part in it.

He had drawn her out of the house,
where there was danger of surprise and light;
he had led her by a path he knew,
until they stood under the column of the vast wych-elm.

A man in the darkness,
he had whispered
"I love you"
when she was desiring love.

In time his slender personality faded,
the scene that he had evoked endured.

In all the variable years that followed she never saw the like of it again.

"I understand,"
said Margaret--s"at least,
I understand as much as ever is understood of these things.

Tell me now what happened on the Monday morning."

"It was over at once."

"How,
Helen?"
"I was still happy while I dressed,
but as I came downstairs I got nervous,
and when I went into the dining-room I knew it was no good.

There was Evie--I can't explain--managing the tea-urn,
and Mr. Wilcox reading the Times."

"Was Paul there?"
"Yes;
and Charles was talking
to him about stocks and shares,
and he looked frightened."

By slight indications the sisters could convey much
to each other.

Margaret saw horror latent in the scene,
and Helen's next remark did not surprise her.

"Somehow,
when that kind of man looks frightened it is too awful.

It is all right
for us
to be frightened,
or
for men of another sort--father,
for instance;
but
for men like that! When I saw all the others so placid,
and Paul mad
with terror in case I said the wrong thing,
I felt
for a moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud,
just a wall of newspapers and motor-cars and golf-clubs,
and that if it fell I should find nothing behind it but panic and emptiness."

"I don't think that.

The Wilcoxes struck me as being genuine people,
particularly the wife."

"No,
I don't really think that.

But Paul was so broad-shouldered;
all kinds of extraordinary things made it worse,
and I knew that it would never do--never.

I said
to him after breakfast,
when the others were practising strokes,
'We rather lost our heads,'
and he looked better at once,
though frightfully ashamed.

He began a speech about having no money
to marry on,
but it hurt him
to make it,
and I stopped him.

Then he said,
'I must beg your pardon over this,
Miss Schlegel;
I can't think what came over me last night.'

And I said,
'Nor what over me;
never mind.'

And then we parted-- at least,
until I remembered that I had written straight off
to tell you the night before,
and that frightened him again.

I asked him
to send a telegram
for me,
for he knew you would be coming or something;
and he tried
to get hold of the motor,
but Charles and Mr. Wilcox wanted it
to go
to the station;
and Charles offered
to send the telegram
for me,
and then I had
to say that the telegram was of no consequence,
for Paul said Charles might read it,
and though I wrote it out several times,
he always said people would suspect something.

He took it himself at last,
pretending that he must walk down
to get cartridges,
and,
what
with one thing and the other,
it was not handed in at the post-office until too late.

It was the most terrible morning.

Paul disliked me more and more,
and Evie talked cricket averages till I nearly screamed.

I cannot think how I stood her all the other days.

At last Charles and his father started
for the station,
and then came your telegram warning me that Aunt Juley was coming by that train,
and Paul--oh,
rather horrible--said that I had muddled it.

But Mrs. Wilcox knew."

"Knew what?"
"Everything;
though we neither of us told her a word,
and she had known all along,
I think."

"Oh,
she must have overheard you."

"I suppose so,
but it seemed wonderful.

When Charles and Aunt Juley drove up,
calling each other names,
Mrs. Wilcox stepped in from the garden and made everything less terrible.

Ugh! but it has been a disgusting business.

To think that--"
She sighed.

"To think that because you and a young man meet
for a moment,
there must be all these telegrams and anger,"
supplied Margaret.

Helen nodded.

"I've often thought about it,
Helen.

It's one of the most interesting things in the world.

The truth is that there is a great outer life that you and I have never touched--a life in which telegrams and anger count.

Personal relations,
that we think supreme,
are not supreme there.

There love means marriage settlements,
death,
death duties.

So far I'm clear.

But here my difficulty.

This outer life,
though obviously horrid;
often seems the real one--there's grit in it.

It does breed character.

Do personal relations lead
to sloppiness in the end?"
"Oh,
Meg--,
that's what I felt,
only not so clearly,
when the Wilcoxes were so competent,
and seemed
to have their hands on all the ropes."

"Don't you feel it now?"
"I remember Paul at breakfast,"
said Helen quietly.

"I shall never forget him.

He had nothing
to fall back upon.

I know that personal relations are the real life,
for ever and ever."

"Amen!"
So the Wilcox episode fell into the background,
leaving behind it memories of sweetness and horror that mingled,
and the sisters pursued the life that Helen had commended.

They talked
to each other and
to other people,
they filled the tall thin house at Wickham Place
with those whom they liked or could befriend.

They even attended public meetings.

In their own fashion they cared deeply about politics,
though not as politicians would have us care;
they desired that public life should mirror whatever is good in the life within.

Temperance,
tolerance,
and sexual equality were intelligible cries
to them;
whereas they did not follow our Forward Policy in Tibet
with the keen attention that it merits,
and would at times dismiss the whole British Empire
with a puzzled,
if reverent,
sigh.

Not out of them are the shows of history erected:

the world would be a grey,
bloodless place were it composed entirely of Miss Schlegels.

But the world being what it is,
perhaps they shine out in it like stars.

A word on their origin.

They were not
"English
to the back-bone,"
as their aunt had piously asserted.

But,
on the other hand,
they were not
"Germans of the dreadful sort."

Their father had belonged
to a type that was more prominent in Germany fifty years ago than now.

He was not the aggressive German,
so dear
to the English journalist,
nor the domestic German,
so dear
to the English wit.

If one classed him at all it would be as the countryman of Hegel and Kant,
as the idealist,
inclined
to be dreamy,
whose Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air.

Not that his life had been inactive.

He had fought like blazes against Denmark,
Austria,
France.

But he had fought without visualising the results of victory.

A hint of the truth broke on him after Sedan,
when he saw the dyed moustaches of Napoleon going grey;
another when he entered Paris,
and saw the smashed windows of the Tuileries.

Peace came--it was all very immense,
one had turned into an Empire--but he knew that some quality had vanished
for which not all Alsace-Lorraine could compensate him.

Germany a commercial Power,
Germany a naval Power,
Germany
with colonies here and a Forward Policy there,
and legitimate aspirations in the other place,
might appeal
to others,
and be fitly served by them;
for his own part,
he abstained from the fruits of victory,
and naturalised himself in England.

The more earnest members of his family never forgave him,
and knew that his children,
though scarcely English of the dreadful sort,
would never be German
to the back-bone.

He had obtained work in one of our provincial universities,
and there married Poor Emily
(or Die Englanderin,
as the case may be),
and as she had money,
they proceeded
to London,
and came
to know a good many people.

But his gaze was always fixed beyond the sea.

It was his hope that the clouds of materialism obscuring the Fatherland would part in time,
and the mild intellectual light re-emerge.

"Do you imply that we Germans are stupid,
Uncle Ernst?"
exclaimed a haughty and magnificent nephew.

Uncle Ernst replied,
"To my mind.

You use the intellect,
but you no longer care about it.

That I call stupidity."

As the haughty nephew did not follow,
he continued,
"You only care about the things that you can use,
and therefore arrange them in the following order:

Money,
supremely useful;
intellect,
rather useful;
imagination,
of no use at all.

No"--for the other had protested--"your Pan-Germanism is no more imaginative than is our Imperialism over here.

It is the vice of a vulgar mind
to be thrilled by bigness,
to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile,
and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven.

That is not imagination.

No,
it kills it.

When their poets over here try
to celebrate bigness they are dead at once,
and naturally.

Your poets too are dying,
your philosophers,
your musicians,
to whom Europe has listened
for two hundred years.

Gone.

Gone
with the little courts that nurtured them--gone
with Esterhazy and Weimar.

What?

What's that?

Your universities?

Oh yes,
you have learned men,
who collect more facts than do the learned men of England.

They collect facts,
and facts,
and empires of facts.

But which of them will rekindle the light within?"
To all this Margaret listened,
sitting on the haughty nephew's knee.

It was a unique education
for the little girls.

The haughty nephew would be at Wickham Place one day,
bringing
with him an even haughtier wife,
both convinced that Germany was appointed by God
to govern the world.

Aunt Juley would come the next day,
convinced that Great Britain had been appointed
to the same post by the same authority.

Were both these loud-voiced parties right?

On one occasion they had met and Margaret
with clasped hands had implored them
to argue the subject out in her presence.

Whereat they blushed,
and began
to talk about the weather.

"Papa,"
she cried--she was a most offensive child--"why will they not discuss this most clear question?"
Her father,
surveying the parties grimly,
replied that he did not know.

Putting her head on one side,
Margaret then remarked,
"To me one of two things is very clear;
either God does not know his own mind about England and Germany,
or else these do not know the mind of God."

A hateful little girl,
but at thirteen she had grasped a dilemma that most people travel through life without perceiving.

Her brain darted up and down;
it grew pliant and strong.

Her conclusion was,
that any human being lies nearer
to the unseen than any organisation,
and from this she never varied.

Helen advanced along the same lines,
though
with a more irresponsible tread.

In character she resembled her sister,
but she was pretty,
and so apt
to have a more amusing time.

People gathered round her more readily,
especially when they were new acquaintances,
and she did enjoy a little homage very much.

When their father died and they ruled alone at Wickham Place,
she often absorbed the whole of the company,
while Margaret--both were tremendous talkers--fell flat.

Neither sister bothered about this.

Helen never apologised afterwards,
Margaret did not feel the slightest rancour.

But looks have their influence upon character.

The sisters were alike as little girls,
but at the time of the Wilcox episode their methods were beginning
to diverge;
the younger was rather apt
to entice people,
and,
in enticing them,
to be herself enticed;
the elder went straight ahead,
and accepted an occasional failure as part of the game.

Little need be premised about Tibby.

He was now an intelligent man of sixteen,
but dyspeptic and difficile.

CHAPTER V It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.

All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it.

Whether you are like Mrs. Munt,
and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come-- of course,
not so as
to disturb the others--or like Helen,
who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music's flood;
or like Margaret,
who can only see the music;
or like Tibby,
who is profoundly versed in counterpoint,
and holds the full score open on his knee;
or like their cousin,
Fraulein Mosebach,
who remembers all the time that Beethoven is echt Deutsch;
or like Fraulein Mosebach's young man,
who can remember nothing but Fraulein Mosebach:

in any case,
the passion of your life becomes more vivid,
and you are bound
to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings.

It is cheap,
even if you hear it in the Queen's Hall,
dreariest music-room in London,
though not as dreary as the Free Trade Hall,
Manchester;
and even if you sit on the extreme left of that hall,
so that the brass bumps at you before the rest of the orchestra arrives,
it is still cheap.

"Whom is Margaret talking to?"
said Mrs. Munt,
at the conclusion of the first movement.

She was again in London on a visit
to Wickham Place.

Helen looked down the long line of their party,
and said that she did not know.

"Would it be some young man or other whom she takes an interest in?"
"I expect so,"
Helen replied.

Music enwrapped her,
and she could not enter into the distinction that divides young men whom one takes an interest in from young men whom one knows.

"You girls are so wonderful in always having--Oh dear! one mustn't talk."

For the Andante had begun--very beautiful,
but bearing a family likeness
to all the other beautiful Andantes that Beethoven had written,
and,
to Helen's mind,
rather disconnecting the heroes and shipwrecks of the first movement from the heroes and goblins of the third.

She heard the tune through once,
and then her attention wandered,
and she gazed at the audience,
or the organ,
or the architecture.

Much did she censure the attenuated Cupids who encircle the ceiling of the Queen's Hall,
inclining each
to each
with vapid gesture,
and clad in sallow pantaloons,
on which the October sunlight struck.

"How awful
to marry a man like those Cupids!"
thought Helen.

Here Beethoven started decorating his tune,
so she heard him through once more,
and then she smiled at her Cousin Frieda.

But Frieda,
listening
to Classical Music,
could not respond.

Herr Liesecke,
too,
looked as if wild horses could not make him inattentive;
there were lines across his forehead,
his lips were parted,
his pince-nez at right angles
to his nose,
and he had laid a thick,
white hand on either knee.

And next
to her was Aunt Juley,
so British,
and wanting
to tap.

How interesting that row of people was! What diverse influences had gone
to the making! Here Beethoven,
after humming and hawing
with great sweetness,
said
"Heigho,"
and the Andante came
to an end.

Applause,
and a round of
"wunderschoning"
and pracht volleying from the German contingent.

Margaret started talking
to her new young man;
Helen said
to her aunt:

"Now comes the wonderful movement:

first of all the goblins,
and then a trio of elephants dancing";
and Tibby implored the company generally
to look out
for the transitional passage on the drum.

"On the what,
dear?"
"On the drum,
Aunt Juley."

"No;
look out
for the part where you think you have done
with the goblins and they come back,"
breathed Helen,
as the music started
with a goblin walking quietly over the universe,
from end
to end.

Others followed him.

They were not aggressive creatures;
it was that that made them so terrible
to Helen.

They merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world.

After the interlude of elephants dancing,
they returned and made the observation
for the second time.

Helen could not contradict them,
for,
once at all events,
she had felt the same,
and had seen the reliable walls of youth collapse.

Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! The goblins were right.

Her brother raised his finger;
it was the transitional passage on the drum.

For,
as if things were going too far,
Beethoven took hold of the goblins and made them do what he wanted.

He appeared in person.

He gave them a little push,
and they began
to walk in a major key instead of in a minor,
and then--he blew
with his mouth and they were scattered! Gusts of splendour,
gods and demigods contending
with vast swords,
colour and fragrance broadcast on the field of battle,
magnificent victory,
magnificent death! Oh,
it all burst before the girl,
and she even stretched out her gloved hands as if it was tangible.

Any fate was titanic;
any contest desirable;
conqueror and conquered would alike be applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.

And the goblins--they had not really been there at all?

They were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief?

One healthy human impulse would dispel them?

Men like the Wilcoxes,
or ex-President Roosevelt,
would say yes.

Beethoven knew better.

The goblins really had been there.

They might return--and they did.

It was as if the splendour of life might boil over and waste
to steam and froth.

In its dissolution one heard the terrible,
ominous note,
and a goblin,
with increased malignity,
walked quietly over the universe from end
to end.

Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall.

Beethoven chose
to make all right in the end.

He built the ramparts up.

He blew
with his mouth
for the second time,
and again the goblins were scattered.

He brought back the gusts of splendour,
the heroism,
the youth,
the magnificence of life and of death,
and,
amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy,
he led his Fifth Symphony
to its conclusion.

But the goblins were there.

They could return.

He had said so bravely,
and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.

Helen pushed her way out during the applause.

She desired
to be alone.

The music had summed up
to her all that had happened or could happen in her career.

She read it as a tangible statement,
which could never be superseded.

The notes meant this and that
to her,
and they could have no other meaning,
and life could have no other meaning.

She pushed right out of the building and walked slowly down the outside staircase,
breathing the autumnal air,
and then she strolled home.

"Margaret,"
called Mrs. Munt,
"is Helen all right?"
"Oh yes."

"She is always going away in the middle of a programme,"
said Tibby.

"The music has evidently moved her deeply,"
said Fraulein Mosebach.

"Excuse me,"
said Margaret's young man,
who had
for some time been preparing a sentence,
"but that lady has,
quite inadvertently,
taken my umbrella."

"Oh,
good gracious me!--I am so sorry.

Tibby,
run after Helen."

"I shall miss the Four Serious Songs if I do."

"Tibby,
love,
you must go."

"It isn't of any consequence,"
said the young man,
in truth a little uneasy about his umbrella.

"But of course it is.

Tibby! Tibby!"
Tibby rose
to his feet,
and wilfully caught his person on the backs of the chairs.

By the time he had tipped up the seat and had found his hat,
and had deposited his full score in safety,
it was
"too late"
to go after Helen.

The Four Serious Songs had begun,
and one could not move during their performance.

"My sister is so careless,"
whispered Margaret.

"Not at all,"
replied the young man;
but his voice was dead and cold.

"If you would give me your address--"
"Oh,
not at all,
not at all;"
and he wrapped his greatcoat over his knees.

Then the Four Serious Songs rang shallow in Margaret's ears.

Brahms,
for all his grumbling and grizzling,
had never guessed what it felt like
to be suspected of stealing an umbrella.

For this fool of a young man thought that she and Helen and Tibby had been playing the confidence trick on him,
and that if he gave his address they would break into his rooms some midnight or other and steal his walking-stick too.

Most ladies would have laughed,
but Margaret really minded,
for it gave her a glimpse into squalor.

To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge;
the poor cannot afford it.

As soon as Brahms had grunted himself out,
she gave him her card and said,
"That is where we live;
if you preferred,
you could call
for the umbrella after the concert,
but I didn't like
to trouble you when it has all been our fault."

His face brightened a little when he saw that Wickham Place was W.

It was sad
to see him corroded
with suspicion,
and yet not daring
to be impolite,
in case these well-dressed people were honest after all.

She took it as a good sign that he said
to her,
"It's a fine programme this afternoon,
is it not?"
for this was the remark
with which he had originally opened,
before the umbrella intervened.

"The Beethoven's fine,"
said Margaret,
who was not a female of the encouraging type.

"I don't like the Brahms,
though,
nor the Mendelssohn that came first and ugh! I don't like this Elgar that's coming."

"What,
what?"
called Herr Liesecke,
overhearing.

"The
'Pomp and Circumstance'
will not be fine?"
"Oh,
Margaret,
you tiresome girl!"
cried her aunt.

"Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke
to stop for
'Pomp and Circumstance,'
and you are undoing all my work.

I am so anxious
for him
to hear what WE are doing in music.

Oh,--you musn't run down our English composers,
Margaret."

"For my part,
I have heard the composition at Stettin,"
said Fraulein Mosebach,
"on two occasions.

It is dramatic,
a little."

"Frieda,
you despise English music.

You know you do.

And English art.

And English literature,
except Shakespeare,
and he's a German.

Very well,
Frieda,
you may go."

The lovers laughed and glanced at each other.

Moved by a common impulse,
they rose
to their feet and fled from
"Pomp and Circumstance."

"We have this call
to pay in Finsbury Circus,
it is true,"
said Herr Liesecke,
as he edged past her and reached the gangway just as the music started.

"Margaret--"
loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.

"Margaret,
Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful little bag behind her on the seat."

Sure enough,
there was Frieda's reticule,
containing her address book,
her pocket dictionary,
her map of London,
and her money.

"Oh,
what a bother--what a family we are! Fr--frieda!"
"Hush!"
said all those who thought the music fine.

"But it's the number they want in Finsbury Circus."

"Might I--couldn't I--"
said the suspicious young man,
and got very red.

"Oh,
I would be so grateful."

He took the bag--money clinking inside it--and slipped up the gangway
with it.

He was just in time
to catch them at the swing-door,
and he received a pretty smile from the German girl and a fine bow from her cavalier.

He returned
to his seat upsides
with the world.

The trust that they had reposed in him was trivial,
but he felt that it cancelled his mistrust
for them,
and that probably he would not be
"had"
over his umbrella.

This young man had been
"had"
in the past badly,
perhaps overwhelmingly--and now most of his energies went in defending himself against the unknown.

But this afternoon--perhaps on account of music--he perceived that one must slack off occasionally or what is the good of being alive?

Wickham Place,
W.,
though a risk,
was as safe as most things,
and he would risk it.

So when the concert was over and Margaret said,
"We live quite near;
I am going there now.

Could you walk round
with me,
and we'll find your umbrella?"
he said,
"Thank you,"
peaceably,
and followed her out of the Queen's Hall.

She wished that he was not so anxious
to hand a lady downstairs,
or
to carry a lady's programme
for her--his class was near enough her own
for its manners
to vex her.

But she found him interesting on the whole-- every one interested the Schlegels on the whole at that time--and while her lips talked culture,
her heart was planning
to invite him
to tea.

"How tired one gets after music!"
she began.

"Do you find the atmosphere of Queen's Hall oppressive?"
"Yes,
horribly."

"But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more oppressive."

"Do you go there much?"
"When my work permits,
I attend the gallery
for the Royal Opera."

Helen would have exclaimed,
"So do I.

I love the gallery,"
and thus have endeared herself
to the young man.

Helen could do these things.

But Margaret had an almost morbid horror of
"drawing people out,"
of
"making things go."

She had been
to the gallery at Covent Garden,
but she did not
"attend"
it,
preferring the more expensive seats;
still less did she love it.

So she made no reply.

"This year I have been three times--to
'Faust,'
'Tosca,'
and--"
Was it
"Tannhouser"
or
"Tannhoyser"?

Better not risk the word.

Margaret disliked
"Tosca"
and
"Faust."

And so,
for one reason and another,
they walked on in silence,
chaperoned by the voice of Mrs. Munt,
who was getting into difficulties
with her nephew.

"I do in a WAY remember the passage,
Tibby,
but when every instrument is so beautiful,
it is difficult
to pick out one thing rather than another.

I am sure that you and Helen take me
to the very nicest concerts.

Not a dull note from beginning
to end.

I only wish that our German friends had stayed till it finished."

"But surely you haven't forgotten the drum steadily beating on the low C,
Aunt Juley?"
came Tibby's voice.

"No one could.

It's unmistakable."

"A specially loud part?"
hazarded Mrs. Munt.

"Of course I do not go in
for being musical,"
she added,
the shot failing.

"I only care
for music--a very different thing.

But still I will say this
for myself--I do know when I like a thing and when I don't.

Some people are the same about pictures.

They can go into a picture gallery--Miss Conder can--and say straight off what they feel,
all round the wall.

I never could do that.

But music is so different from pictures,
to my mind.

When it comes
to music I am as safe as houses,
and I assure you,
Tibby,
I am by no means pleased by everything.

There was a thing--something about a faun in French--which Helen went into ecstasies over,
but I thought it most tinkling and superficial,
and said so,
and I held
to my opinion too."

"Do you agree?"
asked Margaret.

"Do you think music is so different from pictures?"
"I--I should have thought so,
kind of,"
he said.

"So should I.

Now,
my sister declares they're just the same.

We have great arguments over it.

She says I'm dense;
I say she's sloppy."

Getting under way,
she cried:

"Now,
doesn't it seem absurd
to you?

What is the good of the Arts if they
're interchangeable?

What is the good of the ear if it tells you the same as the eye?

Helen's one aim is
to translate tunes into the language of painting,
and pictures into the language of music.

It's very ingenious,
and she says several pretty things in the process,
but what's gained,
I'd like
to know?

Oh,
it's all rubbish,
radically false.

If Monet's really Debussy,
and Debussy's really Monet,
neither gentleman is worth his salt-- that's my opinion."

Evidently these sisters quarrelled.

"Now,
this very symphony that we've just been having--she won't let it alone.

She labels it
with meanings from start
to finish;
turns it into literature.

I wonder if the day will ever return when music will be treated as music.

Yet I don't know.

There's my brother--behind us.

He treats music as music,
and oh,
my goodness! He makes me angrier than any one,
simply furious.

With him I daren't even argue."

An unhappy family,
if talented.

"But,
of course,
the real villain is Wagner.

He has done more than any man in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of the arts.

I do feel that music is in a very serious state just now,
though extraordinarily interesting.

Every now and then in history there do come these terrible geniuses,
like Wagner,
who stir up all the wells of thought at once.

For a moment it's splendid.

Such a splash as never was.

But afterwards--such a lot of mud;
and the wells--as it were,
they communicate
with each other too easily now,
and not one of them will run quite clear.

That's what Wagner's done."

Her speeches fluttered away from the young man like birds.

If only he could talk like this,
he would have caught the world.

Oh,
to acquire culture! Oh,
to pronounce foreign names correctly! Oh,
to be well informed,
discoursing at ease on every subject that a lady started! But it would take one years.

With an hour at lunch and a few shattered hours in the evening,
how was it possible
to catch up
with leisured women,
who had been reading steadily from childhood?

His brain might be full of names,
he might have even heard of Monet and Debussy;
the trouble was that he could not string them together into a sentence,
he could not make them
"tell,"
he could not quite forget about his stolen umbrella.

Yes,
the umbrella was the real trouble.

Behind Monet and Debussy the umbrella persisted,
with the steady beat of a drum.

"I suppose my umbrella will be all right,"
he was thinking.

"I don't really mind about it.

I will think about music instead.

I suppose my umbrella will be all right."

Earlier in the afternoon he had worried about seats.

Ought he
to have paid as much as two shillings?

Earlier still he had wondered,
"Shall I try
to do without a programme?"
There had always been something
to worry him ever since he could remember,
always something that distracted him in the pursuit of beauty.

For he did pursue beauty,
and,
therefore,
Margaret's speeches did flutter away from him like birds.

Margaret talked ahead,
occasionally saying,
"Don't you think so?

don't you feel the same?"
And once she stopped,
and said,
"Oh,
do interrupt me!"
which terrified him.

She did not attract him,
though she filled him
with awe.

Her figure was meagre,
her face seemed all teeth and eyes,
her references
to her sister and her brother were uncharitable.

For all her cleverness and culture,
she was probably one of those soulless,
atheistical women who have been so shown up by Miss Corelli.

It was surprising
(and alarming)
that she should suddenly say,
"I do hope that you'll come in and have some tea.

We should be so glad.

I have dragged you so far out of your way."

They had arrived at Wickham Place.

The sun had set,
and the backwater,
in deep shadow,
was filling
with a gentle haze.

To the right the fantastic sky-line of the flats towered black against the hues of evening;
to the left the older houses raised a square-cut,
irregular parapet against the grey.

Margaret fumbled
for her latch-key.

Of course she had forgotten it.

So,
grasping her umbrella by its ferrule,
she leant over the area and tapped at the dining-room window.

"Helen! Let us in!"
"All right,"
said a voice.

"You've been taking this gentleman's umbrella."

"Taken a what?"
said Helen,
opening the door.

"Oh,
what's that?

Do come in! How do you do?"
"Helen,
you must not be so ramshackly.

You took this gentleman's umbrella away from Queen's Hall,
and he has had the trouble of coming round
for it."

"Oh,
I am so sorry!"
cried Helen,
all her hair flying.

She had pulled off her hat as soon as she returned,
and had flung herself into the big dining-room chair.

"I do nothing but steal umbrellas.

I am so very sorry! Do come in and choose one.

Is yours a hooky or a nobbly?

Mine's a nobbly--at least,
I THINK it is."

The light was turned on,
and they began
to search the hall,
Helen,
who had abruptly parted
with the Fifth Symphony,
commenting
with shrill little cries.

"Don't you talk,
Meg,! You stole an old gentleman's silk top-hat.

Yes,
she did,
Aunt Juley.

It is a positive fact.

She thought it was a muff.

Oh,
heavens! I've knocked the In-and-Out card down.

Where's Frieda?

Tibby,
why don't you ever-- No,
I can't remember what I was going
to say.

That wasn't it,
but do tell the maids
to hurry tea up.

What about this umbrella?

"
She opened it.

"No,
it's all gone along the seaMs. It's an appalling umbrella.

It must be mine."

But it was not.

He took it from her,
murmured a few words of thanks,
and then fled,
with the lilting step of the clerk.

"But if you will stop--"
cried Margaret.

"Now,
Helen,
how stupid you've been!"
"Whatever have I done?"
"Don't you see that you've frightened him away?

I meant him
to stop
to tea.

You oughtn't
to talk about stealing or holes in an umbrella.

I saw his nice eyes getting so miserable.

No,
it's not a bit of good now."

For Helen had darted out into the street,
shouting,
"Oh,
do stop!"
"I dare say it is all
for the best,"
opined Mrs. Munt.

"We know nothing about the young man,
Margaret,
and your drawing-room is full of very tempting little things."

But Helen cried:

"Aunt Juley,
how can you! You make me more and more ashamed.

I'd rather he had been a thief and taken all the apostle spoons than that I-- Well,
I must shut the front-door,
I suppose.

One more failure
for Helen."

"Yes,
I think the apostle spoons could have gone as rent,"
said Margaret.

Seeing that her aunt did not understand,
she added:

"You remember
'rent'?

It was one of father's words-- Rent
to the ideal,
to his own faith in human nature.

You remember how he would trust strangers,
and if they fooled him he would say,
'It's better
to be fooled than
to be suspicious'--that the confidence trick is the work of man,
but the want-of-confidence trick is the work of the devil."

"I remember something of the sort now,"
said Mrs. Munt,
rather tartly,
for she longed
to add,
"It was lucky that your father married a wife
with money."

But this was unkind,
and she contented herself with,
"Why,
he might have stolen the little Ricketts picture as well."

"Better that he had,"
said Helen stoutly.

"No,
I agree
with Aunt Juley,"
said Margaret.

"I'd rather mistrust people than lose my little Ricketts.

There are limits."

Their brother,
finding the incident commonplace,
had stolen upstairs
to see whether there were scones
for tea.

He warmed the teapot--almost too deftly--rejected the orange pekoe that the parlour-maid had provided,
poured in five spoonfuls of a superior blend,
filled up
with really boiling water,
and now called
to the ladies
to be quick or they would lose the aroma.

"All right,
Auntie Tibby,"
called Heien,
while Margaret,
thoughtful again,
said:

"In a way,
I wish we had a real boy in the house--the kind of boy who cares
for men.

It would make entertaining so much easier."

"So do I,"
said her sister.

"Tibby only cares
for cultured females singing BrahMs. "

And when they joined him she said rather sharply:

"Why didn't you make that young man welcome,
Tibby?

You must do the host a little,
you know.

You ought
to have taken his hat and coaxed him into stopping,
instead of letting him be swamped by screaming women."

Tibby sighed,
and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead.

"Oh,
it's no good looking superior.

I mean what I say."

"Leave Tibby alone!"
said Margaret,
who could not bear her brother
to be scolded.

"Here's the house a regular hen-coop!"
grumbled Helen.

"Oh,
my dear!"
protested Mrs. Munt.

"How can you say such dreadful things! The number of men you get here has always astonished me.

If there is any danger it's the other way round."

"Yes,
but it's the wrong sort of men,
Helen means."

"No,
I don't,"
corrected Helen.

"We get the right sort of man,
but the wrong side of him,
and I say that's Tibby's fault.

There ought
to be a something about the house--an--I don't know what."

"A touch of the W's,
perhaps?"
Helen put out her tongue.

"Who are the W's?"
asked Tibby.

"The W's are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don't,
so there!"
"I suppose that ours is a female house,"
said Margaret,
"and one must just accept it.

No,
Aunt Juley,
I don't mean that this house is full of women.

I am trying
to say something much more clever.

I mean that it was irrevocably feminine,
even in father's time.

Now I'm sure you understand! Well,
I'll give you another example.

It'll shock you,
but I don't care.

Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party,
and that the guests had been Leighton,
Millais,
Swinburne,
Rossetti,
Meredith,
Fitzgerald,
etc.

Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic?

Heavens,
no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen
to that.

So
with out house--it must be feminine,
and all we can do is
to see that it isn't effeminate.

Just as another house that I can mention,
but won't,
sounded irrevocably masculine,
and all its inmates can do is
to see that it isn't brutal."

"That house being the W's house,
I presume,"
said Tibby.

"You're not going
to be told about the W's,
my child,"
Helen cried,
"so don't you think it.

And on the other hand,
I don't the least mind if you find out,
so don't you think you've done anything clever,
in either case.

Give me a cigarette."

"You do what you can
for the house,"
said Margaret.

"The drawing-room reeks of smoke."

"If you smoked too,
the house might suddenly turn masculine.

Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go.

Even at Queen Victoria's dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if she'd worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."

"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"
"Fastened at the bosom
with a Cairngorm-pin."

Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half German--greeted these suggestions,
and Margaret said pensively,
"How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art."

And the conversation drifted away and away,
and Helen's cigarette turned
to a spot in the darkness,
and the great flats opposite were sown
with lighted windows which vanished and were refit again,
and vanished incessantly.

Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that could never be quiet,
while in the east,
invisible behind the smokes of Wapping,
the moon was rising.

"That reminds me,
Margaret.

We might have taken that young man into the dining-room,
at all events.

Only the majolica plate--and that is so firmly set in the wall.

I am really distressed that he had no tea."

For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be supposed.

It remained as a goblin footfall,
as a hint that all is not
for the best in the best of all possible worlds,
and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy,
who has recovered his umbrella indeed,
but who has left no address behind him,
and no name.

CHAPTER VI WE are not concerned
with the very poor.

They are unthinkable and only
to be approached by the statistician or the poet.

This story deals
with gentlefolk,
or
with those who are obliged
to pretend that they are gentlefolk.

The boy,
Leonard Bast,
stood at the extreme verge of gentility.

He was not in the abyss,
but he could see it,
and at times people whom he knew had dropped in,
and counted no more.

He knew that he was poor,
and would admit it;
he would have died sooner than confess any inferiority
to the rich.

This may be splendid of him.

But he was inferior
to most rich people,
there is not the least doubt of it.

He was not as courteous as the average rich man,
nor as intelligent,
nor as healthy,
nor as lovable.

His mind and his body had been alike underfed,
because he was poor,
and because he was modern they were always craving better food.

Had he lived some centuries ago,
in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past,
he would have had a definite status,
his rank and his income would have corresponded.

But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen,
enshadowing the classes
with leathern wings,
and proclaiming,
"All men are equal--all men,
that is
to say,
who possess umbrellas,"
and so he was obliged
to assert gentility,
lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts,
and the statements of Democracy are inaudible.

As he walked away from Wickham Place,
his first care was
to prove that he was as good as the Miss Schlegels.

Obscurely wounded in his pride,
he tried
to wound them in return.

They were probably not ladies.

Would real ladies have asked him
to tea?

They were certainly ill-natured and cold.

At each step his feeling of superiority increased.

Would a real lady have talked about stealing an umbrella?

Perhaps they were thieves after all,
and if he had gone into the house they would have clapped a chloroformed handkerchief over his face.

He walked on complacently as far as the Houses of Parliament.

There an empty stomach asserted itself,
and told him that he was a fool.

"Evening,
Mr. Bast."

"Evening,
Mr. Dealtry."

"Nice evening."

"Evening."

Mr. Dealtry,
a fellow clerk,
passed on,
and Leonard stood wondering whether he would take the tram as far as a penny would take him,
or whether he would walk.

He decided
to walk--it is no good giving in,
and he had spent money enough at Queen's Hall-- and he walked over Westminster Bridge,
in front of St. Thomas's Hospital,
and through the immense tunnel that passes under the South-Western main line at Vauxhall.

In the tunnel he paused and listened
to the roar of the trains.

A sharp pain darted through his head,
and he was conscious of the exact form of his eye sockets.

He pushed on
for another mile,
and did not slacken speed until he stood at the entrance of a road called Camelia Road which was at present his home.

Here he stopped again,
and glanced suspiciously
to right and left,
like a rabbit that is going
to bolt into its hole.

A block of flats,
constructed
with extreme cheapness,
towered on either hand.

Farther down the road two more blocks were being built,
and beyond these an old house was being demolished
to accommodate another pair.

It was the kind of scene that may be observed all over London,
whatever the locality--bricks and mortar rising and falling
with the restlessness of the water in a fountain as the city receives more and more men upon her soil.

Camelia Road would soon stand out like a fortress,
and command,
for a little,
an extensive view.

Only
for a little.

Plans were out
for the erection of flats in Magnolia Road also.

And again a few years,
and all the flats in either road might be pulled down,
and new buildings,
of a vastness at present unimaginable,
might arise where they had fallen.

"Evening,
Mr. Bast."

"Evening,
Mr. Cunningham."

"Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester."

"I beg your pardon?"
"Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester,"
repeated Mr. Cunningham,
tapping the Sunday paper,
in which the calamity in question had just been announced
to him.

"Ah,
yes,"
said Leonard,
who was not going
to let on that he had not bought a Sunday paper.

"If this kind of thing goes on the population of England will be stationary in 1960."

"You don't say so."

"I call it a very serious thing,
eh?"
"Good-evening,
Mr. Cunningham."

"Good-evening,
Mr. Bast."

Then Leonard entered Block B of the flats,
and turned,
not upstairs,
but down,
into what is known
to house agents as a semi-basement,
and
to other men as a cellar.

He opened the door,
and cried,
"Hullo!"
with the pseudo geniality of the Cockney.

There was no reply.

"Hullo!"
he repeated.

The sitting-room was empty,
though the electric light had been left burning.

A look of relief came over his face,
and he flung himself into the armchair.

The sitting-room contained,
besides the armchair,
two other chairs,
a piano,
a three-legged table,
and a cosy corner.

Of the walls,
one was occupied by the window,
the other by a draped mantelshelf bristling
with Cupids.

Opposite the window was the door,
and beside the door a bookcase,
while over the piano there extended one of the masterpieces of Maud Goodman.

It was an amorous and not unpleasant little hole when the curtains were drawn,
and the lights turned on,
and the gas-stove unlit.

But it struck that shallow makeshift note that is so often heard in the dwelling-place.

It had been too easily gained,
and could be relinquished too easily.

As Leonard was kicking off his boots he jarred the three-legged table,
and a photograph frame,
honourably poised upon it,
slid sideways,
fell off into the fireplace,
and smashed.

He swore in a colourless sort of way,
and picked the photograph up.

It represented a young lady called Jacky,
and had been taken at the time when young ladies called Jacky were often photographed
with their mouths open.

Teeth of dazzling whiteness extended along either of Jacky's jaw's,
and positively weighed her head sideways,
so large were they and so numerous.

Take my word
for it,
that smile was simply stunning,
and it is only you and I who will be fastidious,
and complain that true joy begins in the eyes,
and that the eyes of Jacky did not accord
with her smile,
but were anxious and hungry.

Leonard tried
to pull out the fragments of glass,
and cut his fingers and swore again.

A drop of blood fell on the frame,
another followed,
spilling over on
to the exposed photograph.

He swore more vigorously,
and dashed into the kitchen,
where he bathed his hands.

The kitchen was the same size as the sitting-room;
beyond it was a bedroom.

This completed his home.

He was renting the flat furnished;
of all the objects that encumbered it none were his own except the photograph frame,
the Cupids,
and the books.

"Damn,
damn,
damnation!"
he murmured,
together
with such other words as he had learnt from older men.

Then he raised his hand
to his forehead and said,
"Oh,
damn it all--"which meant something different.

He pulled himself together.

He drank a little tea,
black and silent,
that still survived upon an upper shelf.

He swallowed some dusty crumbs of a cake.

Then he went back
to the sitting-room,
settled himself anew,
and began
to read a volume of Ruskin.

"Seven miles
to the north of Venice--"
How perfectly the famous chapter opens! How supreme its command of admonition and of poetry! The rich man is speaking
to us from his gondola.

"Seven miles
to the north of Venice the banks of sand which nearer the city rise little above low-water mark attain by degrees a higher level,
and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass,
raised here and there into shapeless mounds,
and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea."

Leonard was trying
to form his style on Ruskin;
he understood him
to be the greatest master of English Prose.

He read forward steadily,
occasionally making a few notes.

"Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession,
and first
(for of the shafts enough has been said already),
what is very peculiar
to this church--its luminousness."

Was there anything
to be learnt from this fine sentence?

Could he adapt it
to the needs of daily life?

Could he introduce it,
with modifications,
when he next wrote a letter
to his brother,
the lay-reader?

For example:

"Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession,
and first
(for of the absence of ventilation enough has been said already),
what is very peculiar
to this flat--its obscurity."

Something told him that the modifications would not do;
and that something,
had he known it,
was the spirit of English Prose.

"My flat is dark as well as stuffy."

Those were the words
for him.

And the voice in the gondola rolled on,
piping melodiously of Effort and Self-Sacrifice,
full of high purpose,
full of beauty,
full even of sympathy and the love of men,
yet somehow eluding all that was actual and insistent in Leonard's life.

For it was the voice of one who had never been dirty or hungry,
and had not guessed successfully what dirt and hunger are.

Leonard listened
to it
with reverence.

He felt that he was being done good to,
and that if he kept on
with Ruskin,
and the Queen's Hall Concerts,
and some pictures by Watts,
he would one day push his head out of the grey waters and see the universe.

He believed in sudden conversion,
a belief which may be right,
but which is peculiarly attractive
to a half-baked mind.

It is the basis of much popular religion;
in the domain of business it dominates the Stock Exchange,
and becomes that
"bit of luck"
by which all successes and failures are explained.

"If only I had a bit of luck,
the whole thing would come straight...

He's got a most magnificent place down at Streatham and a 20 h.p.

Fiat,
but then,
mind you,
he's had luck...

I
'm sorry the wife's so late,
but she never has any luck over catching trains."

Leonard was superior
to these people;
he did believe in effort and in a steady preparation
for the change that he desired.

But of a heritage that may expand gradually,
he had no conception;
he hoped
to come
to Culture suddenly,
much as the Revivalist hopes
to come
to Jesus.

Those Miss Schlegels had come
to it;
they had done the trick;
their hands were upon the ropes,
once and
for all.

And meanwhile,
his flat was dark,
as well as stuffy.

Presently there was a noise on the staircase.

He shut up Margaret's card in the pages of Ruskin,
and opened the door.

A woman entered,
of whom it is simplest
to say that she was not respectable.

Her appearance was awesome.

She seemed all strings and bell-pulls--ribbons,
chains,
bead necklaces that clinked and caught and a boa of azure feathers hung round her neck,
with the ends uneven.

Her throat was bare,
wound
with a double row of pearls,
her arms were bare
to the elbows,
and might again be detected at the shoulder,
through cheap lace.

Her hat,
which was flowery,
resembled those punnets,
covered
with flannel,
which we sowed
with mustard and cress in our childhood,
and which germinated here yes,
and there no.

She wore it on the back of her head.

As
for her hair,
or rather hairs,
they are too complicated
to describe,
but one system went down her back,
lying in a thick pad there,
while another,
created
for a lighter destiny,
rippled around her forehead.

The face--the face does not signify.

It was the face of the photograph,
but older,
and the teeth were not so numerous as the photographer had suggested,
and certainly not so white.

Yes,
Jacky was past her prime,
whatever that prime may have been.

She was descending quicker than most women into the colourless years,
and the look in her eyes confessed it."

"What ho!"
said Leonard,
greeting the apparition
with much spirit,
and helping it off
with its boa.

Jacky,
in husky tones,
replied,
"What ho!"
"Been out?"
he asked.

The question sounds superfluous,
but it cannot have been really,
for the lady answered,
"No,"
adding,
"Oh,
I am so tired."

"You tired?"
"Eh?"
"I'm tired,"
said he,
hanging the boa up.

"Oh,
Len,
I am so tired."

"I've been
to that classical concert I told you about,"
said Leonard.

"What's that?"
"I came back as soon as it was over."

"Any one been round
to our place?"
asked Jacky.

"Not that I've seen.

I met Mr. Cunningham outside,
and we passed a few remarks."

"What,
not Mr. Cunningham?"
"Yes."

"Oh,
you mean Mr. Cunningham."

"Yes.

Mr. Cunningham."

"I've been out
to tea at a lady friend's."

Her secret being at last given--to the world,
and the name of the lady friend being even adumbrated,
Jacky made no further experiments in the difficult and tiring art of conversation.

She never had been a great talker.

Even in her photographic days she had relied upon her smile and her figure
to attract,
and now that she was
"On the shelf,
On the shelf,
Boys,
boys,
I'm on the shelf,"
she was not likely
to find her tongue.

Occasional bursts of song
(of which the above is an example)
still issued from her lips,
but the spoken word was rare.

She sat down on Leonard's knee,
and began
to fondle him.

She was now a massive woman of thirty-three,
and her weight hurt him,
but he could not very well say anything.

Then she said,
"Is that a book you're reading?"
and he said,
"That's a book,"
and drew it from her unreluctant grasp.

Margaret's card fell out of it.

It fell face downwards,
and he murmured,
"Bookmarker."

"Len--"
"What is it?"
he asked,
a little wearily,
for she only had one topic of conversation when she sat upon his knee.

"You do love me?"
"Jacky,
you know that I do.

How can you ask such questions!"
"But you do love me,
Len,
don't you?"
"Of course I do."

A pause.

The other remark was still due.

"Len--"
"Well?

What is it?"
"Len,
you will make it all right?"
"I can't have you ask me that again,"
said the boy,
flaring up into a sudden passion.

"I've promised
to marry you when I'm of age,
and that's enough.

My word's my word.

I've promised
to marry you as soon as ever I'm twenty-one,
and I can't keep on being worried.

I've worries enough.

It isn't likely I'd throw you over,
let alone my word,
when I've spent all this money.

Besides,
I'm an Englishman,
and I never go back on my word.

Jacky,
do be reasonable.

Of course I'll marry you.

Only do stop badgering me."

"When's your birthday,
Len?"
"I've told you again and again,
the eleventh of November next.

Now get off my knee a bit;
some one must get supper,
I suppose."

Jacky went through
to the bedroom,
and began
to see
to her hat.

This meant blowing at it
with short sharp puffs.

Leonard tidied up the sitting-room,
and began
to prepare their evening meal.

He put a penny into the slot of the gas-meter,
and soon the flat was reeking
with metallic fumes.

Somehow he could not recover his temper,
and all the time he was cooking he continued
to complain bitterly.

"It really is too bad when a fellow isn't trusted.

It makes one feel so wild,
when I've pretended
to the people here that you're my wife--all right,
all right,
you SHALL be my wife--and I've bought you the ring
to wear,
and I've taken this flat furnished,
and it's far more than I can afford,
and yet you aren't content,
and I've also not told the truth when I've written home.

He lowered his voice.

"He'd stop it."

In a tone of horror,
that was a little luxurious,
he repeated:

"My brother'd stop it.

I'm going against the whole world,
Jacky.

"That's what I am,
Jacky.

I don't take any heed of what any one says.

I just go straight forward,
I do.

That's always been my way.

I'm not one of your weak knock-kneed chaps.

If a woman's in trouble,
I don't leave her in the lurch.

That's not my street.

No,
thank you.

"I'll tell you another thing too.

I care a good deal about improving myself by means of Literature and Art,
and so getting a wider outlook.

For instance,
when you came in I was reading Ruskin's Stones of Venice.

I don't say this
to boast,
but just
to show you the kind of man I am.

I can tell you,
I enjoyed that classical concert this afternoon."

To all his moods Jacky remained equally indifferent.

When supper was ready--and not before--she emerged from the bedroom,
saying:

"But you do love me,
don't you?"
They began
with a soup square,
which Leonard had just dissolved in some hot water.

It was followed by the tongue--a freckled cylinder of meat,
with a little jelly at the top,
and a great deal of yellow fat at the bottom--ending
with another square dissolved in water
(jelly:

pineapple),
which Leonard had prepared earlier in the day.

Jacky ate contentedly enough,
occasionally looking at her man
with those anxious eyes,
to which nothing else in her appearance corresponded,
and which yet seemed
to mirror her soul.

And Leonard managed
to convince his stomach that it was having a nourishing meal.

After supper they smoked cigarettes and exchanged a few statements.

She observed that her
"likeness"
had been broken.

He found occasion
to remark,
for the second time,
that he had come straight back home after the concert at Queen's Hall.

Presently she sat upon his knee.

The inhabitants of Camelia Road tramped
to and fro outside the window,
just on a level
with their heads,
and the family in the flat on the ground-floor began
to sing,
"Hark,
my soul,
it is the Lord."

"That tune fairly gives me the hump,"
said Leonard.

Jacky followed this,
and said that,
for her part,
she thought it a lovely tune.

"No;
I'll play you something lovely.

Get up,
dear,
for a minute."

He went
to the piano and jingled out a little Grieg.

He played badly and vulgarly,
but the performance was not without its effect,
for Jacky said she thought she'd be going
to bed.

As she receded,
a new set of interests possessed the boy,
and he began
to think of what had been said about music by that odd Miss Schlegel--the one that twisted her face about so when she spoke.

Then the thoughts grew sad and envious.

There was the girl named Helen,
who had pinched his umbrella,
and the German girl who had smiled at him pleasantly,
and Herr some one,
and Aunt some one,
and the brother--all,
all
with their hands on the ropes.

They had all passed up that narrow,
rich staircase at Wickham Place
to some ample room,
whither he could never follow them,
not if he read
for ten hours a day.

Oh,
it was no good,
this continual aspiration.

Some are born cultured;
the rest had better go in
for whatever comes easy.

To see life steadily and
to see it whole was not
for the likes of him.

From the darkness beyond the kitchen a voice called,
Len?"
"You in bed?"
he asked,
his forehead twitching.

"All right."

Presently she called him again.

"I must clean my boots ready
for the morning,"
he answered.

Presently she called him again.

"I rather want
to get this chapter done."

"What?"
He closed his ears against her.

"What's that?"
"All right,
Jacky,
nothing;
I'm reading a book."

"What?"
"What?"
he answered,
catching her degraded deafness.

Presently she called him again.

Ruskin had visited Torcello by this time,
and was ordering his gondoliers
to take him
to Murano.

It occurred
to him,
as he glided over the whispering lagoons,
that the power of Nature could not be shortened by the folly,
nor her beauty altogether saddened by the misery of such as Leonard.

CHAPTER VII
"Oh,
Margaret,"
cried her aunt next morning,
"such a most unfortunate thing has happened.

I could not get you alone."

The most unfortunate thing was not very serious.

One of the flats in the ornate block opposite had been taken furnished by the Wilcox family,
"coming up,
no doubt,
in the hope of getting into London society."

That Mrs. Munt should be the first
to discover the misfortune was not remarkable,
for she was so interested in the flats,
that she watched their every mutation
with unwearying care.

In theory she despised them--they took away that old-world look--they cut off the sun--flats house a flashy type of person.

But if the truth had been known,
she found her visits
to Wickham Place twice as amusing since Wickham Mansions had arisen,
and would in a couple of days learn more about them than her nieces in a couple of months,
or her nephew in a couple of years.

She would stroll across and make friends
with the porters,
and inquire what the rents were,
exclaiming
for example:

"What! a hundred and twenty
for a basement?

You'll never get it!"
And they would answer:

"One can but try,
madam."

The passenger lifts,
the arrangement
for coals
(a great temptation
for a dishonest porter),
were all familiar matters
to her,
and perhaps a relief from the politico-economical-esthetic atmosphere that reigned at the Schlegels.

Margaret received the information calmly,
and did not agree that it would throw a cloud over poor Helen's life.

"Oh,
but Helen isn't a girl
with no interests,"
she explained.

"She has plenty of other things and other people
to think about.

She made a false start
with the Wilcoxes,
and she'll be as willing as we are
to have nothing more
to do
with them."

"For a clever girl,
dear,
how very oddly you do talk.

Helen'll HAVE
to have something more
to do
with them,
now that they
're all opposite.

She may meet that Paul in the street.

She cannot very well not bow."

"Of course she must bow.

But look here;
let's do the flowers.

I was going
to say,
the will
to be interested in him has died,
and what else matters?

I look on that disastrous episode
(over which you were so kind)
as the killing of a nerve in Helen.

It's dead,
and she'll never be troubled
with it again.

The only things that matter are the things that interest one.

Bowing,
even calling and leaving cards,
even a dinner-party--we can do all those things
to the Wilcoxes,
if they find it agreeable;
but the other thing,
the one important thing--never again.

Don't you see?"
Mrs. Munt did not see,
and indeed Margaret was making a most questionable statement--that any emotion,
any interest once vividly aroused,
can wholly die.

"I also have the honour
to inform you that the Wilcoxes are bored
with us.

I didn't tell you at the time--it might have made you angry,
and you had enough
to worry you--but I wrote a letter
to Mrs. W,
and apologised
for the trouble that Helen had given them.

She didn't answer it."

"How very rude!"
"I wonder.

Or was it sensible?"
"No,
Margaret,
most rude."

"In either case one can class it as reassuring."

Mrs. Munt sighed.

She was going back
to Swanage on the morrow,
just as her nieces were wanting her most.

Other regrets crowded upon her:

for instance,
how magnificently she would have cut Charles if she had met him face
to face.

She had already seen him,
giving an order
to the porter--and very common he looked in a tall hat.

But unfortunately his back was turned
to her,
and though she had cut his back,
she could not regard this as a telling snub.

"But you will be careful,
won't you?"
she exhorted.

"Oh,
certainly.

Fiendishly careful."

"And Helen must be careful,
too."

"Careful over what?"
cried Helen,
at that moment coming into the room
with her cousin.

"Nothing"
said Margaret,
seized
with a momentary awkwardness.

"Careful over what,
Aunt Juley?"
Mrs. Munt assumed a cryptic air.

"It is only that a certain family,
whom we know by name but do not mention,
as you said yourself last night after the concert,
have taken the flat opposite from the Mathesons--where the plants are in the balcony."

Helen began some laughing reply,
and then disconcerted them all by blushing.

Mrs. Munt was so disconcerted that she exclaimed,
"What,
Helen,
you don't mind them coming,
do you?"
and deepened the blush
to crimson.

"Of course I don't mind,"
said Helen a little crossly.

"It is that you and Meg are both so absurdly grave about it,
when there's nothing
to be grave about at all."

"I'm not grave,"
protested Margaret,
a little cross in her turn.

"Well,
you look grave;
doesn't she,
Frieda?"
"I don't feel grave,
that's all I can say;
you're going quite on the wrong tack."

"No,
she does not feel grave,"
echoed Mrs. Munt.

"I can bear witness
to that.

She disagrees--"
"Hark!"
interrupted Fraulein Mosebach.

"I hear Bruno entering the hall."

For Herr Liesecke was due at Wickham Place
to call
for the two younger girls.

He was not entering the hall--in fact,
he did not enter it
for quite five minutes.

But Frieda detected a delicate situation,
and said that she and Helen had much better wait
for Bruno down below,
and leave Margaret and Mrs. Munt
to finish arranging the flowers.

Helen acquiesced.

But,
as if
to prove that the situation was not delicate really,
she stopped in the doorway and said:

"Did you say the Mathesons'
flat,
Aunt Juley?

How wonderful you are! I never knew that the name of the woman who laced too tightly was Matheson."

"Come,
Helen,"
said her cousin.

"Go,
Helen,"
said her aunt;
and continued
to Margaret almost in the same breath:

"Helen cannot deceive me.

She does mind."

"Oh,
hush!"
breathed Margaret.

"Frieda'll hear you,
and she can be so tiresome."

"She minds,"
persisted Mrs. Munt,
moving thoughtfully about the room,
and pulling the dead chrysanthemums out of the vases.

"I knew she'd mind--and I'm sure a girl ought to! Such an experience! Such awful coarse-grained people! I know more about them than you do,
which you forget,
and if Charles had taken you that motor drive--well,
you'd have reached the house a perfect wreck.

Oh,
Margaret,
you don't know what you are in for! They're all bottled up against the drawing-room window.

There's Mrs. Wilcox--I've seen her.

There's Paul.

There's Evie,
who is a minx.

There's Charles--I saw him
to start with.

And who would an elderly man
with a moustache and a copper-coloured face be?"
"Mr. Wilcox,
possibly."

"I knew it.

And there's Mr. Wilcox."

"It's a shame
to call his face copper colour,"
complained Margaret.

"He has a remarkably good complexion
for a man of his age."

Mrs. Munt,
triumphant elsewhere,
could afford
to concede Mr. Wilcox his complexion.

She passed on from it
to the plan of campaign that her nieces should pursue in the future.

Margaret tried
to stop her.

"Helen did not take the news quite as I expected,
but the Wilcox nerve is dead in her really,
so there's no need
for plans."

"It's as well
to be prepared."

"No--it's as well not
to be prepared."

"Why?"
"Because--"
Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland.

She could not explain in so many words,
but she felt that those who prepare
for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.

It is necessary
to prepare
for an examination,
or a dinner-party,
or a possible fall in the price of stock:

those who attempt human relations must adopt another method,
or fail.

"Because I'd sooner risk it,"
was her lame conclusion.

"But imagine the evenings,"
exclaimed her aunt,
pointing
to the Mansions
with the spout of the watering can.

"Turn the electric light on here or there,
and it's almost the same room.

One evening they may forget
to draw their blinds down,
and you'll see them;
and the next,
you yours,
and they'll see you.

Impossible
to sit out on the balconies.

Impossible
to water the plants,
or even speak.

Imagine going out of the front-door,
and they come out opposite at the same moment.

And yet you tell me that plans are unnecessary,
and you'd rather risk it."

"I hope
to risk things all my life."

"Oh,
Margaret,
most dangerous."

"But after all,"
she continued
with a smile,
"there's never any great risk as long as you have money."

"Oh,
shame! What a shocking speech!"
"Money pads the edges of things,"
said Miss Schlegel.

"God help those who have none."

"But this is something quite new!"
said Mrs. Munt,
who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts,
and was especially attracted by those that are portable.

"New
for me;
sensible people have acknowledged it
for years.

You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands.

It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence.

It's only when we see some one near us tottering that we realise all that an independent income means.

Last night,
when we were talking up here round the fire,
I began
to think that the very soul of the world is economic,
and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love,
but the absence of coin."

"I call that rather cynical."

"So do I.

But Helen and I,
we ought
to remember,
when we are tempted
to criticise others,
that we are standing on these islands,
and that most of the others are down below the surface of the sea.

The poor cannot always reach those whom they want
to love,
and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer.

We rich can.

Imagine the tragedy last June,
if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people,
and couldn't invoke railways and motor-cars
to part them."

"That's more like Socialism,"
said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.

"Call it what you like.

I call it going through life
with one's hand spread open on the table.

I'm tired of these rich people who pretend
to be poor,
and think it shows a nice mind
to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves.

I stand each year upon six hundred pounds,
and Helen upon the same,
and Tibby will stand upon eight,
and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed--from the sea,
yes,
from the sea.

And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders,
and all our speeches;
and because we don't want
to steal umbrellas ourselves,
we forget that below the sea people do want
to steal them and do steal them sometimes,
and that what's a joke up here is down there reality."

"There they go--there goes Fraulein Mosebach.

Really,
for a German she does dress charmingly.

Oh!--"
"What is it?"
"Helen was looking up at the Wilcoxes'
flat."

"Why shouldn't she?"
"I beg your pardon,
I interrupted you.

What was it you were saying about reality?"
"I had worked round
to myself,
as usual,"
answered Margaret in tones that were suddenly preoccupied.

"Do tell me this,
at all events.

Are you
for the rich or
for the poor?"
"Too difficult.

Ask me another.

Am I
for poverty or
for riches?

For riches.

Hurrah
for riches!"
"For riches!"
echoed Mrs. Munt,
having,
as it were,
at last secured her nut.

"Yes.

For riches.

Money
for ever!"
"So am I,
and so,
I am afraid,
are most of my acquaintances at Swanage,
but I am surprised that you agree
with us."

"Thank you so much,
Aunt Juley.

While I have talked theories,
you have done the flowers."

"Not at all,
dear.

I wish you would let me help you in more important things."

"Well,
would you be very kind?

Would you come round
with me
to the registry office?

There's a housemaid who won't say yes but doesn't say no."

On their way thither they too looked up at the Wilcoxes'
flat.

Evie was in the balcony,
"staring most rudely,"
according
to Mrs. Munt.

Oh yes,
it was a nuisance,
there was no doubt of it.

Helen was proof against a passing encounter,
but--Margaret began
to lose confidence.

Might it reawake the dying nerve if the family were living close against her eyes?

And Frieda Mosebach was stopping
with them
for another fortnight,
and Frieda was sharp,
abominably sharp,
and quite capable of remarking,
"You love one of the young gentlemen opposite,
yes?"
The remark would be untrue,
but of the kind which,
if stated often enough,
may become true;
just as the remark,
"England and Germany are bound
to fight,"
renders war a little more likely each time that it is made,
and is therefore made the more readily by the gutter press of either nation.

Have the private emotions also their gutter press?

Margaret thought so,
and feared that good Aunt Juley and Frieda were typical specimens of it.

They might,
by continual chatter,
lead Helen into a repetition of the desires of June.

Into a repetition--they could not do more;
they could not lead her into lasting love.

They were--she saw it clearly--Journalism;
her father,
with all his defects and wrong-headedness,
had been Literature,
and had he lived,
he would have persuaded his daughter rightly.

The registry office was holding its morning reception.

A string of carriages filled the street.

Miss Schlegel waited her turn,
and finally had
to be content
with an insidious
"temporary,"
being rejected by genuine housemaids on the ground of her numerous stairs.

Her failure depressed her,
and though she forgot the failure,
the depression remained.

On her way home she again glanced up at the Wilcoxes'
flat,
and took the rather matronly step of speaking about the matter
to Helen.

"Helen,
you must tell me whether this thing worries you."

"If what?"
said Helen,
who was washing her hands
for lunch.

"The Ws'
coming."

"No,
of course not."

"Really?"
"Really."

Then she admitted that she was a little worried on Mrs. Wilcox's account;
she implied that Mrs. Wilcox might reach backward into deep feelings,
and be pained by things that never touched the other members of that clan.

"I shan't mind if Paul points at our house and says,
'There lives the girl who tried
to catch me.'

But she might."

"If even that worries you,
we could arrange something.

There's no reason we should be near people who displease us or whom we displease,
thanks
to our money.

We might even go away
for a little."

"Well,
I am going away.

Frieda's just asked me
to Stettin,
and I shan't be back till after the New Year.

Will that do?

Or must I fly the country altogether?

Really,
Meg,
what has come over you
to make such a fuss?"
"Oh,
I'm getting an old maid,
I suppose.

I thought I minded nothing,
but really I--I should be bored if you fell in love
with the same man twice and"--she cleared her throat--"you did go red,
you know,
when Aunt Juley attacked you this morning.

I shouldn't have referred
to it otherwise."

But Helen's laugh rang true,
as she raised a soapy hand
to heaven and swore that never,
nowhere and nohow,
would she again fall in love
with any of the Wilcox family,
down
to its remotest collaterals.

CHAPTER VIII The friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox,
which was
to develop so quickly and
with such strange results,
may perhaps have had its beginnings at Speyer,
in the spring.

Perhaps the elder lady,
as she gazed at the vulgar,
ruddy cathedral,
and listened
to the talk of her husband and Helen,
may have detected in the other and less charming of the sisters a deeper sympathy,
a sounder judgment.

She was capable of detecting such things.

Perhaps it was she who had desired the Miss Schlegels
to be invited
to Howards End,
and Margaret whose presence she had particularly desired.

All this is speculation;
Mrs. Wilcox has left few clear indications behind her.

It is certain that she came
to call at Wickham Place a fortnight later,
the very day that Helen was going
with her cousin
to Stettin.

"Helen!"
cried Fraulein Mosebach in awestruck tones
(she was now in her cousin's confidence)--"his mother has forgiven you!"
And then,
remembering that in England the new-comer ought not
to call before she is called upon,
she changed her tone from awe
to disapproval,
and opined that Mrs. Wilcox was keine Dame.

"Bother the whole family!"
snapped Margaret.

"Helen,
stop giggling and pirouetting,
and go and finish your packing.

Why can't the woman leave us alone?"
"I don't know what I shall do
with Meg,"
Helen retorted,
collapsing upon the stairs.

She's got Wilcox and Box upon the brain.

Meg,
Meg,
I don't love the young gentleman;
I don't love the young gentleman,
Meg,
Meg.

Can a body speak plainer?"
"Most certainly her love has died,"
asserted Fraulein Mosebach.

"Most certainly it has,
Frieda,
but that will not prevent me from being bored
with the Wilcoxes if I return the call."

Then Helen simulated tears,
and Fraulein Mosebach,
who thought her extremely amusing,
did the same.

"Oh,
boo hoo! boo hoo hoo! Meg's going
to return the call,
and I can't.

'Cos why?

'Cos I'm going
to German-eye."

"If you are going
to Germany,
go and pack;
if you aren't,
go and call on the Wilcoxes instead of me."

"But,
Meg,
Meg,
I don't love the young gentleman;
I don't love the young--O lud,
who's that coming down the stairs?

I vow
'tis my brother.

O crimini!"
A male--even such a male as Tibby--was enough
to stop the foolery.

The barrier of sex,
though decreasing among the civilised,
is still high,
and higher on the side of women.

Helen could tell her sister all,
and her cousin much about Paul;
she told her brother nothing.

It was not prudishness,
for she now spoke of
"the Wilcox ideal"
with laughter,
and even
with a growing brutality.

Nor was it precaution,
for Tibby seldom repeated any news that did not concern himself.

It was rather the feeling that she betrayed a secret into the camp of men,
and that,
however trivial it was on this side of the barrier,
it would become important on that.

So she stopped,
or rather began
to fool on other subjects,
until her long-suffering relatives drove her upstairs.

Fraulein Mosebach followed her,
but lingered
to say heavily over the banisters
to Margaret,
"It is all right-- she does not love the young man--he has not been worthy of her."

"Yes,
I know;
thanks very much."

"I thought I did right
to tell you."

"Ever so many thanks."

"What's that?"
asked Tibby.

No one told him,
and he proceeded into the dining-room,
to eat pluMs. That evening Margaret took decisive action.

The house was very quiet,
and the fog--we are in November now--pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.

Frieda and Helen and all their luggages had gone.

Tibby,
who was not feeling well,
lay stretched on a sofa by the fire.

Margaret sat by him,
thinking.

Her mind darted from impulse
to impulse,
and finally marshalled them all in review.

The practical person,
who knows what he wants at once,
and generally knows nothing else,
will accuse her of indecision.

But this was the way her mind worked.

And when she did act,
no one could accuse her of indecision then.

She hit out as lustily as if she had not considered the matter at all.

The letter that she wrote Mrs. Wilcox glowed
with the native hue of resolution.

The pale cast of thought was
with her a breath rather than a tarnish,
a breath that leaves the colours all the more vivid when it has been wiped away.

"DEAR MRS. WILCOX,
"I have
to write something discourteous.

It would be better if we did not meet.

Both my sister and my aunt have given displeasure
to your family,
and,
in my sister's case,
the grounds
for displeasure might recur.

So far as I know she no longer occupies her thoughts
with your son.

But it would not be fair,
either
to her or
to you,
if they met,
and it is therefore right that our acquaintance,
which began so pleasantly,
should end.

"I fear that you will not agree
with this;
indeed,
I know that you will not,
since you have been good enough
to call on us.

It is only an instinct on my part,
and no doubt the instinct is wrong.

My sister would,
undoubtedly,
say that it is wrong.

I write without her knowledge,
and I hope that you will not associate her
with my discourtesy.

"Believe me,
"Yours truly,
"M.

J.

SCHLEGEL."

Margaret sent this letter round by the post.

Next morning she received the following reply by hand:

"DEAR MISS SCHLEGEL,
"You should not have written me such a letter.

I called
to tell you that Paul has gone abroad.

"RUTH WILCOX."

Margaret's cheeks burnt.

She could not finish her breakfast.

She was on fire
with shame.

Helen had told her that the youth was leaving England,
but other things had seemed more important,
and she had forgotten.

All her absurd anxieties fell
to the ground,
and in their place arose the certainty that she had been rude
to Mrs. Wilcox.

Rudeness affected Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth.

It poisoned life.

At times it is necessary,
but woe
to those who employ it without due need.

She flung on a hat and shawl,
just like a poor woman,
and plunged into the fog,
which still continued.

Her lips were compressed,
the letter remained in her hand,
and in this state she crossed the street,
entered the marble vestibule of the flats,
eluded the concierges,
and ran up the stairs till she reached the second floor.

She sent in her name,
and
to her surprise was shown straight into Mrs. Wilcox's bedroom.

"Oh,
Mrs. Wilcox,
I have made the baddest blunder.

I am more,
more ashamed and sorry than I can say."

Mrs. Wilcox bowed gravely.

She was offended,
and did not pretend
to the contrary.

She was sitting up in bed,
writing letters on an invalid table that spanned her knees.

A breakfast tray was on another table beside her.

The light of the fire,
the light from the window,
and the light of a candle-lamp,
which threw a quivering halo round her hands combined
to create a strange atmosphere of dissolution.

"I knew he was going
to India in November,
but I forgot."

"He sailed on the 17th
for Nigeria,
in Africa."

"I knew--I know.

I have been too absurd all through.

I am very much ashamed."

Mrs. Wilcox did not answer.

"I am more sorry than I can say,
and I hope that you will forgive me."

"It doesn't matter,
Miss Schlegel.

It is good of you
to have come round so promptly."

"It does matter,"
cried Margaret.

"I have been rude
to you;
and my sister is not even at home,
so there was not even that excuse."

"Indeed?"
"She has just gone
to Germany."

"She gone as well,"
murmured the other.

"Yes,
certainly,
it is quite safe--safe,
absolutely,
now."

"You've been worrying too!"
exclaimed Margaret,
getting more and more excited,
and taking a chair without invitation.

"How perfectly extraordinary! I can see that you have.

You felt as I do;
Helen mustn't meet him again."

"I did think it best."

"Now why?"
"That's a most difficult question,"
said Mrs. Wilcox,
smiling,
and a little losing her expression of annoyance.

"I think you put it best in your letter--it was an instinct,
which may be wrong."

"It wasn't that your son still--"
"Oh no;
he often--my Paul is very young,
you see."

"Then what was it?"
She repeated:

"An instinct which may be wrong."

"In other words,
they belong
to types that can fall in love,
but couldn't live together.

That's dreadfully probable.

I'm afraid that in nine cases out of ten Nature pulls one way and human nature another."

"These are indeed
'other words,'"
said Mrs. Wilcox.

"I had nothing so coherent in my head.

I was merely alarmed when I knew that my boy cared
for your sister."

"Ah,
I have always been wanting
to ask you.

How DID you know?

Helen was so surprised when our aunt drove up,
and you stepped forward and arranged things.

Did Paul tell you?"
"There is nothing
to be gained by discussing that,"
said Mrs. Wilcox after a moment's pause.

"Mrs. Wilcox,
were you very angry
with us last June?

I wrote you a letter and you didn't answer it."

"I was certainly against taking Mrs. Matheson's flat.

I knew it was opposite your house."

"But it's all right now?"
"I think so."

"You only think?

You aren't sure?

I do love these little muddles tidied up?"
"Oh yes,
I'm sure,"
said Mrs. Wilcox,
moving
with uneasiness beneath the clothes.

"I always sound uncertain over things.

It is my way of speaking."

"That's all right,
and I'm sure,
too."

Here the maid came in
to remove the breakfast-tray.

They were interrupted,
and when they resumed conversation it was on more normal lines.

"I must say good-bye now--you will be getting up."

"No--please stop a little longer--I am taking a day in bed.

Now and then I do."

"I thought of you as one of the early risers."

"At Howards End--yes;
there is nothing
to get up
for in London."

"Nothing
to get up for?"
cried the scandalised Margaret.

"When there are all the autumn exhibitions,
and Ysaye playing in the afternoon! Not
to mention people."

"The truth is,
I am a little tired.

First came the wedding,
and then Paul went off,
and,
instead of resting yesterday,
I paid a round of calls."

"A wedding?"
"Yes;
Charles,
my elder son,
is married."

"Indeed!"
"We took the flat chiefly on that account,
and also that Paul could get his African outfit.

The flat belongs
to a cousin of my husband's,
and she most kindly offered it
to us.

So before the day came we were able
to make the acquaintance of Dolly's people,
which we had not yet done."

Margaret asked who Dolly's people were.

"Fussell.

The father is in the Indian army--retired;
the brother is in the army.

The mother is dead."

So perhaps these were the
"chinless sunburnt men"
whom Helen had espied one afternoon through the window.

Margaret felt mildly interested in the fortunes of the Wilcox family.

She had acquired the habit on Helen's account,
and it still clung
to her.

She asked
for more information about Miss Dolly Fussell that was,
and was given it in even,
unemotional tones.

Mrs. Wilcox's voice,
though sweet and compelling,
had little range of expression.

It suggested that pictures,
concerts,
and people are all of small and equal value.

Only once had it quickened--when speaking of Howards End.

"Charles and Albert Fussell have known one another some time.

They belong
to the same club,
and are both devoted
to golf.

Dolly plays golf too,
though I believe not so well;
and they first met in a mixed foursome.

We all like her,
and are very much pleased.

They were married on the 11th,
a few days before Paul sailed.

Charles was very anxious
to have his brother as best man,
so he made a great point of having it on the 11th.

The Fussells would have preferred it after Christmas,
but they were very nice about it.

There is Dolly's photograph--in that double frame."

"Are you quite certain that I'm not interrupting,
Mrs. Wilcox?"
"Yes,
quite."

"Then I will stay.

I'm enjoying this."

Dolly's photograph was now examined.

It was signed
"For dear Mims,"
which Mrs. Wilcox interpreted as
"the name she and Charles had settled that she should call me."

Dolly looked silly,
and had one of those triangular faces that so often prove attractive
to a robust man.

She was very pretty.

From her Margaret passed
to Charles,
whose features prevailed opposite.

She speculated on the forces that had drawn the two together till God parted them.

She found time
to hope that they would be happy.

"They have gone
to Naples
for their honeymoon."

"Lucky people!"
"I can hardly imagine Charles in Italy."

"Doesn't he care
for travelling?"
"He likes travel,
but he does see through foreigners so.

What he enjoys most is a motor tour in England,
and I think that would have carried the day if the weather had not been so abominable.

His father gave him a car
for a wedding present,
which
for the present is being stored at Howards End."

"I suppose you have a garage there?"
"Yes.

My husband built a little one only last month,
to the west of the house,
not far from the wych-elm,
in what used
to be the paddock
for the pony."

The last words had an indescribable ring about them.

"Where's the pony gone?"
asked Margaret after a pause.

"The pony?

Oh,
dead,
ever so long ago."

"The wych-elm I remember.

Helen spoke of it as a very splendid tree."

"It is the finest wych-elm in Hertfordshire.

Did your sister tell you about the teeth?"
"No."

"Oh,
it might interest you.

There are pigs'
teeth stuck into the trunk,
about four feet from the ground.

The country people put them in long ago,
and they think that if they chew a piece of the bark,
it will cure the toothache.

The teeth are almost grown over now,
and no one comes
to the tree."

"I should.

I love folklore and all festering superstitions."

"Do you think that the tree really did cure toothache,
if one believed in it?"
"Of course it did.

It would cure anything--once."

"Certainly I remember cases--you see I lived at Howards End long,
long before Mr. Wilcox knew it.

I was born there."

The conversation again shifted.

At the time it seemed little more than aimless chatter.

She was interested when her hostess explained that Howards End was her own property.

She was bored when too minute an account was given of the Fussell family,
of the anxieties of Charles concerning Naples,
of the movements of Mr. Wilcox and Evie,
who were motoring in Yorkshire.

Margaret could not bear being bored.

She grew inattentive,
played
with the photograph frame,
dropped it,
smashed Dolly's glass,
apologised,
was pardoned,
cut her finger thereon,
was pitied,
and finally said she must be going--there was all the housekeeping
to do,
and she had
to interview Tibby's riding-master.

Then the curious note was struck again.

"Good-bye,
Miss Schlegel,
good-bye.

Thank you
for coming.

You have cheered me up."

"I'm so glad!"
"I--I wonder whether you ever think about yourself?"
"I think of nothing else,"
said Margaret,
blushing,
but letting her hand remain in that of the invalid.

"I wonder.

I wondered at Heidelberg."

"I'M sure!"
"I almost think--"
"Yes?"
asked Margaret,
for there was a long pause--a pause that was somehow akin
to the flicker of the fire,
the quiver of the reading-lamp upon their hands,
the white blur from the window;
a pause of shifting and eternal shadows.

"I almost think you forget you're a girl."

Margaret was startled and a little annoyed.

"I'm twenty-nine,"
she remarked.

"That's not so wildly girlish."

Mrs. Wilcox smiled.

"What makes you say that?

Do you mean that I have been gauche and rude?"
A shake of the head.

"I only meant that I am fifty-one,
and that
to me both of you-- Read it all in some book or other;
I cannot put things clearly."

"Oh,
I've got it--inexperience.

I'm no better than Helen,
you mean,
and yet I presume
to advise her."

"Yes.

You have got it.

Inexperience is the word."

"Inexperience,"
repeated Margaret,
in serious yet buoyant tones.

"Of course,
I have everything
to learn--absolutely everything --just as much as Helen.

Life's very difficult and full of surprises.

At all events,
I've got as far as that.

To be humble and kind,
to go straight ahead,
to love people rather than pity them,
to remember the submerged--well,
one can't do all these things at once,
worse luck,
because they're so contradictory.

It's then that proportion comes in--to live by proportion.

Don't BEGIN
with proportion.

Only prigs do that.

Let proportion come in as a last resource,
when the better things have failed,
and a deadlock-- Gracious me,
I've started preaching!"
"Indeed,
you put the difficulties of life splendidly,"
said Mrs. Wilcox,
withdrawing her hand into the deeper shadows.

"It is just what I should have liked
to say about them myself."

CHAPTER IX Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about life.

And Margaret,
on the other hand,
has made a fair show of modesty,
and has pretended
to an inexperience that she certainly did not feel.

She had kept house
for over ten years;
she had entertained,
almost
with distinction;
she had brought up a charming sister,
and was bringing up a brother.

Surely,
if experience is attainable,
she had attained it.

Yet the little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilcox's honour was not a success.

The new friend did not blend
with the
"one or two delightful people"
who had been asked
to meet her,
and the atmosphere was one of polite bewilderment.

Her tastes were simple,
her knowledge of culture slight,
and she was not interested in the New English Art Club,
nor in the dividing-line between Journalism and Literature,
which was started as a conversational hare.

The delightful people darted after it
with cries of joy,
Margaret leading them,
and not till the meal was half over did they realise that the principal guest had taken no part in the chase.

There was no common topic.

Mrs. Wilcox,
whose life had been spent in the service of husband and sons,
had little
to say
to strangers who had never shared it,
and whose age was half her own.

Clever talk alarmed her,
and withered her delicate imaginings;
it was the social counterpart of a motor- car,
all jerks,
and she was a wisp of hay,
a flower.

Twice she deplored the weather,
twice criticised the train service on the Great Northern Railway.

They vigorously assented,
and rushed on,
and when she inquired whether there was any news of Helen,
her hostess was toomuch occupied in placing Rothenstein
to answer.

The question was repeated:

"I hope that your sister is safe in Germany by now."

Margaret checked herself and said,
"Yes,
thank you;
I heard on Tuesday."

But the demon of vociferation was in her,
and the nextmoment she was off again.

"Only on Tuesday,
for they live right away at Stettin.

Did you ever know any one living at Stettin?"
"Never,"
said Mrs. Wilcox gravely,
while her neighbour,
a young man low down in the Education Office,
began
to discuss what people who lived at Stettin ought
to look like.

Was there such a thing as Stettininity?

Margaret swept on.

"People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging warehouses.

At least,
our cousins do,
but aren't particularly rich.

The town isn't interesting,
except
for a clock that rolls its eyes,
and the view of the Oder,
which truly is something special.

Oh,
Mrs. Wilcox,
you would love the Oder! The river,
or rather rivers--there seem
to be dozens of them--are intense blue,
and the plain they run through an intensest green."

"Indeed! That sounds like a most beautiful view,
Miss Schlegel."

"So I say,
but Helen,
who will muddle things,
says no,
it's like music.

The course of the Oder is
to be like music.

It's obliged
to remind her of a symphonic poem.

The part by the landing-stage is in B minor,
if I remember rightly,
but lower down things get extremely mixed.

There is a slodgy theme in several keys at once,
meaning mud-banks,
and another
for the navigable canal,
and the exit into the Baltic is in C sharp major,
pianissimo."

"What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?"
asked the man,
laughing.

"They make a great deal of it,"
replied Margaret,
unexpectedly rushing off on a new track.

"I think it's affectation
to compare the Oder
to music,
and so do you,
but the overhanging warehouses of Stettin take beauty seriously,
which we don't,
and the average Englishman doesn't,
and despises all who do.

Now don't say
'Germans have no taste,'
or I shall scream.

They haven't.

But-- but--such a tremendous but!--they take poetry seriously.

They do take poetry seriously."

"Is anything gained by that?"
"Yes,
yes.

The German is always on the lookout
for beauty.

He may miss it through stupidity,
or misinterpret it,
but he is always asking beauty
to enter his life,
and I believe that in the end it will come.

At Heidelberg I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke
with sobs as he repeated some mawkish poetry.

So easy
for me
to laugh--I,
who never repeat poetry,
good or bad,
and cannot remember one fragment of verse
to thrill myself with.

My blood boils--well,
I
'm half German,
so put it down
to patriotism--when I listen
to the tasteful contempt of the average islander
for things Teutonic,
whether they're Bocklin or my veterinary surgeon.

'Oh,
Bocklin,'
they say;
'he strains after beauty,
he peoples Nature
with gods too consciously.'

Of course Bocklin strains,
because he wants something--beauty and all the other intangible gifts that are floating about the world.

So his landscapes don't come off,
and Leader's do."

"I am not sure that I agree.

Do you?"
said he,
turning
to Mrs. Wilcox.

She replied:

"I think Miss Schlegel puts everything splendidly;"
and a chill fell on the conversation.

"Oh,
Mrs. Wilcox,
say something nicer than that.

It's such a snub
to be told you put things splendidly."

"I do not mean it as a snub.

Your last speech interested me so much.

Generally people do not seem quite
to like Germany.

I have long wanted
to hear what is said on the other side."

"The other side?

Then you do disagree.

Oh,
good! Give us your side."

"I have no side.

But my husband"--her voice softened,
the chill increased--"has very little faith in the Continent,
and our children have all taken after him."

"On what grounds?

Do they feel that the Continent is in bad form?"
Mrs. Wilcox had no idea;
she paid little attention
to grounds.

She was not intellectual,
nor even alert,
and it was odd that,
all the same,
she should give the idea of greatness.

Margaret,
zigzagging
with her friends over Thought and Art,
was conscious of a personality that transcended their own and dwarfed their activities.

There was no bitterness in Mrs. Wilcox;
there was not even criticism;
she was lovable,
and no ungracious or uncharitable word had passed her lips.

Yet she and daily life were out of focus;
one or the other must show blurred.

And at lunch she seemed more out of focus than usual,
and nearer the line that divides daily life from a life that may be of greater importance.

"You will admit,
though,
that the Continent--it seems silly
to speak of
'the Continent,'
but really it is all more like itself than any part of it is like England.

England is unique.

Do have another jelly first.

I was going
to say that the Continent,
for good or
for evil,
is interested in ideas.

Its Literature and Art have what one might call the kink of the unseen about them,
and this persists even through decadence and affectation.

There is more liberty of action in England,
but
for liberty of thought go
to bureaucratic Prussia.

People will there discuss
with humilit y vital questions that we here think ourselves too good
to touch
with tongs."

"I do not want
to go
to Prussia,"
said Mrs. Wilcox
"not even
to see that interesting view that you were describing.

And
for discussing
with humility I am too old.

We never discuss anything at Howards End."

"Then you ought to!"
said Margaret.

"Discussion keeps a house alive.

It cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone."

"It cannot stand without them,"
said Mrs. Wilcox,
unexpectedly catching on
to the thought,
and rousing,
for the first and last time,
a faint hope in the breasts of the delightful people.

"It cannot stand without them,
and I sometimes think--But I cannot expect your generation
to agree,
for even my daughter disagrees
with me here."

"Never mind us or her.

Do say!"
"I sometimes think that it is wiser
to leave action and discussion
to men."

There was a little silence.

"One admits that the arguments against the suffrage ARE extraordinarily strong,"
said a girl opposite,
leaning forward and crumbling her bread.

"Are they?

I never follow any arguments.

I am only too thankful not
to have a vote myself."

"We didn't mean the vote,
though,
did we?"
supplied Margaret.

Aren't we differing on something much wider,
Mrs. Wilcox?

Whether women are
to remain what they have been since the dawn of history;
or whether,
since men have moved forward so far,
they too may move forward a little now.

I say they may.

I would even admit a biological change."

"I don't know,
I don't know."

"I must be getting back
to my overhanging warehouse,"
said the man.

"They've turned disgracefully strict."

Mrs. Wilcox also rose.

"Oh,
but come upstairs
for a little.

Miss Quested plays.

Do you like MacDowell?

Do you mind his only having two noises?

If you must really go,
I'll see you out.

Won't you even have coffee?"
They left the dining-room closing the door behind them,
and as Mrs. Wilcox buttoned up her jacket,
she said:

"What an interesting life you all lead in London!"
"No,
we don't,"
said Margaret,
with a sudden revulsion.

"We lead the lives of gibbering monkeys.

Mrs. Wilcox--really-- We have something quiet and stable at the bottom.

We really have.

All my friends have.

Don't pretend you enjoyed lunch,
for you loathed it,
but forgive me by coming again,
alone,
or by asking me
to you."

"I am used
to young people,"
said Mrs. Wilcox,
and
with each word she spoke the outlines of known things grew dim.

"I hear a great deal of chatter at home,
for we,
like you,
entertain a great deal.

With us it is more sport and politics,
but-- I enjoyed my lunch very much,
Miss Schlegel,
dear,
and am not pretending,
and only wish I could have joined in more.

For one thing,
I'm not particularly well just to-day.

For another,
you younger people move so quickly that it dazes me.

Charles is the same,
Dolly the same.

But we are all in the same boat,
old and young.

I never forget that."

They were silent
for a moment.

Then,
with a newborn emotion,
they shook hands.

The conversation ceased suddenly when Margaret re-entered the dining-room;
her friends had been talking over her new friend,
and had dismissed her as uninteresting.

CHAPTER X Several days passed.

Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people--there are many of them--who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it?

They evoke our interests and affections,
and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round them.

Then they withdraw.

When physical passion is involved,
there is a definite name
for such behaviour--flirting-- and if carried far enough it is punishable by law.

But no law-- not public opinion even--punishes those who coquette
with friendship,
though the dull ache that they inflict,
the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion,
may be as intolerable.

Was she one of these?

Margaret feared so at first,
for,
with a Londoner's impatience,
she wanted everything
to be settled up immediately.

She mistrusted the periods of quiet that are essential
to true growth.

Desiring
to book Mrs. Wilcox as a friend,
she pressed on the ceremony,
pencil,
as it were,
in hand,
pressing the more because the rest of the family were away,
and the opportunity seemed favourable.

But the elder woman would not be hurried.

She refused
to fit in
with the Wickham Place set,
or
to reopen discussion of Helen and Paul,
whom Margaret would have utilised as a short-cut.

She took her time,
or perhaps let time take her,
and when the crisis did come all was ready.

The crisis opened
with a message:

Would Miss Schlegel come shopping?

Christmas was nearing,
and Mrs. Wilcox felt behindhand
with the presents.

She had taken some more days in bed,
and must make up
for lost time.

Margaret accepted,
and at eleven o'clock one cheerless morning they started out in a brougham.

"First of all,"
began Margaret,
"we must make a list and tick off the people's names.

My aunt always does,
and this fog may thicken up any moment.

Have you any ideas?"
"I thought we would go
to Harrods or the Haymarket Stores,"
said Mrs. Wilcox rather hopelessly.

"Everything is sure
to be there.

I am not a good shopper.

The din is so confusing,
and your aunt is quite right--one ought
to make a list.

Take my notebook,
then,
and write your own name at the top of the page.

"Oh,
hooray!"
said Margaret,
writing it.

"How very kind of you
to start
with me!"
But she did not want
to receive anything expensive.

Their acquaintance was singular rather than intimate,
and she divined that the Wilcox clan would resent any expenditure on outsiders;
the more compact families do.

She did not want
to be thought a second Helen,
who would snatch presents since she could not snatch young men,
nor
to be exposed like a second Aunt Juley,
to the insults of Charles.

A certain austerity of demeanour was best,
and she added:

"I don't really want a Yuletide gift,
though.

In fact,
I'd rather not."

"Why?"
"Because I've odd ideas about Christmas.

Because I have all that money can buy.

I want more people,
but no more things."

"I should like
to give you something worth your acquaintance,
Miss Schlegel,
in memory of your kindness
to me during my lonely fortnight.

It has so happened that I have been left alone,
and you have stopped me from brooding.

I am too apt
to brood."

"If that is so,"
said Margaret,
"if I have happened
to be of use
to you,
which I didn't know,
you cannot pay me back
with anything tangible."

"I suppose not,
but one would like to.

Perhaps I shall think of something as we go about."

Her name remained at the head of the list,
but nothing was written opposite it.

They drove from shop
to shop.

The air was white,
and when they alighted it tasted like cold pennies.

At times they passed through a clot of grey.

Mrs. Wilcox's vitality was low that morning,
and it was Margaret who decided on a horse
for this little girl,
a golliwog
for that,
for the rector's wife a copper warming-tray.

"We always give the servants money."

"Yes,
do you,
yes,
much easier,"
replied Margaret but felt the grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen,
and saw issuing from a forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and toys.

Vulgarity reigned.

Public-houses,
besides their usual exhortation against temperance reform,
invited men to
"Join our Christmas goose club"--one bottle of gin,
etc.,
or two,
according
to subscription.

A poster of a woman in tights heralded the Christmas pantomime,
and little red devils,
who had come in again that year,
were prevalent upon the Christmas-cards.

Margaret was no morbid idealist.

She did not wish this spate of business and self-advertisement checked.

It was only the occasion of it that struck her
with amazement annually.

How many of these vacillating shoppers and tired shop-assistants realised that it was a divine event that drew them together?

She realised it,
though standing outside in the matter.

She was not a Christian in the accepted sense;
she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a young artisan.

These people,
or most of them,
believed it,
and if pressed,
would affirm it in words.

But the visible signs of their belief were Regent Street or Drury Lane,
a little mud displaced,
a little money spent,
a little food cooked,
eaten,
and forgotten.

Inadequate.

But in public who shall express the unseen adequately?

It is private life that holds out the mirror
to infinity;
personal intercourse,
and that alone,
that ever hints at a personality beyond our daily vision.

"No,
I do like Christmas on the whole,"
she announced.

"In its clumsy way,
it does approach Peace and Goodwill.

But oh,
it is clumsier every year."

"Is it?

I am only used
to country Christmases."

"We are usually in London,
and play the game
with vigour--carols at the Abbey,
clumsy midday meal,
clumsy dinner
for the maids,
followed by Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children,
with songs from Helen.

The drawing-room does very well
for that.

We put the tree in the powder-closet,
and draw a curtain when the candles are lighted,
and
with the looking-glass behind it looks quite pretty.

I wish we might have a powder-closet in our next house.

Of course,
the tree has
to be very small,
and the presents don't hang on it.

No;
the presents reside in a sort of rocky landscape made of crumpled brown paper."

"You spoke of your
'next house,'
Miss Schlegel.

Then are you leaving Wickham Place?"
"Yes,
in two or three years,
when the lease expires.

We must."

"Have you been there long?"
"All our lives."

"You will be very sorry
to leave it."

"I suppose so.

We scarcely realise it yet.

My father--"
She broke off,
for they had reached the stationery department of the Haymarket Stores,
and Mrs. Wilcox wanted
to order some private greeting cards.

"If possible,
something distinctive,"
she sighed.

At the counter she found a friend,
bent on the same errand,
and conversed
with her insipidly,
wasting much time.

"My husband and our daughter are motoring."

"Bertha,
too?

Oh,
fancy,
what a coincidence!"
Margaret,
though not practical,
could shine in such company as this.

While they talked,
she went through a volume of specimen cards,
and submitted one
for Mrs. Wilcox's inspection.

Mrs. Wilcox was delighted--so original,
words so sweet;
she would order a hundred like that,
and could never be sufficiently grateful.

Then,
just as the assistant was booking the order,
she said:

"Do you know,
I'll wait.

On second thoughts,
I'll wait.

There's plenty of time still,
isn't there,
and I shall be able
to get Evie's opinion."

They returned
to the carriage by devious paths;
when they were in,
she said,
"But couldn't you get it renewed?"
"I beg your pardon?"
asked Margaret.

"The lease,
I mean."

"Oh,
the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time?

How very kind of you!"
"Surely something could be done."

"No;
values have risen too enormously.

They mean
to pull down Wickham Place,
and build flats like yours."

"But how horrible!"
"Landlords are horrible."

Then she said vehemently:

"It is monstrous,
Miss Schlegel;
it isn't right.

I had no idea that this was hanging over you.

I do pity you from the bottom of my heart.

To be parted from your house,
your father's house--it oughtn't
to be allowed.

It is worse than dying.

I would rather die than-- Oh,
poor girls! Can what they call civilisation be right,
if people mayn't die in the room where they were born?

My dear,
I am so sorry."

Margaret did not know what
to say.

Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired by the shopping,
and was inclined
to hysteria.

"Howards End was nearly pulled down once.

It would have killed me."

"I--Howards End must be a very different house
to ours.

We are fond of ours,
but there is nothing distinctive about it.

As you saw,
it is an ordinary London house.

We shall easily find another."

"So you think."

"Again my lack of experience,
I suppose!"
said Margaret,
easing away from the subject.

"I can't say anything when you take up that line,
Mrs. Wilcox.

I wish I could see myself as you see me-- foreshortened into a backfisch.

Quite the ingenue.

Very charming --wonderfully well read
for my age,
but incapable--"
Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred.

"Come down
with me
to Howards End now,"
she said,
more vehemently than ever.

"I want you
to see it.

You have never seen it.

I want
to hear what you say about it,
for you do put things so wonderfully."

Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face of her companion.

"Later on I should love it,"
she continued,
"but it's hardly the weather
for such an expedition,
and we ought
to start when we're fresh.

Isn't the house shut up,
too?"
She received no answer.

Mrs. Wilcox appeared
to be annoyed.

"Might I come some other day?"
Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass.

"Back
to Wickham Place,
please!"
was her order
to the coachman.

Margaret had been snubbed.

"A thousand thanks,
Miss Schlegel,
for all your help."

"Not at all."

"It is such a comfort
to get the presents off my mind--the Christmas-cards especially.

I do admire your choice."

It was her turn
to receive no answer.

In her turn Margaret became annoyed.

"My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow.

That is why I dragged you out shopping to-day.

I stayed in town chiefly
to shop,
but got through nothing,
and now he writes that they must cut their tour short,
the weather is so bad,
and the police-traps have been so bad--nearly as bad as in Surrey.

Ours is such a careful chauffeur,
and my husband feels it particularly hard that they should be treated like road-hogs."

"Why?"
"Well,
naturally he--he isn't a road-hog."

"He was exceeding the speed-limit,
I conclude.

He must expect
to suffer
with the lower animals."

Mrs. Wilcox was silenced.

In growing discomfort they drove homewards.

The city seemed Satanic,
the narrower streets oppressing like the galleries of a mine.

No harm was done by the fog
to trade,
for it lay high,
and the lighted windows of the shops were thronged
with customers.

It was rather a darkening of the spirit which fell back upon itself,
to find a more grievous darkness within.

Margaret nearly spoke a dozen times,
but something throttled her.

She felt petty and awkward,
and her meditations on Christmas grew more cynical.

Peace?

It may bring other gifts,
but is there a single Londoner
to whom Christmas is peaceful?

The craving
for excitement and
for elaboration has ruined that blessing.

Goodwill?

Had she seen any example of it in the hordes of purchasers?

Or in herself?

She had failed
to respond
to this invitation merely because it was a little queer and imaginative--she,
whose birthright it was
to nourish imagination! Better
to have accepted,
to have tired themselves a little by the journey,
than coldly
to reply,
"Might I come some other day?"
Her cynicism left her.

There would be no other day.

This shadowy woman would never ask her again.

They parted at the Mansions.

Mrs. Wilcox went in after due civilities,
and Margaret watched the tall,
lonely figure sweep up the hall
to the lift.

As the glass doors closed on it she had the sense of an imprisonment The beautiful head disappeared first,
still buried in the muff;
the long trailing skirt followed.

A woman of undefinable rarity was going up heavenward,
like a specimen in a bottle.

And into what a heaven--a vault as of hell,
sooty black,
from which soot descended! At lunch her brother,
seeing her inclined
for silence insisted on talking.

Tibby was not ill-natured,
but from babyhood something drove him
to do the unwelcome and the unexpected.

Now he gave her a long account of the day-school that he sometimes patronised.

The account was interesting,
and she had often pressed him
for it before,
but she could not attend now,
for her mind was focussed on the invisible.

She discerned that Mrs. Wilcox,
though a loving wife and mother,
had only one passion in life--her house--and that the moment was solemn when she invited a friend
to share this passion
with her.

To answer
"another day"
was
to answer as a fool.

"Another day"
will do
for brick and mortar,
but not
for the Holy of Holies into which Howards End had been transfigured.

Her own curiosity was slight.

She had heard more than enough about it in the summer.

The nine windows,
the vine,
and the wych-elm had no pleasant connections
for her,
and she would have preferred
to spend the afternoon at a concert.

But imagination triumphed.

While her brother held forth she determined
to go,
at whatever cost,
and
to compel Mrs. Wilcox
to go,
too.

When lunch was over she stepped over
to the flats.

Mrs. Wilcox had just gone away
for the night.

Margaret said that it was of no consequence,
hurried downstairs,
and took a hansom
to King's Cross.

She was convinced that the escapade was important,
though it would have puzzled her
to say why.

There was question of imprisonment and escape,
and though she did not know the time of the train,
she strained her eyes
for St. Pancras's clock.

Then the clock of King's Cross swung into sight,
a second moon in that infernal sky,
and her cab drew up at the station.

There was a train
for Hilton in five minutes.

She took a ticket,
asking in her agitation
for a single.

As she did so,
a grave and happy voice saluted her and thanked her.

"I will come if I still may,"
said Margaret,
laughing nervously.

"You are coming
to sleep,
dear,
too.

It is in the morning that my house is most beautiful.

You are coming
to stop.

I cannot show you my meadow properly except at sunrise.

These fogs"--she pointed at the station roof--"never spread far.

I dare say they are sitting in the sun in Hertfordshire,
and you will never repent joining them."

"I shall never repent joining you."

"It is the same."

They began the walk up the long platform.

Far at its end stood the train,
breasting the darkness without.

They never reached it.

Before imagination could triumph,
there were cries of
"Mother! mother!"
and a heavy-browed girl darted out of the cloak-room and seized Mrs. Wilcox by the arm.

"Evie!"
she gasped--"Evie,
my pet--"
The girl called,
"Father! I say! look who's here."

"Evie,
dearest girl,
why aren't you in Yorkshire?"
"No--motor smash--changed plans--father's coming."

"Why,
Ruth!"
cried Mr. Wilcox,
joining them.

"that in the name of all that's wonderful are you doing here,
Ruth?"
Mrs. Wilcox had recovered herself.

"Oh,
Henry dear!--here's a lovely surprise--but let me introduce --but I think you know Miss Schlegel."

"Oh yes,"
he replied,
not greatly interested.

"But how's yourself,
Ruth?"
"Fit as a fiddle,"
she answered gaily.

"So are we,
and so was our car,
which ran A1 as far as Ripon,
but there a wretched horse and cart which a fool of a driver--"
"Miss Schlegel,
our little outing must be
for another day."

"I was saying that this fool of a driver,
as the policeman himself admits."

"Another day,
Mrs. Wilcox.

Of course."

"--But as we've insured against third party risks,
it won't so much matter--"
"--Cart and car being practically at right angles--"
The voices of the happy family rose high.

Margaret was left alone.

No one wanted her.

Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King's Cross between her husband and her daughter,
listening
to both of them.

CHAPTER XI The funeral was over.

The carriages had rolled away through the soft mud,
and only the poor remained.

They approached
to the newly-dug shaft and looked their last at the coffin,
now almost hidden beneath the spadefuls of clay.

It was their moment.

Most of them were women from the dead woman's district,
to whom black garments had been served out by Mr. Wilcox's orders.

Pure curiosity had brought others.

They thrilled
with the excitement of a death,
and of a rapid death,
and stood in groups or moved between the graves,
like drops of ink.

The son of one of them,
a wood-cutter,
was perched high above their heads,
pollarding one of the churchyard elMs. From where he sat he could see the village of Hilton,
strung upon the North Road,
with its accreting suburbs;
the sunset beyond,
scarlet and orange,
winking at him beneath brows of grey;
the church;
the plantations;
and behind him an unspoilt country of fields and farMs. But he,
too,
was rolling the event luxuriously in his mouth.

He tried
to tell his mother down below all that he had felt when he saw the coffin approaching:

how he could not leave his work,
and yet did not like
to go on
with it;
how he had almost slipped out of the tree,
he was so upset;
the rooks had cawed,
and no wonder--it was as if rooks knew too.

His mother claimed the prophetic power herself-- she had seen a strange look about Mrs. Wilcox
for some time.

London had done the mischief,
said others.

She had been a kind lady;
her grandmother had been kind,
too--a plainer person,
but very kind.

Ah,
the old sort was dying out! Mr. Wilcox,
he was a kind gentleman.

They advanced
to the topic again and again,
dully,
but
with exaltation.

The funeral of a rich person was
to them what the funeral of Alcestis or Ophelia is
to the educated.

It was Art;
though remote from life,
it enhanced life's values,
and they witnessed it avidly.

The grave-diggers,
who had kept up an undercurrent of disapproval --they disliked Charles;
it was not a moment
to speak of such things,
but they did not like Charles Wilcox--the grave-diggers finished their work and piled up the wreaths and crosses above it.

The sun set over Hilton;
the grey brows of the evening flushed a little,
and were cleft
with one scarlet frown.

Chattering sadly
to each other,
the mourners passed through the lych-gate and traversed the chestnut avenues that led down
to the village.

The young wood-cutter stayed a little longer,
poised above the silence and swaying rhythmically.

At last the bough fell beneath his saw.

With a grunt,
he descended,
his thoughts dwelling no longer on death,
but on love,
for he was mating.

He stopped as he passed the new grave;
a sheaf of tawny chrysanthemums had caught his eye.

"They didn't ought
to have coloured flowers at buryings,"
he reflected.

Trudging on a few steps,
he stopped again,
looked furtively at the dusk,
turned back,
wrenched a chrysanthemum from the sheaf,
and hid it in his pocket.

After him came silence absolute.

The cottage that abutted on the churchyard was empty,
and no other house stood near.

Hour after hour the scene of the interment remained without an eye
to witness it.

Clouds drifted over it from the west;
or the church may have been a ship,
high-prowed,
steering
with all its company towards infinity.

Towards morning the air grew colder,
the sky clearer,
the surface of the earth hard and sparkling above the prostrate dead.

The wood-cutter,
returning after a night of joy,
reflected:

"They lilies,
they chrysants;
it's a pity I didn't take them all."

Up at Howards End they were attempting breakfast.

Charles and Evie sat in the dining-room,
with Mrs. Charles.

Their father,
who could not bear
to see a face,
breakfasted upstairs.

He suffered acutely.

Pain came over him in spasms,
as if it was physical,
and even while he was about
to eat,
his eyes would fill
with tears,
and he would lay down the morsel untasted.

He remembered his wife's even goodness during thirty years.

Not anything in detail--not courtship or early raptures--but just the unvarying virtue,
that seemed
to him a woman's noblest quality.

So many women are capricious,
breaking into odd flaws of passion or frivolity.

Not so his wife.

Year after year,
summer and winter,
as bride and mother,
she had been the same,
he had always trusted her.

Her tenderness! Her innocence! The wonderful innocence that was hers by the gift of God.

Ruth knew no more of worldly wickedness and wisdom than did the flowers in her garden,
or the grass in her field.

Her idea of business--"
Henry,
why do people who have enough money try
to get more money?"
Her idea of politics--"
I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet,
there would be no more wars,"
Her idea of religion-- ah,
this had been a cloud,
but a cloud that passed.

She came of Quaker stock,
and he and his family,
formerly Dissenters,
were now members of the Church of England.

The rector's sermons had at first repelled her,
and she had expressed a desire for
"a more inward light,"
adding,
"not so much
for myself as
for baby"
(Charles).

Inward light must have been granted,
for he heard no complaints in later years.

They brought up their three children without dispute.

They had never disputed.

She lay under the earth now.

She had gone,
and as if
to make her going the more bitter,
had gone
with a touch of mystery that was all unlike her.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew of it?"
he had moaned,
and her faint voice had answered:

"I didn't want to,
Henry--I might have been wrong--and every one hates illnesses."

He had been told of the horror by a strange doctor,
whom she had consulted during his absence from town.

Was this altogether just?

Without fully explaining,
she had died.

It was a fault on her part,
and--tears rushed into his eyes--what a little fault! It was the only time she had deceived him in those thirty years.

He rose
to his feet and looked out of the window,
for Evie had come in
with the letters,
and he could meet no one's eye.

Ah yes--she had been a good woman--she had been steady.

He chose the word deliberately.

To him steadiness included all praise.

He himself,
gazing at the wintry garden,
is in appearance a steady man.

His face was not as square as his son's,
and,
indeed,
the chin,
though firm enough in outline,
retreated a little,
and the lips,
ambiguous,
were curtained by a moustache.

But there was no external hint of weakness.

The eyes,
if capable of kindness and good-fellowship,
if ruddy
for the moment
with tears,
were the eyes of one who could not be driven.

The forehead,
too,
was like Charles's.

High and straight,
brown and polished,
merging abruptly into temples and skull,
it had the effect of a bastion that protected his head from the world.

At times it had the effect of a blank wall.

He had dwelt behind it,
intact and happy,
for fifty years.

"The post's come,
father,"
said Evie awkwardly.

"Thanks.

Put it down."

"Has the breakfast been all right?"
"Yes,
thanks."

The girl glanced at him and at it
with constraint.

She did not know what
to do.

"Charles says do you want the Times?"
"No,
I'll read it later."

"Ring if you want anything,
father,
won't you?"
"I've all I want."

Having sorted the letters from the circulars,
she went back
to the dining-room.

"Father's eaten nothing,"
she announced,
sitting down
with wrinkled brows behind the tea-urn.

Charles did not answer,
but after a moment he ran quickly upstairs,
opened the door,
and said
"Look here father,
you must eat,
you know;
and having paused
for a reply that did not come,
stole down again.

"He's going
to read his letters first,
I think,"
he said evasively;
"I dare say he will go on
with his breakfast afterwards."

Then he took up the Times,
and
for some time there was no sound except the clink of cup against saucer and of knife on plate.

Poor Mrs. Charles sat between her silent companions terrified at the course of events,
and a little bored.

She was a rubbishy little creature,
and she knew it.

A telegram had dragged her from Naples
to the death-bed of a woman whom she had scarcely known.

A word from her husband had plunged her into mourning.

She desired
to mourn inwardly as well,
but she wished that Mrs. Wilcox,
since fated
to die,
could have died before the marriage,
for then less would have been expected of her.

Crumbling her toast,
and too nervous
to ask
for the butter,
she remained almost motionless,
thankful only
for this,
that her father-in-law was having his breakfast upstairs.

At last Charles spoke.

"They had no business
to be pollarding those elms yesterday,"
he said
to his sister.

"No,
indeed."

"I must make a note of that,"
he continued.

"I am surprised that the rector allowed it."

"Perhaps it may not be the rector's affair."

"Whose else could it be?"
"The lord of the manor."

"Impossible."

"Butter,
Dolly?"
"Thank you,
Evie dear.

Charles--"
"Yes,
dear?"
"I didn't know one could pollard elMs. I thought one only pollarded willows."

"Oh no,
one can pollard elMs. "

"Then why oughtn't the elms in the churchyard
to be pollarded?"
Charles frowned a little,
and turned again
to his sister.

"Another point.

I must speak
to Chalkeley."

"Yes,
rather;
you must complain
to Chalkeley."

"It's no good his saying he is not responsible
for those men.

He is responsible."

"Yes,
rather."

Brother and sister were not callous.

They spoke thus,
partly because they desired
to keep Chalkeley up
to the mark--a healthy desire in its way--partly because they avoided the personal note in life.

All Wilcoxes did.

It did not seem
to them of supreme importance.

Or it may be as Helen supposed:

they realised its importance,
but were afraid of it.

Panic and emptiness,
could one glance behind.

They were not callous,
and they left the breakfast-table
with aching hearts.

Their mother never had come in
to breakfast.

It was in the other rooms,
and especially in the garden,
that they felt her loss most.

As Charles went out
to the garage,
he was reminded at every step of the woman who had loved him and whom he could never replace.

What battles he had fought against her gentle conservatism! How she had disliked improvements,
yet how loyally she had accepted them when made! He and his father--what trouble they had had
to get this very garage!
with what difficulty had they persuaded her
to yield them the paddock
for it--the paddock that she loved more dearly than the garden itself! The vine--she had got her way about the vine.

It still encumbered the south wall
with its unproductive branches.

And so
with Evie,
as she stood talking
to the cook.

Though she could take up her mother's work inside the house,
just as the man could take it up without,
she felt that something unique had fallen out of her life.

Their grief,
though less poignant than their father's,
grew from deeper roots,
for a wife may be replaced;
a mother never.

Charles would go back
to the office.

There was little at Howards End.

The contents of his mother's will had long been known
to them.

There were no legacies,
no annuities,
none of the posthumous bustle
with which some of the dead prolong their activities.

Trusting her husband,
she had left him everything without reserve.

She was quite a poor woman--the house had been all her dowry,
and the house would come
to Charles in time.

Her watercolours Mr. Wilcox intended
to reserve
for Paul,
while Evie would take the jewellery and lace.

How easily she slipped out of life! Charles thought the habit laudable,
though he did not intend
to adopt it himself,
whereas Margaret would have seenin it an almost culpable indifference
to earthly fame.

Cynicism--not the superficial cynicism that snarls and sneers,
but the cynicism that can go
with courtesy and tenderness--that was the note of Mrs. Wilcox's will.

She wanted not
to vex people.

That accomplished,
the earth might freeze over her
for ever.

No,
there was nothing
for Charles
to wait for.

He could not go on
with his honeymoon,
so he would go up
to London and work--he felt too miserable hanging about.

He and Dolly would have the furnished flat while his father rested quietly in the country
with Evie.

He could also keep an eye on his own little house,
which was being painted and decorated
for him in one of the Surrey suburbs,
and in which he hoped
to install himself soon after Christmas.

Yes,
he would go up after lunch in his new motor,
and the town servants,
who had come down
for the funeral,
would go up by train.

He found his father's chauffeur in the garage,
said
"Morning"
without looking at the man's face,
and bending over the car,
continued:

"Hullo! my new car's been driven!"
"Has it,
sir?"
"Yes,"
said Charles,
getting rather red;
"and whoever's driven it hasn't cleaned it properly,
for there's mud on the axle.

Take it off."

The man went
for the cloths without a word.

He was a chauffeur as ugly as sin--not that this did him disservice
with Charles,
who thought charm in a man rather rot,
and had soon got rid of the little Italian beast
with whom they had started.

"Charles--"
His bride was tripping after him over the hoar-frost,
a dainty black column,
her little face and elaborate mourning hat forming the capital thereof.

"One minute,
I'm busy.

Well,
Crane,
who's been driving it,
do you suppose?"
"Don't know,
I'm sure,
sir.

No one's driven it since I've been back,
but,
of course,
there's the fortnight I've been away
with the other car in Yorkshire."

The mud came off easily.

"Charles,
your father's down.

Something's happened.

He wants you in the house at once.

Oh,
Charles!"
"Wait,
dear,
wait a minute.

Who had the key of the garage while you were away,
Crane?"
"The gardener,
sir."

"Do you mean
to tell me that old Penny can drive a motor?"
"No,
sir;
no one's had the motor out,
sir."

"Then how do you account
for the mud on the axle?"
"I can't,
of course,
say
for the time I've been in Yorkshire.

No more mud now,
sir."

Charles was vexed.

The man was treating him as a fool,
and if his heart had not been so heavy he would have reported him
to his father.

But it was not a morning
for complaints.

Ordering the motor
to be round after lunch,
he joined his wife,
who had all the while been pouring out some incoherent story about a letter and a Miss Schlegel.

"Now,
Dolly,
I can attend
to you.

Miss Schlegel?

What does she want?"
When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted.

Want was
to him the only cause of action.

And the question in this case was correct,
for his wife replied,
"She wants Howards End."

"Howards End?

Now,
Crane,
just don't forget
to put on the Stepney wheel."

"No,
sir."

"Now,
mind you don't forget,
for I-- Come,
little woman."

When they were out of the chauffeur's sight he put his arm round her waist and pressed her against him.

All his affection and half his attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy married life.

"But you haven't listened,
Charles."

"What's wrong?"
"I keep on telling you--Howards End.

Miss Schlegel's got it."

"Got what?"
said Charles,
unclasping her.

"What the dickens are you talking about?"
"Now,
Charles,
you promised not so say those naughty--"
"Look here,
I'm in no mood
for foolery.

It's no morning
for it either."

"I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she's got it--your mother's left it
to her--and you've all got
to move out!"
"HOWARDS END?"
"HOWARDS END!"
she screamed,
mimicking him,
and as she did so Evie came dashing out of the shubbery.

"Dolly,
go back at once! My father's much annoyed
with you.

Charles"--she hit herself wildly--"come in at once
to father.

He's had a letter that's too awful."

Charles began
to run,
but checked himself,
and stepped heavily across the gravel path.

There the house was
with the nine windows,
the unprolific vine.

He exclaimed,
"Schlegels again!"
and as if
to complete chaos,
Dolly said,
"Oh no,
the matron of the nursing home has written instead of her."

"Come in,
all three of you!"
cried his father,
no longer inert.

"Dolly,
why have you disobeyed me?"
"Oh,
Mr. Wilcox--"
"I told you not
to go out
to the garage.

I've heard you all shouting in the garden.

I won't have it.

Come in."

He stood in the porch,
transformed,
letters in his hand.

"Into the dining-room,
every one of you.

We can't discuss private matters in the middle of all the servants.

Here,
Charles,
here;
read these.

See what you make."

Charles took two letters,
and read them as he followed the procession.

The first was a covering note from the matron.

Mrs. Wilcox had desired her,
when the funeral should be over,
to forward the enclosed.

The enclosed--it was from his mother herself.

She had written:

"To my husband:

I should like Miss Schlegel
(Margaret)
to have Howards End."

"I suppose we're going
to have a talk about this?"
he remarked,
ominously calm.

"Certainly.

I was coming out
to you when Dolly--"
"Well,
let's sit down."

"Come,
Evie,
don't waste time,
sit--down."

In silence they drew up
to the breakfast-table.

The events of yesterday--indeed,
of this morning suddenly receded into a past so remote that they seemed scarcely
to have lived in it.

Heavy breathings were heard.

They were calming themselves.

Charles,
to steady them further,
read the enclosure out loud:

"A note in my mother's handwriting,
in an envelope addressed
to my father,
sealed.

Inside:

'I should like Miss Schlegel
(Margaret)
to have Howards End.'

No date,
no signature.

Forwarded through the matron of that nursing home.

Now,
the question is--"
Dolly interrupted him.

"But I say that note isn't legal.

Houses ought
to be done by a lawyer,
Charles,
surely."

Her husband worked his jaw severely.

Little lumps appeared in front of either ear--a symptom that she had not yet learnt
to respect,
and she asked whether she might see the note.

Charles looked at his father
for permission,
who said abstractedly,
"Give it her."

She seized it,
and at once exclaimed:

"Why,
it's only in pencil! I said so.

Pencil never counts."

"We know that it is not legally binding,
Dolly,"
said Mr. Wilcox,
speaking from out of his fortress.

"We are aware of that.

Legally,
I should be justified in tearing it up and throwing it into the fire.

Of course,
my dear,
we consider you as one of the family,
but it will be better if you do not interfere
with what you do not understand."

Charles,
vexed both
with his father and his wife,
then repeated:

"The question is--"
He had cleared a space of the breakfast-table from plates and knives,
so that he could draw patterns on the tablecloth.

"The question is whether Miss Schlegel,
during the fortnight we were all away,
whether she unduly--"
He stopped.

"I don't think that,"
said his father,
whose nature was nobler than his son's.

"Don't think what?"
"That she would have--that it is a case of undue influence.

No,
to my mind the question is the--the invalid's condition at the time she wrote."

"My dear father,
consult an expert if you like,
but I don't admit it is my mother's writing."

"Why,
you just said it was!"
cried Dolly.

"Never mind if I did,"
he blazed out;
"and hold your tongue."

The poor little wife coloured at this,
and,
drawing her handkerchief from her pocket,
shed a few tears.

No one noticed her.

Evie was scowling like an angry boy.

The two men were gradually assuming the manner of the committee-room.

They were both at their best when serving on committees.

They did not make the mistake of handling human affairs in the bulk,
but disposed of them item by item,
sharply.

Caligraphy was the item before them now,
and on it they turned their well-trained brains.

Charles,
after a little demur,
accepted the writing as genuine,
and they passed on
to the next point.

It is the best--perhaps the only--way of dodging emotion.

They were the average human article,
and had they considered the note as a whole it would have driven them miserable or mad.

Considered item by item,
the emotional content was minimised,
and all went forward smoothly.

The clock ticked,
the coals blazed higher,
and contended
with the white radiance that poured in through the windows.

Unnoticed,
the sun occupied his sky,
and the shadows of the tree stems,
extraordinarily solid,
fell like trenches of purple across the frosted lawn.

It was a glorious winter morning.

Evie's fox terrier,
who had passed
for white,
was only a dirty grey dog now,
so intense was the purity that surrounded him.

He was discredited,
but the blackbirds that he was chasing glowed
with Arabian darkness,
for all the conventional colouring of life had been altered.

Inside,
the clock struck ten
with a rich and confident note.

Other clocks confirmed it,
and the discussion moved towards its close.

To follow it is unnecessary.

It is rather a moment when the commentator should step forward.

Ought the Wilcoxes
to have offered their home
to Margaret?

I think not.

The appeal was too flimsy.

It was not legal;
it had been written in illness,
and under the spell of a sudden friendship;
it was contrary
to the dead woman's intentions in the past,
contrary
to her very nature,
so far as that nature was understood by them.

To them Howards End was a house:

they could not know that
to her it had been a spirit,
for which she sought a spiritual heir.

And--pushing one step farther in these mists--may they not have decided even better than they supposed?

Is it credible that the possessions of the spirit can be bequeathed at all?

Has the soul offspring?

A wych-elm tree,
a vine,
a wisp of hay
with dew on it--can passion
for such things be transmitted where there is no bond of blood?

No;
the Wilcoxes are not
to be blamed.

The problem is too terrific,
and they could not even perceive a problem.

No;
it is natural and fitting that after due debate they should tear the note up and throw it on
to their dining-room fire.

The practical moralist may acquit them absolutely.

He who strives
to look deeper may acquit them--almost.

For one hard fact remains.

They did neglect a personal appeal.

The woman who had died did say
to them,
"Do this,"
and they answered,
"We will not."

The incident made a most painful impression on them.

Grief mounted into the brain and worked there disquietingly.

Yesterday they had lamented:

"She was a dear mother,
a true wife;
in our absence she neglected her health and died."

To-day they thought:

"She was not as true,
as dear,
as we supposed."

The desire
for a more inward light had found expression at last,
the unseen had impacted on the seen,
and all that they could say was
"Treachery."

Mrs. Wilcox had been treacherous
to the family,
to the laws of property,
to her own written word.

How did she expect Howards End
to be conveyed
to Miss Schlegel?

Was her husband,
to whom it legally belonged,
to make it over
to her as a free gift?

Was the said Miss Schlegel
to have a life interest in it,
or
to own it absolutely?

Was there
to be no compensation
for the garage and other improvements that they had made under the assumption that all would be theirs some day?

Treacherous! treacherous and absurd! When we think the dead both treacherous and absurd,
we have gone far towards reconciling ourselves
to their departure.

That note,
scribbled in pencil,
sent through the matron,
was unbusinesslike as well as cruel,
and decreased at once the value of the woman who had written it.

"Ah,
well!"
said Mr. Wilcox,
rising from the table.

"I shouldn't have thought it possible."

"Mother couldn't have meant it,"
said Evie,
still frowning.

"No,
my girl,
of course not."

"Mother believed so in ancestors too--it isn't like her
to leave anything
to an outsider,
who'd never appreciate."

"The whole thing is unlike her,"
he announced.

"If Miss Schlegel had been poor,
if she had wanted a house,
I could understand it a little.

But she has a house of her own.

Why should she want another?

She wouldn't have any use
for Howards End."

"That time may prove,"
murmured Charles.

"How?"
asked his sister.

"Presumably she knows--mother will have told her.

She got twice or three times into the nursing home.

Presumably she is awaiting developments."

"What a horrid woman!"
And Dolly,
who had recovered,
cried,
"Why,
she may be coming down
to turn us out now!"
Charles put her right.

"I wish she would,"
he said ominously.

"I could then deal
with her."

"So could I,"
echoed his father,
who was feeling rather in the cold.

Charles had been kind in undertaking the funeral arrangements and in telling him
to eat his breakfast,
but the boy as he grew up was a little dictatorial,
and assumed the post of chairman too readily.

"I could deal
with her,
if she comes,
but she won't come.

You're all a bit hard on Miss Schlegel."

"That Paul business was pretty scandalous,
though."

"I want no more of the Paul business,
Charles,
as I said at the time,
and besides,
it is quite apart from this business.

Margaret Schlegel has been officious and tiresome during this terrible week,
and we have all suffered under her,
but upon my soul she's honest.

She's NOT in collusion
with the matron.

I'm absolutely certain of it.

Nor was she
with the doctor,
I'm equally certain of that.

She did not hide anything from us,
for up
to that very afternoon she was as ignorant as we are.

She,
like ourselves,
was a dupe--"
He stopped
for a moment.

"You see,
Charles,
in her terrible pain your mother put us all in false positions.

Paul would not have left England,
you would not have gone
to Italy,
nor Evie and I into Yorkshire,
if only we had known.

Well,
Miss Schlegel's position has been equally false.

Take all in all,
she has not come out of it badly."

Evie said:

"But those chrysanthemums--"
"Or coming down
to the funeral at all--"
echoed Dolly.

"Why shouldn't she come down?

She had the right to,
and she stood far back among the Hilton women.

The flowers--certainly we should not have sent such flowers,
but they may have seemed the right thing
to her,
Evie,
and
for all you know they may be the custom in Germany."

"Oh,
I forget she isn't really English,"
cried Evie.

"That would explain a lot."

"She's a cosmopolitan,"
said Charles,
looking at his watch.

"I admit I'm rather down on cosmopolitans.

My fault,
doubtless.

I cannot stand them,
and a German cosmopolitan is the limit.

I think that's about all,
isn't it?

I want
to run down and see Chalkeley.

A bicycle will do.

And,
by the way,
I wish you'd speak
to Crane some time.

I'm certain he's had my new car out."

"Has he done it any harm?"
"No."

"In that case I shall let it pass.

It's not worth while having a row."

Charles and his father sometimes disagreed.

But they always parted
with an increased regard
for one another,
and each desired no doughtier comrade when it was necessary
to voyage
for a little past the emotions.

So the sailors of Ulysses voyaged past the Sirens,
having first stopped one another's ears
with wool.

CHAPTER XII Charles need not have been anxious.

Miss Schlegel had never heard of his mother's strange request.

She was
to hear of it in after years,
when she had built up her life differently,
and it was
to fit into position as the headstone of the corner.

Her mind was bent on other questions now,
and by her also it would have been rejected as the fantasy of an invalid.

She was parting from these Wilcoxes
for the second time.

Paul and his mother,
ripple and great wave,
had flowed into her life and ebbed out of it
for ever.

The ripple had left no traces behind;
the wave had strewn at her feet fragments torn from the unknown.

A curious seeker,
she stood
for a while at the verge of the sea that tells so little,
but tells a little,
and watched the outgoing of this last tremendous tide.

Her friend had vanished in agony,
but not,
she believed,
in degradation.

Her withdrawal had hinted at other things besides disease and pain.

Some leave our life
with tears,
others
with an insane frigidity;
Mrs. Wilcox had taken the middle course,
which only rarer natures can pursue.

She had kept proportion.

She had told a little of her grim secret
to her friends,
but not too much;
she had shut up her heart--almost,
but not entirely.

It is thus,
if there is any rule,
that we ought
to die--neither as victim nor as fanatic,
but as the seafarer who can greet
with an equal eye the deep that he is entering,
and the shore that he must leave.

The last word--whatever it would be--had certainly not been said in Hilton churchyard.

She had not died there.

A funeral is not death,
any more than baptism is birth or marriage union.

All three are the clumsy devices,
coming now too late,
now too early,
by which Society would register the quick motions of man.

In Margaret's eyes Mrs. Wilcox had escaped registration.

She had gone out of life vividly,
her own way,
and no dust was so truly dust as the contents of that heavy coffin,
lowered
with ceremonial until it rested on the dust of the earth,
no flowers so utterly wasted as the chrysanthemums that the frost must have withered before morning.

Margaret had once said she
"loved superstition."

It was not true.

Few women had tried more earnestly
to pierce the accretions in which body and soul are enwrapped.

The death of Mrs. Wilcox had helped her in her work.

She saw a little more clearly than hitherto what a human being is,
and
to what he may aspire.

Truer relationships gleamed.

Perhaps the last word would be hope--hope even on this side of the grave.

Meanwhile,
she could take an interest in the survivors.

In spite of her Christmas duties,
in spite of her brother,
the Wilcoxes continued
to play a considerable part in her thoughts.

She had seen so much of them in the final week.

They were not
"her sort,"
they were often suspicious and stupid,
and deficient where she excelled;
but collision
with them stimulated her,
and she felt an interest that verged into liking,
even
for Charles.

She desired
to protect them,
and often felt that they could protect her,
excelling where she was deficient.

Once past the rocks of emotion,
they knew so well what
to do,
whom
to send for;
their hands were on all the ropes,
they had grit as well as grittiness and she valued grit enormously.

They led a life that she could not attain to--the outer life of
"telegrams and anger,"
which had detonated when Helen and Paul had touched in June,
and had detonated again the other week.

To Margaret this life was
to remain a real force.

She could not despise it,
as Helen and Tibby affected
to do.

It fostered such virtues as neatness,
decision,
and obedience,
virtues of the second rank,
no doubt,
but they have formed our civilisation.

They form character,
too;
Margaret could not doubt it;
they keep the soul from becoming sloppy.

How dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes,
when it takes all sorts
to make a world?

"Don't brood too much,"
she wrote
to Helen,
"on the superiority of the unseen
to the seen.

It's true,
but
to brood on it is medieval.

Our business is not
to contrast the two,
but
to reconcile them."

Helen replied that she had no intention of brooding on such a dull subject.

What did her sister take her for?

The weather was magnificent.

She and the Mosebachs had gone tobogganing on the only hill that Pomerania boasted.

It was fun,
but over-crowded,
for the rest of Pomerania had gone there too.

Helen loved the country,
and her letter glowed
with physical exercise and poetry.

She spoke of the scenery,
quiet,
yet august;
of the snow-clad fields,
with their scampering herds of deer;
of the river and its quaint entrance into the Baltic Sea;
of the Oderberge,
only three hundred feet high,
from which one slid all too quickly back into the Pomeranian plains,
and yet these Oderberge were real mountains,
with pine-forests,
streams,
and views complete.

"It isn't size that counts so much as the way things are arranged."

In another paragraph she referred
to Mrs. Wilcox sympathetically,
but the news had not bitten into her.

She had not realised the accessories of death,
which are in a sense more memorable than death itself.

The atmosphere of precautions and recriminations,
and in the midst a human body growing more vivid because it was in pain;
the end of that body in Hilton churchyard;
the survival of something that suggested hope,
vivid in its turn against life's workaday cheerfulness;-- all these were lost
to Helen,
who only felt that a pleasant lady could now be pleasant no longer.

She returned
to Wickham Place full of her own affairs--she had had another proposal--and Margaret,
after a moment's hesitation,
was content that this should be so.

The proposal had not been a serious matter.

It was the work of Fraulein Mosebach,
who had conceived the large and patriotic notion of winning back her cousins
to the Fatherland by matrimony.

England had played Paul Wilcox,
and lost;
Germany played Herr Forstmeister some one--Helen could not remember his name.

Herr Forstmeister lived in a wood,
and,
standing on the summit of the Oderberge,
he had pointed out his house
to Helen,
or rather,
had pointed out the wedge of pines in which it lay.

She had exclaimed,
"Oh,
how lovely! That's the place
for me!"
and in the evening Frieda appeared in her bedroom.

"I have a message,
dear Helen,"
etc.,
and so she had,
but had been very nice when Helen laughed;
quite understood--a forest too solitary and damp-- quite agreed,
but Herr Forstmeister believed he had assurance
to the contrary.

Germany had lost,
but
with good-humour;
holding the manhood of the world,
she felt bound
to win.

"And there will even be some one
for Tibby,"
concluded Helen.

"There now,
Tibby,
think of that;
Frieda is saving up a little girl
for you,
in pig-tails and white worsted stockings but the feet of the stockings are pink as if the little girl had trodden in strawberries.

I've talked too much.

My head aches.

Now you talk."

Tibby consented
to talk.

He too was full of his own affairs,
for he had just been up
to try
for a scholarship at Oxford.

The men were down,
and the candidates had been housed in various colleges,
and had dined in hall.

Tibby was sensitive
to beauty,
the experience was new,
and he gave a description of his visit that was almost glowing.

The august and mellow University,
soaked
with the richness of the western counties that it has served
for a thousand years,
appealed at once
to the boy's taste;
it was the kind of thing he could understand,
and he understood it all the better because it was empty.

Oxford is--Oxford;
not a mere receptacle
for youth,
like Cambridge.

Perhaps it wants its inmates
to love it rather than
to love one another;
such at all events was
to be its effect on Tibby.

His sisters sent him there that he might make friends,
for they knew that his education had been cranky,
and had severed him from other boys and men.

He made no friends.

His Oxford remained Oxford empty,
and he took into life
with him,
not the memory of a radiance,
but the memory of a colour scheme.

It pleased Margaret
to hear her brother and sister talking.

They did not get on overwell as a rule.

For a few moments she listened
to them,
feeling elderly and benign.

Then something occurred
to her,
and she interrupted.

"Helen,
I told you about poor Mrs. Wilcox;
that sad business?"
"Yes."

"I have had a correspondence
with her son.

He was winding up the estate,
and wrote
to ask me whether his mother had wanted me
to have anything.

I thought it good of him,
considering I knew her so little.

I said that she had once spoken of giving me a Christmas present,
but we both forgot about it afterwards."

"I hope Charles took the hint."

"Yes--that is
to say,
her husband wrote later on,
and thanked me
for being a little kind
to her,
and actually gave me her silver vinaigrette.

Don't you think that is extraordinarily generous?

It has made me like him very much.

He hopes that this will not be the end of our acquaintance,
but that you and I will go and stop
with Evie some time in the future.

I like Mr. Wilcox.

He is taking up his work--rubber--it is a big business.

I gather he is launching out rather.

Charles is in it,
too.

Charles is married-- a pretty little creature,
but she doesn't seem wise.

They took on the flat,
but now they have gone off
to a house of their own."

Helen,
after a decent pause,
continued her account of Stettin.

How quickly a situation changes! In June she had been in a crisis;
even in November she could blush and be unnatural;
now it was January and the whole affair lay forgotten.

Looking back on the past six months,
Margaret realised the chaotic nature of our daily life,
and its difference from the orderly sequence that has been fabricated by historians.

Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere.

With infinite effort we nerve ourselves
for a crisis that never comes.

The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains,
and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared,
but of him who has prepared and is never taken.

On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent.

It assumes that preparation against danger is in itself a good,
and that men,
like nations,
are the better
for staggering through life fully armed.

The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled,
save by the Greeks.

Life is indeed dangerous,
but not in the way morality would have us believe.

It is indeed unmanageable,
but the essence of it is not a battle.

It is unmanageable because it is a romance,
and its essence is romantic beauty.

Margaret hoped that
for the future she would be less cautious,
not more cautious,
than she had been in the past.

CHAPTER XIII Over two years passed,
and the Schlegel household continued
to lead its life of cultured,
but not ignoble,
ease,
still swimming gracefully on the grey tides of London.

Concerts and plays swept past them,
money had been spent and renewed,
reputations won and lost,
and the city herself,
emblematic of their lives,
rose and fell in a continual flux,
while her shallows washed more widely against the hills of Surrey and over the fields of Hertfordshire.

This famous building had arisen,
that was doomed.

To-day Whitehall had been transformed;
it would be the turn of Regent Street to-morrow.

And month by month the roads smelt more strongly of petrol,
and were more difficult
to cross,
and human beings heard each other speak
with greater difficulty,
breathed less of the air,
and saw less of the sky.

Nature withdrew;
the leaves were falling by midsummer;
the sun shone through dirt
with an admired obscurity.

To speak against London is no longer fashionable.

The Earth as an artistic cult has had its day,
and the literature of the near future will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town.

One can understand the reaction.

Of Pan and the elemental forces,
the public has heard a
'little too much--they seem Victorian,
while London is Georgian--and those who care
for the earth
with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum swings back
to her again.

Certainly London fascinates.

One visualises it as a tract of quivering grey,
intelligent without purpose,
and excitable without love;
as a spirit that has altered before it can be chronicled;
as a heart that certainly beats,
but
with no pulsation of humanity.

It lies beyond everything;
Nature,
with all her cruelty,
comes nearer
to us than do these crowds of men.

A friend explains himself;
the earth is explicable--from her we came,
and we must return
to her.

But who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning--the city inhaling--or the same thoroughfares in the evening--the city exhaling her exhausted air?

We reach in desperation beyond the fog,
beyond the very stars,
the voids of the universe are ransacked
to justify the monster,
and stamped
with a human face.

London is religion's opportunity--not the decorous religion of theologians,
but anthropomorphic,
crude.

Yes,
the continuous flow would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not any one pompous or tearful--were caring
for us up in the sky.

The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him,
too,
away from his moorings,
and Margaret's eyes were not opened until the lease of Wickham Place expired.

She had always known that it must expire,
but the knowledge only became vivid about nine months before the event.

Then the house was suddenly ringed
with pathos.

It had seen so much happiness.

Why had it
to be swept away?

In the streets of the city she noted
for the first time the architecture of hurry and heard the language of hurry on the mouths of its inhabitants--clipped words,
formless sentences,
potted expressions of approval or disgust.

Month by month things were stepping livelier,
but
to what goal?

The population still rose,
but what was the quality of the men born?

The particular millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham Place,
and desired
to erect Babylonian flats upon it--what right had he
to stir so large a portion of the quivering jelly?

He was not a fool--she had heard him expose Socialism--but true insight began just where his intelligence ended,
and one gathered that this was the case
with most millionaires.

What right had such men-- But Margaret checked herself.

That way lies madness.

Thank goodness,
she,
too,
had some money,
and could purchase a new home.

Tibby,
now in his second year at Oxford,
was down
for the Easter vacation,
and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious talk
with him.

Did he at all know where he wanted
to live?

Tibby didn't know that he did know.

Did he at all know what he wanted
to do?

He was equally uncertain,
but when pressed remarked that he should prefer
to be quite free of any profession.

Margaret was not shocked,
but went on sewing
for a few minutes before she replied:

"I was thinking of Mr. Vyse.

He never strikes me as particularly happy.

"Ye--es."

said Tibby,
and then held his mouth open in a curious quiver,
as if he,
too,
had thought of Mr. Vyse,
had seen round,
through,
over,
and beyond Mr. Vyse,
had weighed Mr. Vyse,
grouped him,
and finally dismissed him as having no possible bearing on the Subject under discussion.

That bleat of Tibby's infuriated Helen.

But Helen was now down in the dining room preparing a speech about political economy.

At times her voice could be heard declaiming through the floor.

"But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched,
weedy man,
don't you think?

Then there's Guy.

That was a pitiful business.

Besides"--shifting
to the general--"every one is the better
for some regular work."

Groans.

"I shall stick
to it,"
she continued,
smiling.

"I am not saying it
to educate you;
it is what I really think.

I believe that in the last century men have developed the desire
for work,
and they must not starve it.

It's a new desire.

It goes
with a great deal that's bad,
but in itself it's good,
and I hope that
for women,
too,
'not
to work'
will soon become as shocking as
'not
to be married'
was a hundred years ago."

"I have no experience of this profound desire
to which you allude,"
enunciated Tibby.

"Then we'll leave the subject till you do.

I'm not going
to rattle you round.

Take your time.

Only do think over the lives of the men you like most,
and see how they've arranged them."

"I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most,"
said Tibby faintly,
and leant so far back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from knees
to throat.

"And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the traditional arguments--making money,
a sphere awaiting you,
and so on--all of which are,
for various reasons,
cant."

She sewed on.

"I'm only your sister.

I haven't any authority over you,
and I don't want
to have any.

Just
to put before you what I think the Truth.

You see"--she shook off the pince-nez
to which she had recently taken--"
in a few years we shall be the same age practically,
and I shall want you
to help me.

Men are so much nicer than women."

"Labouring under such a delusion,
why do you not marry?"
"I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance."

"Has nobody arst you?"
"Only ninnies."

"Do people ask Helen?"
"Plentifully."

"Tell me about them."

"No."

"Tell me about your ninnies,
then."

"They were men who had nothing better
to do,"
said his sister,
feeling that she was entitled
to score this point.

"So take warning;
you must work,
or else you must pretend
to work,
which is what I do.

Work,
work,
work if you'd save your soul and your body.

It is honestly a necessity,
dear boy.

Look at the Wilcoxes,
look at Mr. Pembroke.

With all their defects of temper and understanding,
such men give me more pleasure than many who are better equipped,
and I think it is because they have worked regularly and honestly."

"Spare me the Wilcoxes,"
he moaned.

"I shall not.

They are the right sort."

"Oh,
goodness me,
Meg--!"
he protested,
suddenly sitting up,
alert and angry.

Tibby,
for all his defects,
had a genuine personality.

"Well,
they're as near the right sort as you can imagine."

"No,
no--oh,
no!"
"I was thinking of the younger son,
whom I once classed as a ninny,
but who came back so ill from Nigeria.

He's gone out there again,
Evie Wilcox tells me--out
to his duty."

"Duty"
always elicited a groan.

"He doesn't want the money,
it is work he wants,
though it is beastly work--dull country,
dishonest natives,
an eternal fidget over fresh water and food...

A nation that can produce men of that sort may well be proud.

No wonder England has become an Empire.

"EMPIRE!"
"I can't bother over results,"
said Margaret,
a little sadly.

"They are too difficult
for me.

I can only look at the men.

An Empire bores me,
so far,
but I can appreciate the heroism that builds it up.

London bores me,
but what thousands of splendid people are labouring
to make London--"
"What it is,"
he sneered.

"What it is,
worse luck.

I want activity without civilisation.

How paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we shall find in heaven."

"And I"
said Tibby,
"want civilisation without activity,
which,
I expect,
is what we shall find in the other place."

"You needn't go as far as the other place,
Tibbikins,
if you want that.

You can find it at Oxford."

"Stupid--"
"If I'm stupid,
get me back
to the house-hunting.

I'll even live in Oxford if you like--North Oxford.

I'll live anywhere except Bournemouth,
Torquay,
and Cheltenham.

Oh yes,
or Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge Wells and Surbiton and Bedford.

There on no account."

"London,
then."

"I agree,
but Helen rather wants
to get away from London.

However,
there's no reason we shouldn't have a house in the country and also a flat in town,
provided we all stick together and contribute.

Though of course-- Oh,
how one does maunder on and tothink,
to think of the people who are really poor.

How do they live?

Not
to move about the world would kill me."

As she spoke,
the door was flung open,
and Helen burst in in a state of extreme excitement.

"Oh,
my dears,
what do you think?

You'll never guess.

A woman's been here asking me
for her husband.

Her WHAT?"
(Helen was fond of supplying her own surprise.)
"Yes,
for her husband,
and it really is so."

"Not anything
to do
with Bracknell?"
cried Margaret,
who had lately taken on an unemployed of that name
to clean the knives and boots.

"I offered Bracknell,
and he was rejected.

So was Tibby.

(Cheer up,
Tibby!)
It's no one we know.

I said,
'Hunt,
my good woman;
have a good look round,
hunt under the tables,
poke up the chimney,
shake out the antimacassars.

Husband?

husband?'
Oh,
and she so magnificently dressed and tinkling like a chandelier."

"Now,
Helen,
what did really happen?"
"What I say.

I was,
as it were,
orating my speech.

Annie opens the door like a fool,
and shows a female straight in on me,
with my mouth open.

Then we began--very civilly.

'I want my husband,
what I have reason
to believe is here.'

No--how unjust one is.

She said
'whom,'
not
'what.'

She got it perfectly.

So I said,
'Name,
please?'
and she said,
'Lan,
Miss,'
and there we were.

"Lan?"
"Lan or Len.

We were not nice about our vowels.

Lanoline.

"
"But what an extraordinary--"
"I said,
'My good Mrs. Lanoline,
we have some grave misunderstanding here.

Beautiful as I am,
my modesty is even more remarkable than my beauty,
and never,
never has Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.'
"
"I hope you were pleased,"
said Tibby.

"Of course,"
Helen squeaked.

"A perfectly delightful experience.

Oh,
Mrs. Lanoline's a dear--she asked
for a husband as if he were an umbrella.

She mislaid him Saturday afternoon--and
for a long time suffered no inconvenience.

But all night,
and all this morning her apprehensions grew.

Breakfast didn't seem the same--no,
no more did lunch,
and so she strolled up
to 2 Wickham Place as being the most likely place
for the missing article."

"But how on earth--"
"Don't begin how on earthing.

'I know what I know,'
she kept repeating,
not uncivilly,
but
with extreme gloom.

In vain I asked her what she did know.

Some knew what others knew,
and others didn't,
and then others again had better be careful.

Oh dear,
she was incompetent! She had a face like a silkworm,
and the dining-room reeks of orris-root.

We chatted pleasantly a little about husbands,
and I wondered where hers was too,
and advised her
to go
to the police.

She thanked me.

We agreed that Mr. Lanoline's a notty,
notty man,
and hasn't no business
to go on the lardy-da.

But I think she suspected me up
to the last.

Bags I writing
to Aunt Juley about this.

Now,
Meg,
remember--bags I."

"Bag it by all means,"
murmured Margaret,
putting down her work.

I'm not sure that this is so funny,
Helen.

It means some horrible volcano smoking somewhere,
doesn't it?"
"I don't think so--she doesn't really mind.

The admirable creature isn't capable of tragedy."

"Her husband may be,
though,"
said Margaret,
moving
to the window.

"Oh no,
not likely.

No one capable of tragedy could have married Mrs. Lanoline."

"Was she pretty?"
"Her figure may have been good once."

The flats,
their only outlook,
hung like an ornate curtain between Margaret and the welter of London.

Her thoughts turned sadly
to house-hunting.

Wickham Place had been so safe.

She feared,
fantastically,
that her own little flock might be moving into turmoil and squalor,
into nearer contact
with such episodes as these.

"Tibby and I have again been wondering where we'll live next September,"
she said at last.

"Tibby had better first wonder what he'll do,"
retorted Helen;
and that topic was resumed,
but
with acrimony.

Then tea came,
and after tea Helen went on preparing her speech,
and Margaret prepared one,
too,
for they were going out
to a discussion society on the morrow.

But her thoughts were poisoned.

Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss,
like a faint smell,
a goblin football,
telling of a life where love and hatred had both decayed.

CHAPTER XIV The mystery,
like so many mysteries,
was explained.

Next day,
just as they were dressed
to go out
to dinner,
a Mr. Bast called.

He was a clerk in the employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company.

Thus much from his card.

He had come
"about the lady yesterday."

Thus much from Annie,
who had shown him into the dining-room.

"Cheers,
children!"
cried Helen.

"It's Mrs. Lanoline."

Tibby was interested.

The three hurried downstairs,
to find,
not the gay dog they expected,
but a young man,
colourless,
toneless,
who had already the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that are so common in London,
and that haunt some streets of the city like accusing presences.

One guessed him as the third generation,
grandson
to the shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had sucked into the town;
as one of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed
to reach the life of the spirit.

Hints of robustness survived in him,
more than a hint of primitive good looks,
and Margaret,
noting the spine that might have been straight,
and the chest that might have broadened,
wondered whether it paid
to give up the glory of the animal
for a tail coat and a couple of ideas.

Culture had worked in her own case,
but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the majority,
so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and the philosophic man,
so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying
to cross it.

She knew this type very well--the vague aspirations,
the mental dishonesty,
the familiarity
with the outsides of books.

She knew the very tones in which he would address her.

She was only unprepared
for an example of her own visiting-card.

"You wouldn't remember giving me this,
Miss Schlegel?"
said he,
uneasily familiar.

"No;
I can't say I do."

"Well,
that was how it happened,
you see."

"Where did we meet,
Mr. Bast?

For the minute I don't remember."

"It was a concert at the Queen's Hall.

I think you will recollect,"
he added pretentiously,
"when I tell you that it included a performance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven."

"We hear the Fifth practically every time it's done,
so I'm not sure--do you remember,
Helen?"
"Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?"
He thought not.

"Then I don't remember.

That's the only Beethoven I ever remember specially."

"And you,
if I may say so,
took away my umbrella,
inadvertently of course."

"Likely enough,"
Helen laughed,
"for I steal umbrellas even oftener than I hear Beethoven.

Did you get it back?"
"Yes,
thank you,
Miss Schlegel."

"The mistake arose out of my card,
did it?"
interposed Margaret.

"Yes,
the mistake arose--it was a mistake."

"The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too,
and that she could find you?"
she continued,
pushing him forward,
for,
though he had promised an explanation,
he seemed unable
to give one.

"That's so,
calling too--a mistake."

"Then why--?"
began Helen,
but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.

"I said
to my wife,"
he continued more rapidly
"I said
to Mrs. Bast,
"I have
to pay a call on some friends,'
and Mrs. Bast said
to me,
'Do go.'

While I was gone,
however,
she wanted me on important business,
and thought I had come here,
owing
to the card,
and so came after me,
and I beg
to tender my apologies,
and hers as well,
for any inconvenience we may have inadvertently caused you."

"No inconvenience,"
said Helen;
"but I still don't understand."

An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast.

He explained again,
but was obviously lying,
and Helen didn't see why he should get off.

She had the cruelty of youth.

Neglecting her sister's pressure,
she said,
"I still don't understand.

When did you say you paid this call?"
"Call?

What call?"
said he,
staring as if her question had been a foolish one,
a favourite device of those in mid-stream.

"This afternoon call."

"In the afternoon,
of course!"
he replied,
and looked at Tibby
to see how the repartee went.

But Tibby was unsympathetic,
and said,
"Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon?"
"S--Saturday."

"Really!"
said Helen;
"and you were still calling on Sunday,
when your wife came here.

A long visit."

"I don't call that fair,"
said Mr. Bast,
going scarlet and handsome.

There was fight in his eyes.

"I know what you mean,
and it isn't so."

"Oh,
don't let us mind,"
said Margaret,
distressed again by odours from the abyss.

"It was something else,"
he asserted,
his elaborate manner breaking down.

"I was somewhere else
to what you think,
so there!"
"It was good of you
to come and explain,"
she said.

"The rest is naturally no concern of ours."

"Yes,
but I want--I wanted--have you ever read The Ordeal of Richard Feverel?"
Margaret nodded.

"It's a beautiful book.

I wanted
to get back
to the earth,
don't you see,
like Richard does in the end.

Or have you ever read Stevenson's Prince Otto?"
Helen and Tibby groaned gently.

"That's another beautiful book.

You get back
to the earth in that.

I wanted--"
He mouthed affectedly.

Then through the mists of his culture came a hard fact,
hard as a pebble.

"I walked all the Saturday night,"
said Leonard.

"I walked."

A thrill of approval ran through the sisters.

But culture closed in again.

He asked whether they had ever read E.

V.

Lucas's Open Road."

Said Helen,
"No doubt it's another beautiful book,
but I'd rather hear about your road."

"Oh,
I walked."

"How far?"
"I don't know,
nor
for how long.

It got too dark
to see my watch."

"Were you walking alone,
may I ask?"
"Yes,"
he said,
straightening himself;
"but we'd been talking it over at the office.

There's been a lot of talk at the office lately about these things.

The fellows there said one steers by the Pole Star,
and I looked it up in the celestial atlas,
but once out of doors everything gets so mixed."

"Don't talk
to me about the Pole Star,"
interrupted Helen,
who was becoming interested.

"I know its little ways.

It goes round and round,
and you go round after it."

"Well,
I lost it entirely.

First of all the street lamps,
then the trees,
and towards morning it got cloudy."

Tibby,
who preferred his comedy undiluted,
slipped from the room.

He knew that this fellow would never attain
to poetry,
and did not want
to hear him trying.

Margaret and Helen remained.

Their brother influenced them more than they knew;
in his absence they were stirred
to enthusiasm more easily.

"Where did you start from?"
cried Margaret.

"Do tell us more."

"I took the Underground
to Wimbledon.

As I came out of the office I said
to myself,
'I must have a walk once in a way.

If I don't take this walk now,
I shall never take it.'

I had a bit of dinner at Wimbledon,
and then--"
"But not good country there,
is it?"
"It was gas-lamps
for hours.

Still,
I had all the night,
and being out was the great thing.

I did get into woods,
too,
presently."

"Yes,
go on,"
said Helen.

"You've no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it's dark."

"Did you actually go off the roads?"
"Oh yes.

I always meant
to go off the roads,
but the worst of it is that it's more difficult
to find one's way.

"Mr. Bast,
you're a born adventurer,"
laughed Margaret.

"No professional athlete would have attempted what you've done.

It's a wonder your walk didn't end in a broken neck.

Whatever did your wife say?"
"Professional athletes never move without lanterns and compasses,"
said Helen.

"Besides,
they can't walk.

It tires them.

Go on."

"I felt like R.

L.

S.

You probably remember how in Virginibus."

"Yes,
but the wood.

This
'ere wood.

How did you get out of it?"
"I managed one wood,
and found a road the other side which went a good bit uphill.

I rather fancy it was those North Downs,
for the road went off into grass,
and I got into another wood.

That was awful,
with gorse bushes.

I did wish I'd never come,
but suddenly it got light--just while I seemed going under one tree.

Then I found a road down
to a station,
and took the first train I could back
to London."

"But was the dawn wonderful?"
asked Helen.

With unforgettable sincerity he replied,
"No."

The word flew again like a pebble from the sling.

Down toppled all that had seemed ignoble or literary in his talk,
down toppled tiresome R.

L.

S.

and the
"love of the earth"
and his silk top-hat.

In the presence of these women Leonard had arrived,
and he spoke
with a flow,
an exultation,
that he had seldom known.

"The dawn was only grey,
it was nothing
to mention."

"Just a grey evening turned upside down.

I know."

"--and I was too tired
to lift up my head
to look at it,
and so cold too.

I'm glad I did it,
and yet at the time it bored me more than I can say.

And besides--you can believe me or not as you choose--I was very hungry.

That dinner at Wimbledon--I meant it
to last me all night like other dinners.

I never thought that walking would make such a difference.

Why,
when you're walking you want,
as it were,
a breakfast and luncheon and tea during the night as well,
and I'd nothing but a packet of Woodbines.

Lord,
I did feel bad! Looking back,
it wasn't what you may call enjoyment.

It was more a case of sticking
to it.

I did stick.

I--I was determined.

Oh,
hang it all! what's the good--I mean,
the good of living in a room
for ever?

There one goes on day after day,
same old game,
same up and down
to town,
until you forget there is any other game.

You ought
to see once in a way what's going on outside,
if it's only nothing particular after all."

"I should just think you ought,"
said Helen,
sitting--on the edge of the table.

The sound of a lady's voice recalled him from sincerity,
and he said:

"Curious it should all come about from reading something of Richard Jefferies."

"Excuse me,
Mr. Bast,
but you're wrong there.

It didn't.

It came from something far greater."

But she could not stop him.

Borrow was imminent after Jefferies-- Borrow,
Thoreau,
and sorrow.

R.

L.

S.

brought up the rear,
and the outburst ended in a swamp of books.

No disrespect
to these great names.

The fault is ours,
not theirs.

They mean us
to use them
for sign-posts we mistake the sign-post
for the destination.

And Leonard had reached the destination.

He had visited the county of Surrey when darkness covered its amenities,
and its cosy villas had re-entered ancient night.

Every twelve hours this miracle happens,
but he had troubled
to go and see
for himself.

Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater than Jefferies'
books--the spirit that led Jefferies
to write them;
and his dawn,
though revealing nothing but monotones,
was part of the eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow Stonehenge.

"Then you don't think I was foolish?"
he asked becoming again the naive and sweet-tempered boy
for whom Nature intended him.

"Heavens,
no!"
replied Margaret.

"Heaven help us if we do!"
replied Helen.

"I'm very glad you say that.

Now,
my wife would never understand --not if I explained
for days."

"No,
it wasn't foolish!"
cried Helen,
her eyes aflame.

"You've pushed back the boundaries;
I think it splendid of you."

"You've not been content
to dream as we have--"
"Though we have walked,
too--"
"I must show you a picture upstairs--"
Here the door-bell rang.

The hansom had come
to take them
to their evening party.

"Oh,
bother,
not
to say dash--I had forgotten we were dining out;
but do,
do,
come round again and have a talk."

"Yes,
you must-- do,"
echoed Margaret.

Leonard,
with extreme sentiment,
replied:

"No,
I shall not.

It's better like this."

"Why better?"
asked Margaret.

"No,
it is better not
to risk a second interview.

I shall always look back on this talk
with you as one of the finest things in my life.

Really.

I mean this.

We can never repeat.

It has done me real good,
and there we had better leave it."

"That's rather a sad view of life,
surely."

"Things so often get spoiled."

"I know,"
flashed Helen,
"but people don't."

He could not understand this.

He continued in a vein which mingled true imagination and false.

What he said wasn't wrong,
but it wasn't right,
and a false note jarred.

One little twist,
they felt,
and the instrument might be in tune.

One little strain,
and it might be silent
for ever.

He thanked the ladies very much,
but he would not call again.

There was a moment's awkwardness,
and then Helen said:

"Go,
then;
perhaps you know best;
but never forget you're better than Jefferies."

And he went.

Their hansom caught him up at the corner,
passed
with a waving of hands,
and vanished
with its accomplished load into the evening.

London was beginning
to illuminate herself against the night.

Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares,
gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green.

The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring,
but London was not afraid.

Her smoke mitigated the splendour,
and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling,
which adorned while it did not distract.

She had never known the clear-cut armies of the purer air.

Leonard hurried through her tinted wonders,
very much part of the picture.

His was a grey life,
and
to brighten it he had ruled off few corners
for romance.

The Miss Schlegels--or,
to speak more accurately,
his interview
with them--were
to fill such a corner,
nor was it by any means the first time that he had talked intimately
to strangers.

The habit was analogous
to a debauch,
an outlet,
though the worst of outlets,
for instincts that would not be denied.

Terrifying him,
it would beat down his suspicions and prudence until he was confiding secrets
to people whom he had scarcely seen.

It brought him many fears and some pleasant memories.

Perhaps the keenest happiness he had ever known was during a railway journey
to Cambridge,
where a decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken
to him.

They had got into conversation,
and gradually Leonard flung reticence aside,
told some of his domestic troubles and hinted at the rest.

The undergraduate,
supposing they could start a friendship,
asked him to
"coffee after hall,"
which he accepted,
but afterwards grew shy,
and took care not
to stir from the commercial hotel where he lodged.

He did not want Romance
to collide
with the Porphyrion,
still less
with Jacky,
and people
with fuller,
happier lives are slow
to understand this.

To the Schlegels,
as
to the undergraduate,
he was an interesting creature,
of whom they wanted
to see more.

But they
to him were denizens of Romance,
who must keep
to the corner he had assigned them,
pictures that must not walk out of their frames.

His behaviour over Margaret's visiting-card had been typical.

His had scarcely been a tragic marriage.

Where there is no money and no inclination
to violence tragedy cannot be generated.

He could not leave his wife,
and he did not want
to hit her.

Petulance and squalor were enough.

Here
"that card"
had come in.

Leonard,
though furtive,
was untidy,
and left it lying about.

Jacky found it,
and then began,
"What's that card,
eh?"
"Yes,
don't you wish you knew what that card was?"
"Len,
who's Miss Schlegel?"
etc.

Months passed,
and the card,
now as a joke,
now as a grievance,
was handed about,
getting dirtier and dirtier.

It followed them when they moved from Camelia Road
to Tulse Hill.

It was submitted
to third parties.

A few inches of pasteboard,
it became the battlefield on which the souls of Leonard and his wife contended.

Why did he not say,
"A lady took my umbrella,
another gave me this that I might call
for my umbrella"?

Because Jacky would have disbelieved him?

Partly,
but chiefly because he was sentimental.

No affection gathered round the card,
but it symbolised the life of culture,
that Jacky should never spoil.

At night he would say
to himself,
"Well,
at all events,
she doesn't know about that card.

Yah! done her there!"
Poor Jacky! she was not a bad sort,
and had a great deal
to bear.

She drew her own conclusion--she was only capable of drawing one conclusion--and in the fulness of time she acted upon it.

All the Friday Leonard had refused
to speak
to her,
and had spent the evening observing the stars.

On the Saturday he went up,
as usual,
to town,
but he came not back Saturday night,
nor Sunday morning,
nor Sunday afternoon.

The inconvenience grew intolerable,
and though she was now of a retiring habit,
and shy of women,
she went up
to Wickham Place.

Leonard returned in her absence.

The card,
the fatal card,
was gone from the pages of Ruskin,
and he guessed what had happened.

"Well?"
he had exclaimed,
greeting her
with peals of laughter.

"I know where you've been,
but you don't know where I've been."

Jacky sighed,
said,
"Len,
I do think you might explain,"
and resumed domesticity.

Explanations were difficult at this stage,
and Leonard was too silly--or it is tempting
to write,
too sound a chap
to attempt them.

His reticence was not entirely the shoddy article that a business life promotes,
the reticence that pretends that nothing is something,
and hides behind the Daily Telegraph.

The adventurer,
also,
is reticent,
and it is an adventure
for a clerk
to walk
for a few hours in darkness.

You may laugh at him,
you who have slept nights out on the veldt,
with your rifle beside you and all the atmosphere of adventure pat.

And you also may laugh who think adventures silly.

But do not be surprised if Leonard is shy whenever he meets you,
and if the Schlegels rather than Jacky hear about the dawn.

That the Schlegels had not thought him foolish became a permanent joy.

He was at his best when he thought of them.

It buoyed him as he journeyed home beneath fading heavens.

Somehow the barriers of wealth had fallen,
and there had been--he could not phrase it--a general assertion of the wonder of the world.

"My conviction,"
says the mystic,
"gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it,"
and they had agreed that there was something beyond life's daily grey.

He took off his top-hat and smoothed it thoughtfully.

He had hitherto supposed the unknown
to be books,
literature,
clever conversation,
culture.

One raised oneself by study,
and got upsides
with the world.

But in that quick interchange a new light dawned.

Was that
"something"
walking in the dark among the suburban hills?

He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street.

London came back
with a rush.

Few were about at this hour,
but all whom he passed looked at him
with a hostility that was the more impressive because it was unconscious.

He put his hat on.

It was too big;
his head disappeared like a pudding into a basin,
the ears bending outwards at the touch of the curly brim.

He wore it a little backwards,
and its effect was greatly
to elongate the face and
to bring out the distance between the eyes and the moustache.

Thus equipped,
he escaped criticism.

No one felt uneasy as he titupped along the pavements,
the heart of a man ticking fast in his chest.

CHAPTER XV The sisters went out
to dinner full of their adventure,
and when they were both full of the same subject,
there were few dinner-parties that could stand up against them.

This particular one,
which was all ladies,
had more kick in it than most,
but succumbed after a struggle.

Helen at one part of the table,
Margaret at the other,
would talk of Mr. Bast and of no one else,
and somewhere about the entree their monologues collided,
fell ruining,
and became common property.

Nor was this all.

The dinner-party was really an informal discussion club;
there was a paper after it,
read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room,
but dealing more or less thoughtfully
with some topic of general interest.

After the paper came a debate,
and in this debate Mr. Bast also figured,
appearing now as a bright spot in civilisation,
now as a dark spot,
according
to the temperament of the speaker.

The subject of the paper had been,
"How ought I
to dispose of my money?"
the reader professing
to be a millionaire on the point of death,
inclined
to bequeath her fortune
for the foundation of local art galleries,
but open
to conviction from other sources.

The various parts had been assigned beforehand,
and some of the speeches were amusing.

The hostess assumed the ungrateful role of
"the millionaire's eldest son,"
and implored her expiring parent not
to dislocate Society by allowing such vast sums
to pass out of the family.

Money was the fruit of self-denial,
and the second generation had a right
to profit by the self-denial of the first.

What right had
"Mr. Bast"
to profit?

The National Gallery was good enough
for the likes of him.

After property had had its say--a saying that is necessarily ungracious--the various philanthropists stepped forward.

Something must be done for
"Mr. Bast";
his conditions must be improved without impairing his independence;
he must have a free library,
or free tennis-courts;
his rent must be paid in such a way that he did not know it was being paid;
it must be made worth his while
to join the Territorials;
he must be forcibly parted from his uninspiring wife,
the money going
to her as compensation;
he must be assigned a Twin Star,
some member of the leisured classes who would watch over him ceaselessly
(groans from Helen);
he must be given food but no clothes,
clothes but no food,
a third-return ticket
to Venice,
without either food or clothes when he arrived there.

In short,
he might be given anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.

And here Margaret interrupted.

"Order,
order,
Miss Schlegel!"
said the reader of the paper.

"You are here,
I understand,
to advise me in the interests of the Society
for the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.

I cannot have you speaking out of your role.

It makes my poor head go round,
and I think you forget that I am very ill."

"Your head won't go round if only you'll listen
to my argument,"
said Margaret.

"Why not give him the money itself?

You're supposed
to have about thirty thousand a year."

"Have I?

I thought I had a million."

"Wasn't a million your capital?

Dear me! we ought
to have settled that.

Still,
it doesn't matter.

Whatever you've got,
I order you
to give as many poor men as you can three hundred a year each."

"But that would be pauperising them,"
said an earnest girl,
who liked the Schlegels,
but thought them a little unspiritual at times.

"Not if you gave them so much.

A big windfall would not pauperise a man.

It is these little driblets,
distributed among too many,
that do the harm.

Money's educational.

It's far more educational than the things it buys."

There was a protest.

"In a sense,"
added Margaret,
but the protest continued.

"Well,
isn't the most civilized thing going,
the man who has learnt
to wear his income properly?"
"Exactly what your Mr. Basts won't do."

"Give them a chance.

Give them money.

Don't dole them out poetry-books and railway-tickets like babies.

Give them the wherewithal
to buy these things.

When your Socialism comes it may be different,
and we may think in terms of commodities instead of cash.

Till it comes give people cash,
for it is the warp of civilisation,
whatever the woof may be.

The imagination ought
to play upon money and realise it vividly,
for it's the--the second most important thing in the world.

It is so slurred over and hushed up,
there is so little clear thinking--oh,
political economy,
of course,
but so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes,
and admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the result of independent means.

Money:

give Mr. Bast money,
and don't bother about his ideals.

He'll pick up those
for himself.

She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began
to misconstrue her.

The female mind,
though cruelly practical in daily life,
cannot bear
to hear ideals belittled in conversation,
and Miss Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful things,
and what it would profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own soul.

She answered,
"Nothing,
but he would not gain his soul until he had gained a little of the world."

Then they said,
"No,
we do not believe it,"
and she admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul in the superterrestrial sense,
where the effort will be taken
for the deed,
but she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources of this world,
will ever know the rarer joys of the body,
or attain
to clear and passionate intercourse
with his fellows.

Others had attacked the fabric of Society--Property,
Interest,
etc.;
she only fixed her eyes on a few human beings,
to see how,
under present conditions,
they could be made happier.

Doing good
to humanity was useless:

the many-coloured efforts thereto spreading over the vast area like films and resulting in an universal grey.

To do good
to one,
or,
as in this case,
to a few,
was the utmost she dare hope for.

Between the idealists,
and the political economists,
Margaret had a bad time.

Disagreeing elsewhere,
they agreed in disowning her,
and in keeping the administration of the millionaire's money in their own hands.

The earnest girl brought forward a scheme of
"personal supervision and mutual help,"
the effect of which was
to alter poor people until they became exactly like people who were not so poor.

The hostess pertinently remarked that she,
as eldest son,
might surely rank among the millionaire's legatees.

Margaret weakly admitted the claim,
and another claim was at once set up by Helen,
who declared that she had been the millionaire's housemaid
for over forty years,
overfed and underpaid;
was nothing
to be done
for her,
so corpulent and poor?

The millionaire then read out her last will and testament,
in which she left the whole of her fortune
to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Then she died.

The serious parts of the discussion had been of higher merit than the playful--in a men's debate is the reverse more general?--but the meeting broke up hilariously enough,
and a dozen happy ladies dispersed
to their homes.

Helen and Margaret walked
with the earnest girl as far as Battersea Bridge Station,
arguing copiously all the way.

When she had gone they were conscious of an alleviation,
and of the great beauty of the evening.

They turned back towards Oakley Street.

The lamps and the plane-trees,
following the line of the embankment,
struck a note of dignity that is rare in English cities.

The seats,
almost deserted,
were here and there occupied by gentlefolk in evening dress,
who had strolled out from the houses behind
to enjoy fresh air and the whisper of the rising tide.

There is something continental about Chelsea Embankment.

It is an open space used rightly,
a blessing more frequent in Germany than here.

As Margaret and Helen sat down,
the city behind them seemed
to be a vast theatre,
an opera-house in which some endless trilogy was performing,
and they themselves a pair of satisfied subscribers,
who did not mind losing a little of the second act.

"Cold?"
"No."

"Tired?"
"Doesn't matter."

The earnest girl's train rumbled away over the bridge,
"I say,
Helen--"
"Well?"
"Are we really going
to follow up Mr. Bast?"
"I don't know."

"I think we won't."

"As you like."

"It's no good,
I think,
unless you really mean
to know people.

The discussion brought that home
to me.

We got on well enough
with him in a spirit of excitement,
but think of rational intercourse.

We mustn't play at friendship.

No,
it's no good."

"There's Mrs. Lanoline,
too,"
Helen yawned.

"So dull."

"Just so,
and possibly worse than dull."

"I should like
to know how he got hold of your card."

"But he said--something about a concert and an umbrella."

"Then did the card see the wife--"
"Helen,
come
to bed."

"No,
just a little longer,
it is so beautiful.

Tell me;
oh yes;
did you say money is the warp of the world?"
"Yes."

"Then what's the woof?"
"Very much what one chooses,"
said Margaret.

"It's something that isn't money--one can't say more."

"Walking at night?"
"Probably."

"For Tibby,
Oxford?"
"It seems so."

"For you?"
"Now that we have
to leave Wickham Place,
I begin
to think it's that.

For Mrs. Wilcox it was certainly Howards End."

One's own name will carry immense distances.

Mr. Wilcox,
who was sitting
with friends many seats away,
heard this,
rose
to his feet,
and strolled along towards the speakers.

"It is sad
to suppose that places may ever be more important than people,"
continued Margaret.

"Why,
Meg?

They're so much nicer generally.

I'd rather think of that forester's house in Pomerania than of the fat Herr Forstmeister who lived in it."

"I believe we shall come
to care about people less and less,
Helen.

The more people one knows the easier it becomes
to replace them.

It's one of the curses of London.

I quite expect
to end my life caring most
for a place."

Here Mr. Wilcox reached them.

It was several weeks since they had met.

"How do you do?"
he cried.

"I thought I recognised your voices.

Whatever are you both doing down here?"
His tones were protective.

He implied that one ought not
to sit out on Chelsea Embankment without a male escort.

Helen resented this,
but Margaret accepted it as part of the good man's equipment.

"What an age it is since I've seen you,
Mr. Wilcox.

I met Evie in the Tube,
though,
lately.

I hope you have good news of your son."

"Paul?"
said Mr. Wilcox,
extinguishing his cigarette,
and sitting down between them.

"Oh,
Paul's all right.

We had a line from Madeira.

He'll be at work again by now."

"Ugh--"
said Helen,
shuddering from complex causes.

"I beg your pardon?"
"Isn't the climate of Nigeria too horrible?"
"Some one's got
to go,"
he said simply.

England will never keep her trade overseas unless she is prepared
to make sacrifices.

Unless we get firm in West Africa,
Ger--untold complications may follow.

Now tell me all your news."

"Oh,
we've had a splendid evening,"
cried Helen,
who always woke up at the advent of a visitor.

"We belong
to a kind of club that reads papers,
Margaret and I--all women,
but there is a discussion after.

This evening it was on how one ought
to leave one's money--whether
to one's family,
or
to the poor,
and if so how--oh,
most interesting."

The man of business smiled.

Since his wife's death he had almost doubled his income.

He was an important figure at last,
a reassuring name on company prospectuses,
and life had treated him very well.

The world seemed in his grasp as he listened
to the River Thames,
which still flowed inland from the sea.

So wonderful
to the girls,
it held no mysteries
for him.

He had helped
to shorten its long tidal trough by taking shares in the lock at Teddington,
and if he and other capitalists thought good,
some day it could be shortened again.

With a good dinner inside him and an amiable but academic woman on either flank,
he felt that his hands were on all the ropes of life,
and that what he did not know could not be worth knowing.

"Sounds a most original entertainment!"
he exclaimed,
and laughed in his pleasant way.

"I wish Evie would go
to that sort of thing.

But she hasn't the time.

She's taken
to breeding Aberdeen terriers--jolly little dogs."

"I expect we'd better be doing the same,
really."

"We pretend we're improving ourselves,
you see,"
said Helen a little sharply,
for the Wilcox glamour is not of the kind that returns,
and she had bitter memories of the days when a speech such as he had just made would have impressed her favourably.

"We suppose it a good thing
to waste an evening once a fortnight over a debate,
but,
as my sister says,
it may be better
to breed dogs."

"Not at all.

I don't agree
with your sister.

There's nothing like a debate
to teach one quickness.

I often wish I had gone in
for them when I was a youngster.

It would have helped me no end."

"Quickness--?"
"Yes.

Quickness in argument.

Time after time I've missed scoring a point because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven't.

Oh,
I believe in these discussions."

The patronising tone,
thought Margaret,
came well enough from a man who was old enough
to be their father.

She had always maintained that Mr. Wilcox had a charm.

In times of sorrow or emotion his inadequacy had pained her,
but it was pleasant
to listen
to him now,
and
to watch his thick brown moustache and high forehead confronting the stars.

But Helen was nettled.

The aim of their debates she implied was Truth.

"Oh yes,
it doesn't much matter what subject you take,"
said he.

Margaret laughed and said,
"But this is going
to be far better than the debate itself."

Helen recovered herself and laughed too.

"No,
I won't go on,"
she declared.

"I'll just put our special case
to Mr. Wilcox."

"About Mr. Bast?

Yes,
do.

He'll be more lenient
to a special case."

"But,
Mr. Wilcox,
do first light another cigarette.

It's this.

We've just come across a young fellow,
who's evidently very poor,
and who seems interest--"
"What's his profession?"
"Clerk."

"What in?"
"Do you remember,
Margaret?"
"Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company."

"Oh yes;
the nice people who gave Aunt Juley a new hearth rug.

He seems interesting,
in some ways very,
and one wishes one could help him.

He is married
to a wife whom he doesn't seem
to care
for much.

He likes books,
and what one may roughly call adventure,
and if he had a chance-- But he is so poor.

He lives a life where all the money is apt
to go on nonsense and clothes.

One is so afraid that circumstances will be too strong
for him and that he will sink.

Well,
he got mixed up in our debate.

He wasn't the subject of it,
but it seemed
to bear on his point.

Suppose a millionaire died,
and desired
to leave money
to help such a man.

How should he be helped?

Should he be given three hundred pounds a year direct,
which was Margaret's plan?

Most of them thought this would pauperise him.

Should he and those like him be given free libraries?

I said
'No!'
He doesn't want more books
to read,
but
to read books rightly.

My suggestion was he should be given something every year towards a summer holiday,
but then there is his wife,
and they said she would have
to go too.

Nothing seemed quite right! Now what do you think?

Imagine that you were a millionaire,
and wanted
to help the poor.

What would you do?"
Mr. Wilcox,
whose fortune was not so very far below the standard indicated,
laughed exuberantly.

"My dear Miss Schlegel,
I will not rush in where your sex has been unable
to tread.

I will not add another plan
to the numerous excellent ones that have been already suggested.

My only contribution is this:

let your young friend clear out of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company
with all possible speed."

"Why?"
said Margaret.

He lowered his voice.

"This is between friends.

It'll be in the Receiver's hands before Christmas.

It'll smash,"
he added,
thinking that she had not understood.

"Dear me,
Helen,
listen
to that.

And he'll have
to get another place!"
"WILL have?

Let him leave the ship before it sinks.

Let him get one now."

"Rather than wait,
to make sure?"
"Decidedly."

"Why's that?"
Again the Olympian laugh,
and the lowered voice.

"Naturally the man who's in a situation when he applies stands a better chance,
is in a stronger position,
that the man who isn't.

It looks as if he's worth something.

I know by myself--(this is letting you into the State secrets)--it affects an employer greatly.

Human nature,
I'm afraid."

"I hadn't thought of that,"
murmured Margaret,
while Helen said,
"Our human nature appears
to be the other way round.

We employ people because they're unemployed.

The boot man,
for instance."

"And how does he clean the boots?"
"Not well,"
confessed Margaret.

"There you are!"
"Then do you really advise us
to tell this youth--?"
"I advise nothing,"
he interrupted,
glancing up and down the Embankment,
in case his indiscretion had been overheard.

"I oughtn't
to have spoken--but I happen
to know,
being more or less behind the scenes.

The Porphyrion's a bad,
bad concern-- Now,
don't say I said so.

It's outside the Tariff Ring."

"Certainly I won't say.

In fact,
I don't know what that means."

"I thought an insurance company never smashed,"
was Helen's contribution.

"Don't the others always run in and save them?"
"You're thinking of reinsurance,"
said Mr. Wilcox mildly.

"It is exactly there that the Porphyrion is weak.

It has tried
to undercut,
has been badly hit by a long series of small fires,
and it hasn't been able
to reinsure.

I'm afraid that public companies don't save one another
for love."

"'Human nature,'
I suppose,"
quoted Helen,
and he laughed and agreed that it was.

When Margaret said that she supposed that clerks,
like every one else,
found it extremely difficult
to get situations in these days,
he replied,
"Yes,
extremely,"
and rose
to rejoin his friends.

He knew by his own office--seldom a vacant post,
and hundreds of applicants
for it;
at present no vacant post.

"And how's Howards End looking?"
said Margaret,
wishing
to change the subject before they parted.

Mr. Wilcox was a little apt
to think one wanted
to get something out of him.

"It's let."

"Really.

And you wandering homeless in longhaired Chelsea?

How strange are the ways of Fate!"
"No;
it's let unfurnished.

We've moved."

"Why,
I thought of you both as anchored there
for ever.

Evie never told me."

"I dare say when you met Evie the thing wasn't settled.

We only moved a week ago.

Paul has rather a feeling
for the old place,
and we held on
for him
to have his holiday there;
but,
really,
it is impossibly small.

Endless drawbacks.

I forget whether you've been up
to it?"
"As far as the house,
never."

"Well,
Howards End is one of those converted farMs. They don't really do,
spend what you will on them.

We messed away
with a garage all among the wych-elm roots,
and last year we enclosed a bit of the meadow and attempted a rockery.

Evie got rather keen on Alpine plants.

But it didn't do--no,
it didn't do.

You remember,
your sister will remember,
the farm
with those abominable guinea-fowls,
and the hedge that the old woman never would cut properly,
so that it all went thin at the bottom.

And,
inside the house,
the beams--and the staircase through a door-- picturesque enough,
but not a place
to live in."

He glanced over the parapet cheerfully.

"Full tide.

And the position wasn't right either.

The neighbourhood's getting suburban.

Either be in London or out of it,
I say;
so we've taken a house in Ducie Street,
close
to Sloane Street,
and a place right down in Shropshire--Oniton Grange.

Ever heard of Oniton?

Do come and see us--right away from everywhere,
up towards Wales."

"What a change!"
said Margaret.

But the change was in her own voice,
which had become most sad.

"I can't imagine Howards End or Hilton without you."

"Hilton isn't without us,"
he replied.

"Charles is there still."

"Still?"
said Margaret,
who had not kept up
with the Charles's.

"But I thought he was still at Epsom.

They were furnishing that Christmas--one Christmas.

How everything alters! I used
to admire Mrs. Charles from our windows very often.

Wasn't it Epsom?"
"Yes,
but they moved eighteen months ago.

Charles,
the good chap"
--his voice dropped--"thought I should be lonely.

I didn't want him
to move,
but he would,
and took a house at the other end of Hilton,
down by the Six Hills.

He had a motor,
too.

There they all are,
a very jolly party--he and she and the two grandchildren."

"I manage other people's affairs so much better than they manage them themselves,"
said Margaret as they shook hands.

"When you moved out of Howards End,
I should have moved Mr. Charles Wilcox into it.

I should have kept so remarkable a place in the family."

"So it is,"
he replied.

"I haven't sold it,
and don't mean to."

"No;
but none of you are there,"
"Oh,
we've got a splendid tenant--Hamar Bryce,
an invalid.

If Charles ever wanted it--but he won't.

Dolly is so dependent on modern conveniences.

No,
we have all decided against Howards End.

We like it in a way,
but now we feel that it is neither one thing nor the other.

One must have one thing or the other."

"And some people are lucky enough
to have both.

You're doing yourself proud,
Mr. Wilcox.

My congratulations."

"And mine,"
said Helen.

"Do remind Evie
to come and see us--2 Wickham Place.

We shan't be there very long,
either."

"You,
too,
on the move?"
"Next September,"
Margaret sighed.

"Every one moving! Good-bye."

The tide had begun
to ebb.

Margaret leant over the parapet and watched it sadly.

Mr. Wilcox had forgotten his wife,
Helen her lover;
she herself was probably forgetting.

Every one moving.

Is it worth while attempting the past when there is this continual flux even in the hearts of men?

Helen roused her by saying:

"What a prosperous vulgarian Mr. Wilcox has grown! I have very little use
for him in these days.

However,
he did tell us about the Porphyrion.

Let us write
to Mr. Bast as soon as ever we get home,
and tell him
to clear out of it at once."

"Do;
yes,
that's worth doing.

Let us."

CHAPTER XVI Leonard accepted the invitation
to tea next Saturday.

But he was right;
the visit proved a conspicuous failure.

"Sugar?"
said Margaret.

"Cake?"
said Helen.

"The big cake or the little deadlies?

I'm afraid you thought my letter rather odd,
but we'll explain--we aren't odd,
really--nor affected,
really.

We're over-expressive-- that's all."

As a lady's lap-dog Leonard did not excel.

He was not an Italian,
still less a Frenchman,
in whose blood there runs the very spirit of persiflage and of gracious repartee.

His wit was the Cockney's;
it opened no doors into imagination,
and Helen was drawn up short by
"The more a lady has
to say,
the better,"
administered waggishly.

"Oh yes,"
she said.

"Ladies brighten--"
"Yes,
I know.

The darlings are regular sunbeaMs. Let me give you a plate."

"How do you like your work?"
interposed Margaret.

He,
too,
was drawn up short.

He would not have these women prying into his work.

They were Romance,
and so was the room
to which he had at last penetrated,
with the queer sketches of people bathing upon its walls,
and so were the very tea-cups,
with their delicate borders of wild strawberries.

But he would not let romance interfere
with his life.

There is the devil
to pay then.

"Oh,
well enough,"
he answered.

"Your company is the Porphyrion,
isn't it?"
"Yes,
that's so."

--becoming rather offended.

"It's funny how things get round."

"Why funny?"
asked Helen,
who did not follow the workings of his mind.

"It was written as large as life on your card,
and considering we wrote
to you there,
and that you replied on the stamped paper--"
"Would you call the Porphyrion one of the big Insurance Companies?"
pursued Margaret.

"It depends on what you call big."

"I mean by big,
a solid,
well-established concern,
that offers a reasonably good career
to its employes."

"I couldn't say--some would tell you one thing and others another,"
said the employe uneasily.

"For my own part"--he shook his head--"
I only believe half I hear.

Not that even;
it's safer.

Those clever ones come
to the worse grief,
I've often noticed.

Ah,
you can't be too careful."

He drank,
and wiped his moustache,
which was going
to be one of those moustaches that always droop into tea-cups--more bother than they're worth,
surely,
and not fashionable either.

"I quite agree,
and that's why I was curious
to know;
is it a solid,
well-established concern?"
Leonard had no idea.

He understood his own corner of the machine,
but nothing beyond it.

He desired
to confess neither knowledge nor ignorance,
and under these circumstances,
another motion of the head seemed safest.

To him,
as
to the British public,
the Porphyrion was the Porphyrion of the advertisement--a giant,
in the classical style,
but draped sufficiently,
who held in one hand a burning torch,
and pointed
with the other
to St. Paul's and Windsor Castle.

A large sum of money was inscribed below,
and you drew your own conclusions.

This giant caused Leonard
to do arithmetic and write letters,
to explain the regulations
to new clients,
and re-explain them
to old ones.

A giant was of an impulsive morality--one knew that much.

He would pay
for Mrs. Munt's hearthrug
with ostentatious haste,
a large claim he would repudiate quietly,
and fight court by court.

But his true fighting weight,
his antecedents,
his amours
with other members of the commercial Pantheon--all these were as uncertain
to ordinary mortals as were the escapades of Zeus.

While the gods are powerful,
we learn little about them.

It is only in the days of their decadence that a strong light beats into heaven.

"We were told the Porphyrion's no go,"
blurted Helen.

"We wanted
to tell you;
that's why we wrote."

"A friend of ours did think that it is insufficiently reinsured,"
said Margaret.

Now Leonard had his clue.

He must praise the Porphyrion.

"You can tell your friend,"
he said,
"that he's quite wrong."

"Oh,
good!"
The young man coloured a little.

In his circle
to be wrong was fatal.

The Miss Schlegels did not mind being wrong.

They were genuinely glad that they had been misinformed.

To them nothing was fatal but evil.

"Wrong,
so
to speak,"
he added.

"How
'so
to speak'?"
"I mean I wouldn't say he's right altogether."

But this was a blunder.

"Then he is right partly,"
said the elder woman,
quick as lightning.

Leonard replied that every one was right partly,
if it came
to that.

"Mr. Bast,
I don't understand business,
and I dare say my questions are stupid,
but can you tell me what makes a concern
'right'
or
'wrong'?"
Leonard sat back
with a sigh.

"Our friend,
who is also a business man,
was so positive.

He said before Christmas--"
"And advised you
to clear out of it,"
concluded Helen.

"But I don't see why he should know better than you do.

"
Leonard rubbed his hands.

He was tempted
to say that he knew nothing about the thing at all.

But a commercial training was too strong
for him.

Nor could he say it was a bad thing,
for this would be giving it away;
nor yet that it was good,
for this would be giving it away equally.

He attempted
to suggest that it was something between the two,
with vast possibilities in either direction,
but broke down under the gaze of four sincere eyes.

And yet he scarcely distinguished between the two sisters.

One was more beautiful and more lively,
but
"the Miss Schlegels"
still remained a composite Indian god,
whose waving arms and contradictory speeches were the product of a single mind.

"One can but see,"
he remarked,
adding,
"as Ibsen says,
'things happen.'
"
He was itching
to talk about books and make the most of his romantic hour.

Minute after minute slipped away,
while the ladies,
with imperfect skill,
discussed the subject of reinsurance or praised their anonymous friend.

Leonard grew annoyed--perhaps rightly.

He made vague remarks about not being one of those who minded their affairs being talked over by others,
but they did not take the hint.

Men might have shown more tact.

Women,
however tactful elsewhere,
are heavy-handed here.

They cannot see why we should shroud our incomes and our prospects in a veil.

"How much exactly have you,
and how much do you expect
to have next June?"
And these were women
with a theory,
who held that reticence about money matters is absurd,
and that life would be truer if each would state the exact size of the golden island upon which he stands,
the exact stretch of warp over which he throws the woof that is not money.

How can we do justice
to the pattern otherwise?

And the precious minutes slipped away,
and Jacky and squalor came nearer.

At last he could bear it no longer,
and broke in,
reciting the names of books feverishly.

There was a moment of piercing joy when Margaret said,
"So YOU like Carlyle"
and then the door opened,
and
"Mr. Wilcox,
Miss Wilcox"
entered,
preceded by two prancing puppies.

"Oh,
the dears! Oh,
Evie,
how too impossibly sweet!"
screamed Helen,
falling on her hands and knees.

"We brought the little fellows round,"
said Mr. Wilcox.

"I bred
'em myself."

"Oh,
really! Mr. Bast,
come and play
with puppies."

"I've got
to be going now,"
said Leonard sourly.

"But play
with puppies a little first."

"This is Ahab,
that's Jezebel,"
said Evie,
who was one of those who name animals after the less successful characters of Old Testament history.

"I've got
to be going."

Helen was too much occupied
with puppies
to notice him.

"Mr. Wilcox,
Mr. Ba-- Must you be really?

"Good-bye!"
"Come again,"
said Helen from the floor.

Then Leonard's gorge arose.

Why should he come again?

What was the good of it?

He said roundly:

"No,
I shan't;
I knew it would be a failure."

Most people would have let him go.

"A little mistake.

We tried knowing another class--impossible."

But the Schlegels had never played
with life.

They had attempted friendship,
and they would take the consequences.

Helen retorted,
"I call that a very rude remark.

What do you want
to turn on me like that for?"
and suddenly the drawing-room re-echoed
to a vulgar row.

"You ask me why I turn on you?"
"Yes."

"What do you want
to have me here for?'
"To help you,
you silly boy!"
cried Helen.

"And don't shout."

"I don't want your patronage.

I don't want your tea.

I was quite happy.

What do you want
to unsettle me for?"
He turned
to Mr. Wilcox.

"I put it
to this gentleman.

I ask you,
sir,
am I
to have my brain picked?"
Mr. Wilcox turned
to Margaret
with the air of humorous strength that he could so well command.

"Are we intruding,
Miss Schlegel?

Can we be of any use,
or shall we go?"
But Margaret ignored him.

"I'm connected
with a leading insurance company,
sir.

I receive what I take
to be an invitation from these--ladies"
(he drawled the word).

"I come,
and it's
to have my brain picked.

I ask you,
is it fair?"
"Highly unfair,"
said Mr. Wilcox,
drawing a gasp from Evie,
who knew that her father was becoming dangerous.

"There,
you hear that?

Most unfair,
the gentleman says.

There! Not content with"--pointing at Margaret--"you can't deny it."

His voice rose;
he was falling into the rhythm of a scene
with Jacky.

"But as soon as I'm useful it's a very different thing.

'Oh yes,
send
for him.

Cross-question him.

Pick his brains.'

Oh yes.

Now,
take me on the whole,
I'm a quiet fellow:

I'm law-abiding,
I don't wish any unpleasantness;
but I--I--"
"You,"
said Margaret--"you--you--"
Laughter from Evie as at a repartee.

"You are the man who tried
to walk by the Pole Star."

More laughter.

"You saw the sunrise."

Laughter.

"You tried
to get away from the fogs that are stifling us all-- away past books and houses
to the truth.

You were looking
for a real home."

"I fail
to see the connection,"
said Leonard,
hot
with stupid anger.

"So do I."

There was a pause.

"You were that last Sunday--you are this to-day.

Mr. Bast! I and my sister have talked you over.

We wanted
to help you;
we also supposed you might help us.

We did not have you here out of charity--which bores us--but because we hoped there would be a connection between last Sunday and other days.

What is the good of your stars and trees,
your sunrise and the wind,
if they do not enter into our daily lives?

They have never entered into mine,
but into yours,
we thought-- Haven't we all
to struggle against life's daily greyness,
against pettiness,
against mechanical cheerfulness,
against suspicion?

I struggle by remembering my friends;
others I have known by remembering some place--some beloved place or tree--we thought you one of these."

"Of course,
if there's been any misunderstanding,"
mumbled Leonard,
"all I can do is
to go.

But I beg
to state--"
He paused.

Ahab and Jezebel danced at his boots and made him look ridiculous.

"You were picking my brain
for official information-- I can prove it--I--"
He blew his nose and left them.

"Can I help you now?"
said Mr. Wilcox,
turning
to Margaret.

"May I have one quiet word
with him in the hall?"
"Helen,
go after him--do anything--anything--to make the noodle understand."

Helen hesitated.

"But really--"said their visitor.

"Ought she to?"
At once she went.

He resumed.

"I would have chimed in,
but I felt that you could polish him off
for yourselves--I didn't interfere.

You were splendid,
Miss Schlegel--absolutely splendid.

You can take my word
for it,
but there are very few women who could have managed him."

"Oh yes,"
said Margaret distractedly.

"Bowling him over
with those long sentences was what fetched me,"
cried Evie.

"Yes,
indeed,"
chuckled her father;
"all that part about
'mechanical cheerfulness'--oh,
fine!"
"I'm very sorry,"
said Margaret,
collecting herself.

"He's a nice creature really.

I cannot think what set him off.

It has been most unpleasant
for you."

"Oh,
I didn't mind."

Then he changed his mood.

He asked if he might speak as an old friend,
and,
permission given,
said:

"Oughtn't you really
to be more careful?"
Margaret laughed,
though her thoughts still strayed after Helen.

"Do you realise that it's all your fault?"
she said.

"You're responsible."

"I?"
"This is the young man whom we were
to warn against the Porphyrion.

We warn him,
and--look!"
Mr. Wilcox was annoyed.

"I hardly consider that a fair deduction,"
he said.

"Obviously unfair,"
said Margaret.

"I was only thinking how tangled things are.

It's our fault mostly--neither yours nor his."

"Not his?"
"No."

"Miss Schlegel,
you are too kind."

"Yes,
indeed,"
nodded Evie,
a little contemptuously.

"You behave much too well
to people,
and then they impose on you.

I know the world and that type of man,
and as soon as I entered the room I saw you had not been treating him properly.

You must keep that type at a distance.

Otherwise they forget themselves.

Sad,
but true.

They aren't our sort,
and one must face the fact."

"Ye--es."

"Do admit that we should never have had the outburst if he was a gentleman.

"
"I admit it willingly,"
said Margaret,
who was pacing up and down the room.

"A gentleman would have kept his suspicions
to himself."

Mr. Wilcox watched her
with a vague uneasiness.

"What did he suspect you of?"
"Of wanting
to make money out of him."

"Intolerable brute! But how were you
to benefit?"
"Exactly.

How indeed! Just horrible,
corroding suspicion.

One touch of thought or of goodwill would have brushed it away.

Just the senseless fear that does make men intolerable brutes."

"I come back
to my original point.

You ought
to be more careful,
Miss Schlegel.

Your servants ought
to have orders not
to let such people in."

She turned
to him frankly.

"Let me explain exactly why we like this man,
and want
to see him again."

"That's your clever way of talking.

I shall never believe you like him."

"I do.

Firstly,
because he cares
for physical adventure,
just as you do.

Yes,
you go motoring and shooting;
he would like
to go camping out.

Secondly,
he cares
for something special IN adventure.

It is quickest
to call that special something poetry--"
"Oh,
he's one of that writer sort."

"No--oh no! I mean he may be,
but it would be loathsome stuff.

His brain is filled
with the husks of books,
culture--horrible;
we want him
to wash out his brain and go
to the real thing.

We want
to show him how he may get upsides
with life.

As I said,
either friends or the country,
some"--she hesitated--"either some very dear person or some very dear place seems necessary
to relieve life's daily grey,
and
to show that it is grey.

If possible,
one should have both."

Some of her words ran past Mr. Wilcox.

He let them run past.

Others he caught and criticised
with admirable lucidity.

"Your mistake is this,
and it is a very common mistake.

This young bounder has a life of his own.

What right have you
to conclude it is an unsuccessful life,
or,
as you call it,
'grey'?"
"Because--"
"One minute.

You know nothing about him.

He probably has his own joys and interests--wife,
children,
snug little home.

That's where we practical fellows"
he smiled--"are more tolerant than you intellectuals.

We live and let live,
and assume that things are jogging on fairly well elsewhere,
and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted
to look after his own affairs.

I quite grant-- I look at the faces of the clerks in my own office,
and observe them
to be dull,
but I don't know what's going on beneath.

So,
by the way,
with London.

I have heard you rail against London,
Miss Schlegel,
and it seems a funny thing
to say but I was very angry
with you.

What do you know about London?

You only see civilisation from the outside.

I don't say in your case,
but in too many cases that attitude leads
to morbidity,
discontent,
and Socialism."

She admitted the strength of his position,
though it undermined imagination.

As he spoke,
some outposts of poetry and perhaps of sympathy fell ruining,
and she retreated
to what she called her
"second line"--to the special facts of the case.

"His wife is an old bore,"
she said simply.

"He never came home last Saturday night because he wanted
to be alone,
and she thought he was
with us."

"With YOU?"
"Yes."

Evie tittered.

"He hasn't got the cosy home that you assumed.

He needs outside interests."

"Naughty young man!"
cried the girl.

"Naughty?"
said Margaret,
who hated naughtiness more than sin.

"When you're married Miss Wilcox,
won't you want outside interests?"
"He has apparently got them,"
put in Mr. Wilcox slyly.

"Yes,
indeed,
father.

"
"He was tramping in Surrey,
if you mean that,"
said Margaret,
pacing away rather crossly.

"Oh,
I dare say!"
"Miss Wilcox,
he was!"
"M--m--m--m!"
from Mr. Wilcox,
who thought the episode amusing,
if risque.

With most ladies he would not have discussed it,
but he was trading on Margaret's reputation as an emancipated woman.

"He said so,
and about such a thing he wouldn't lie."

They both began
to laugh.

"That's where I differ from you.

Men lie about their positions and prospects,
but not about a thing of that sort."

He shook his head.

"Miss Schlegel,
excuse me,
but I know the type."

"I said before--he isn't a type.

He cares about adventures rightly.

He
's certain that our smug existence isn't all.

He's vulgar and hysterical and bookish,
but don't think that sums him up.

There's manhood in him as well.

Yes,
that's what I'm trying
to say.

He's a real man."

As she spoke their eyes met,
and it was as if Mr. Wilcox's defences fell.

She saw back
to the real man in him.

Unwittingly she had touched his emotions.

A woman and two men--they had formed the magic triangle of sex,
and the male was thrilled
to jealousy,
in case the female was attracted by another male.

Love,
say the ascetics,
reveals our shameful kinship
with the beasts.

Be it so:

one can bear that;
jealousy is the real shame.

It is jealousy,
not love,
that connects us
with the farmyard intolerably,
and calls up visions of two angry cocks and a complacent hen.

Margaret crushed complacency down because she was civilised.

Mr. Wilcox,
uncivilised,
continued
to feel anger long after he had rebuilt his defences,
and was again presenting a bastion
to the world.

"Miss Schlegel,
you're a pair of dear creatures,
but you really MUST be careful in this uncharitable world.

What does your brother say?"
"I forget."

"Surely he has some opinion?"
"He laughs,
if I remember correctly."

"He's very clever,
isn't he?"
said Evie,
who had met and detested Tibby at Oxford.

"Yes,
pretty well--but I wonder what Helen's doing."

"She is very young
to undertake this sort of thing,"
said Mr. Wilcox.

Margaret went out
to the landing.

She heard no sound,
and Mr. Bast's topper was missing from the hall.

"Helen!"
she called.

"Yes!"
replied a voice from the library.

"You in there?"
"Yes--he's gone some time."

Margaret went
to her.

"Why,
you're all alone,"
she said.

"Yes--it's all right,
Meg.

Poor,
poor creature--"
"Come back
to the Wilcoxes and tell me later--Mr. W much concerned,
and slightly titillated."

"0h,
I've no patience
with him.

I hate him.

Poor dear Mr. Bast! he wanted
to talk literature,
and we would talk business.

Such a muddle of a man,
and yet so worth pulling through.

I like him extraordinarily."

"Well done,"
said Margaret,
kissing her,
"but come into the drawing-room now,
and don't talk about him
to the Wilcoxes.

Make light of the whole thing."

Helen came and behaved
with a cheerfulness that reassured their visitor--this hen at all events was fancy-free.

"He's gone
with my blessing,"
she cried,
"and now
for puppies."

As they drove away,
Mr. Wilcox said
to his daughter:

"I am really concerned at the way those girls go on.

They are as clever as you make
'em,
but unpractical--God bless me! One of these days they'll go too far.

Girls like that oughtn't
to live alone in London.

Until they marry,
they ought
to have some one
to look after them.

We must look in more often--we're better than no one.

You like them,
don't you,
Evie?"
Evie replied:

"Helen's right enough,
but I can't stand the toothy one.

And I shouldn't have called either of them girls."

Evie had grown up handsome.

Dark-eyed,
with the glow of youth under sunburn,
built firmly and firm-lipped,
she was the best the Wilcoxes could do in the way of feminine beauty.

For the present,
puppies and her father were the only things she loved,
but the net of matrimony was being prepared
for her,
and a few days later she was attracted
to a Mr. Percy Cahill,
an uncle of Mrs. Charles's,
and he was attracted
to her.

CHAPTER XVII The Age of Property holds bitter moments even
for a proprietor.

When a move is imminent,
furniture becomes ridiculous,
and Margaret now lay awake at nights wondering where,
where on earth they and all their belongings would be deposited in September next.

Chairs,
tables,
pictures,
books,
that had rumbled down
to them through the generations,
must rumble forward again like a slide of rubbish
to which she longed
to give the final push,
and send toppling into the sea.

But there were all their father's books--they never read them,
but they were their father's,
and must be kept.

There was the marble-topped chiffonier--their mother had set store by it,
they could not remember why.

Round every knob and cushion in the house gathered a sentiment that was at times personal,
but more often a faint piety
to the dead,
a prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.

It was absurd,
if you came
to think of it;
Helen and Tibby came
to think of it;
Margaret was too busy
with the house-agents.

The feudal ownership of land did bring dignity,
whereas the modern ownership of movables is reducing us again
to a nomadic horde.

We are reverting
to the civilisation of luggage,
and historians of the future will note how the middle classes accreted possessions without taking root in the earth,
and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty.

The Schlegels were certainly the poorer
for the loss of Wickham Place.

It had helped
to balance their lives,
and almost
to counsel them.

Nor is their ground-landlord spiritually the richer.

He has built flats on its site,
his motor-cars grow swifter,
his exposures of Socialism more trenchant.

But he has spilt the precious distillation of the years,
and no chemistry of his can give it back
to society again.

Margaret grew depressed;
she was anxious
to settle on a house before they left town
to pay their annual visit
to Mrs. Munt.

She enjoyed this visit,
and wanted
to have her mind at ease
for it.

Swanage,
though dull,
was stable,
and this year she longed more than usual
for its fresh air and
for the magnificent downs that guard it on the north.

But London thwarted her;
in its atmosphere she could not concentrate.

London only stimulates,
it cannot sustain;
and Margaret,
hurrying over its surface
for a house without knowing what sort of a house she wanted,
was paying
for many a thrilling sensation in the past.

She could not even break loose from culture,
and her time was wasted by concerts which it would be a sin
to miss,
and invitations which it would never do
to refuse.

At last she grew desperate;
she resolved that she would go nowhere and be at home
to no one until she found a house,
and broke the resolution in half an hour.

Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been
to Simpson's restaurant in the Strand.

Now a note arrived from Miss Wilcox,
asking her
to lunch there.

Mr Cahill was coming and the three would have such a jolly chat,
and perhaps end up at the Hippodrome.

Margaret had no strong regard
for Evie,
and no desire
to meet her fiance,
and she was surprised that Helen,
who had been far funnier about Simpson's,
had not been asked instead.

But the invitation touched her by its intimate tone.

She must know Evie Wilcox better than she supposed,
and declaring that she
"simply must,"
she accepted.

But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant,
staring fiercely at nothing after the fashion of athletic women,
her heart failed her anew.

Miss Wilcox had changed perceptibly since her engagement.

Her voice was gruffer,
her manner more downright,
and she was inclined
to patronise the more foolish virgin.

Margaret was silly enough
to be pained at this.

Depressed at her isolation,
she saw not only houses and furniture,
but the vessel of life itself slipping past her,
with people like Evie and Mr. Cahill on board.

There are moments when virtue and wisdom fail us,
and one of them came
to her at Simpson's in the Strand.

As she trod the staircase,
narrow,
but carpeted thickly,
as she entered the eating-room,
where saddles of mutton were being trundled up
to expectant clergymen,
she had a strong,
if erroneous,
coviction of her own futility,
and wished she had never come out of her backwater,
where nothing happened except art and literature,
and where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged.

Then came a little surprise.

"Father might be of the party--yes,
father was."

With a smile of pleasure she moved forward
to greet him,
and her feeling of loneliness vanished.

"I thought I'd get round if I could,"
said he.

"Evie told me of her little plan,
so I just slipped in and secured a table.

Always secure a table first.

Evie,
don't pretend you want
to sit by your old father,
because you don't.

Miss Schlegel,
come in my side,
out of pity.

My goodness,
but you look tired! Been worrying round after your young clerks?"
"No,
after houses,"
said Margaret,
edging past him into the box.

"I'm hungry,
not tired;
I want
to eat heaps."

"That's good.

What'll you have?"
"Fish pie,"
said she,
with a glance at the menu.

"Fish pie! Fancy coming
for fish pie
to Simpson's.

It's not a bit the thing
to go
for here."

"Go
for something
for me,
then,"
said Margaret,
pulling off her gloves.

Her spirits were rising,
and his reference
to Leonard Bast had warmed her curiously.

"Saddle of mutton,"
said he after profound reflection;
"and cider
to drink.

That's the type of thing.

I like this place,
for a joke,
once in a way.

It is so thoroughly Old English.

Don't you agree?"
"Yes,"
said Margaret,
who didn't.

The order was given,
the joint rolled up,
and the carver,
under Mr. Wilcox's direction,
cut the meat where it was succulent,
and piled their plates high.

Mr. Cahill insisted on sirloin,
but admitted that he had made a mistake later on.

He and Evie soon fell into a conversation of the
"No,
I didn't;
yes,
you did"
type--conversation which,
though fascinating
to those who are engaged in it,
neither desires nor deserves the attention of others.

"It's a golden rule
to tip the carver.

Tip everywhere's my motto."

"Perhaps it does make life more human."

"Then the fellows know one again.

Especially in the East,
if you tip,
they remember you from year's end
to year's end."

"Have you been in the East?"
"Oh,
Greece and the Levant.

I used
to go out
for sport and business
to Cyprus;
some military society of a sort there.

A few piastres,
properly distributed,
help
to keep one's memory green.

But you,
of course,
think this shockingly cynical.

How's your discussion society getting on?

Any new Utopias lately?"
"No,
I'm house-hunting,
Mr. Wilcox,
as I've already told you once.

Do you know of any houses?"
"Afraid I don't."

"Well,
what's the point of being practical if you can't find two distressed females a house?

We merely want a small house
with large rooms,
and plenty of them."

"Evie,
I like that! Miss Schlegel expects me
to turn house-agent
for her!"
"What's that,
father?"
"I want a new home in September,
and some one must find it.

I can't."

"Percy,
do you know of anything?"
"I can't say I do,"
said Mr. Cahill.

"How like you! You're never any good."

"Never any good.

Just listen
to her! Never any good.

Oh,
come!"
"Well,
you aren't.

Miss Schlegel,
is he?"
The torrent of their love,
having splashed these drops at Margaret,
swept away on its habitual course.

She sympathised
with it now,
for a little comfort had restored her geniality.

Speech and silence pleased her equally,
and while Mr. Wilcox made some preliminary inquiries about cheese,
her eyes surveyed the restaurant,
and aired its well-calculated tributes
to the solidity of our past.

Though no more Old English than the works of Kipling,
it had selected its reminiscences so adroitly that her criticism was lulled,
and the guests whom it was nourishing
for imperial purposes bore the outer semblance of Parson Adams or Tom Jones.

Scraps of their talk jarred oddly on the ear.

"Right you are! I'll cable out
to Uganda this evening,"
came from the table behind.

"Their Emperor wants war;
well,
let him have it,"
was the opinion of a clergyman.

She smiled at such incongruities.

"Next time,"
she said
to Mr. Wilcox,
"you shall come
to lunch
with me at Mr. Eustace Miles's."

"With pleasure."

"No,
you'd hate it,"
she said,
pushing her glass towards him
for some more cider.

"It's all proteids and body buildings,
and people come up
to you and beg your pardon,
but you have such a beautiful aura."

"A what?"
"Never heard of an aura?

Oh,
happy,
happy man! I scrub at mine
for hours.

Nor of an astral plane?"
He had heard of astral planes,
and censured them.

"Just so.

Luckily it was Helen's aura,
not mine,
and she had
to chaperone it and do the politenesses.

I just sat
with my handkerchief in my mouth till the man went."

"Funny experiences seem
to come
to you two girls.

No one's ever asked me about my--what d'ye call it?

Perhaps I've not got one."

"You're bound
to have one,
but it may be such a terrible colour that no one dares mention it."

"Tell me,
though,
Miss Schlegel,
do you really believe in the supernatural and all that?"
"Too difficult a question."

"Why's that?

Gruyere or Stilton?"
"Gruyere,
please."

"Better have Stilton.

"Stilton.

Because,
though I don't believe in auras,
and think Theosophy's only a halfway-house--"
"--Yet there may be something in it all the same,"
he concluded,
with a frown.

"Not even that.

It may be halfway in the wrong direction.

I can't explain.

I don't believe in all these fads,
and yet I don't like saying that I don't believe in them."

He seemed unsatisfied,
and said:

"So you wouldn't give me your word that you DON'T hold
with astral bodies and all the rest of it?"
"I could,"
said Margaret,
surprised that the point was of any importance
to him.

"Indeed,
I will.

When I talked about scrubbing my aura,
I was only trying
to be funny.

But why do you want this settled?"
"I don't know."

"Now,
Mr. Wilcox,
you do know."

"Yes,
I am,"
"No,
you're not,"
burst from the lovers opposite.

Margaret was silent
for a moment,
and then changed the subject.

"How's your house?"
"Much the same as when you honoured it last week."

"I don't mean Ducie Street.

Howards End,
of course."

"Why
'of course'?"
"Can't you turn out your tenant and let it
to us?

We're nearly demented.

"
"Let me think.

I wish I could help you.

But I thought you wanted
to be in town.

One bit of advice:

fix your district,
then fix your price,
and then don't budge.

That's how I got both Ducie Street and Oniton.

I said
to myself,
'I mean
to be exactly here,'
and I was,
and Oniton's a place in a thousand."

"But I do budge.

Gentlemen seem
to mesmerise houses--cow them
with an eye,
and up they come,
trembling.

Ladies can't.

It's the houses that are mesmerising me.

I've no control over the saucy things.

Houses are alive.

No?"
"I'm out of my depth,"
he said,
and added:

"Didn't you talk rather like that
to your office boy?"
"Did I?--I mean I did,
more or less.

I talk the same way
to every one--or try to."

"Yes,
I know.

And how much of it do you suppose he understood?"
"That's his lookout.

I don't believe in suiting my conversation
to my company.

One can doubtless hit upon some medium of exchange that seems
to do well enough,
but it's no more like the real thing than money is like food.

There's no nourishment in it.

You pass it
to the lower classes,
and they pass it back
to you,
and this you call
'social intercourse'
or
'mutual endeavour,'
when it's mutual priggishness if it's anything.

Our friends at Chelsea don't see this.

They say one ought
to be at all costs intelligible,
and sacrifice--"
"Lower classes,"
interrupted Mr. Wilcox,
as it were thrusting his hand into her speech.

"Well,
you do admit that there are rich and poor.

That's something."

Margaret could not reply.

Was he incredibly stupid,
or did he understand her better than she understood herself?

"You do admit that,
if wealth was divided up equally,
in a few years there would be rich and poor again just the same.

The hard-working man would come
to the top,
the wastrel sink
to the bottom."

"Every one admits that."

"Your Socialists don't."

"My Socialists do.

Yours mayn't;
but I strongly suspect yours of being not Socialists,
but ninepins,
which you have constructed
for your own amusement.

I can't imagine any living creature who would bowl over quite so easily."

He would have resented this had she not been a woman.

But women may say anything--it was one of his holiest beliefs--and he only retorted,
with a gay smile:

"I don't care.

You've made two damaging admissions,
and I'm heartily
with you in both."

In time they finished lunch,
and Margaret,
who had excused herself from the Hippodrome,
took her leave.

Evie had scarcely addressed her,
and she suspected that the entertainment had been planned by the father.

He and she were advancing out of their respective families towards a more intimate acquaintance.

It had begun long ago.

She had been his wife's friend and,
as such,
he had given her that silver vinaigrette as a memento.

It was pretty of him
to have given that vinaigrette,
and he had always preferred her
to Helen--unlike most men.

But the advance had been astonishing lately.

They had done more in a week than in two years,
and were really beginning
to know each other.

She did not forget his promise
to sample Eustace Miles,
and asked him as soon as she could secure Tibby as his chaperon.

He came,
and partook of body-building dishes
with humility.

Next morning the Schlegels left
for Swanage.

They had not succeeded in finding a new home.

CHAPTER XVIII As they were seated at Aunt Juley's breakfast-table at The Bays,
parrying her excessive hospitality and enjoying the view of the bay,
a letter came
for Margaret and threw her into perturbation.

It was from Mr. Wilcox.

It announced an
"important change"
in his plans.

Owing
to Evie's marriage,
he had decided
to give up his house in Ducie Street,
and was willing
to let it on a yearly tenancy.

It was a businesslike letter,
and stated frankly what he would do
for them and what he would not do.

Also the rent.

If they approved,
Margaret was
to come up AT ONCE--the words were underlined,
as is necessary when dealing
with women--and
to go over the house
with him.

If they disapproved,
a wire would oblige,
as he should put it into the hands of an agent.

The letter perturbed,
because she was not sure what it meant.

If he liked her,
if he had manoeuvred
to get her
to Simpson's,
might this be a manoeuvre
to get her
to London,
and result in an offer of marriage?

She put it
to herself as indelicately as possible,
in the hope that her brain would cry,
"Rubbish,
you're a self-conscious fool!"
But her brain only tingled a little and was silent,
and
for a time she sat gazing at the mincing waves,
and wondering whether the news would seem strange
to the others.

As soon as she began speaking,
the sound of her own voice reassured her.

There could be nothing in it.

The replies also were typical,
and in the burr of conversation her fears vanished.

"You needn't go though--"began her hostess.

"I needn't,
but hadn't I better?

It's really getting rather serious.

We let chance after chance slip,
and the end of it is we shall be bundled out bag and baggage into the street.

We don't know what we WANT,
that's the mischief
with us--"
"No,
we have no real ties,"
said Helen,
helping herself
to toast.

"Shan't I go up
to town to-day,
take the house if it's the least possible,
and then come down by the afternoon train to-morrow,
and start enjoying myself.

I shall be no fun
to myself or
to others until this business is off my mind.

"But you won't do anything rash,
Margaret?"
"There's nothing rash
to do."

"Who ARE the Wilcoxes?"
said Tibby,
a question that sounds silly,
but was really extremely subtle as his aunt found
to her cost when she tried
to answer it.

"I don't MANAGE the Wilcoxes;
I don't see where they come IN."

"No more do I,"
agreed Helen.

"It's funny that we just don't lose sight of them.

Out of all our hotel acquaintances,
Mr. Wilcox is the only one who has stuck.

It is now over three years,
and we have drifted away from far more interesting people in that time."

"Interesting people don't get one houses."

"Meg,
if you start in your honest-English vein,
I shall throw the treacle at you."

"It's a better vein than the cosmopolitan,"
said Margaret,
getting up.

"Now,
children,
which is it
to be?

You know the Ducie Street house.

Shall I say yes or shall I say no?

Tibby love-- which?

I'm specially anxious
to pin you both."

"It all depends on what meaning you attach
to the word
'possible'"
"It depends on nothing of the sort.

Say
'yes.'
"
"Say
'no.'
"
Then Margaret spoke rather seriously.

"I think,"
she said,
"that our race is degenerating.

We cannot settle even this little thing;
what will it be like when we have
to settle a big one?"
"It will be as easy as eating,"
returned Helen.

"I was thinking of father.

How could he settle
to leave Germany as he did,
when he had fought
for it as a young man,
and all his feelings and friends were Prussian?

How could he break loose
with Patriotism and begin aiming at something else?

It would have killed me.

When he was nearly forty he could change countries and ideals--and we,
at our age,
can't change houses.

It's humiliating."

"Your father may have been able
to change countries,"
said Mrs. Munt
with asperity,
"and that may or may not be a good thing.

But he could change houses no better than you can,
in fact,
much worse.

Never shall I forget what poor Emily suffered in the move from Manchester."

"I knew it,"
cried Helen.

"I told you so.

It is the little things one bungles at.

The big,
real ones are nothing when they come."

"Bungle,
my dear! You are too little
to recollect--in fact,
you weren't there.

But the furniture was actually in the vans and on the move before the lease
for Wickham Place was signed,
and Emily took train
with baby--who was Margaret then--and the smaller luggage
for London,
without so much as knowing where her new home would be.

Getting away from that house may be hard,
but it is nothing
to the misery that we all went through getting you into it."

Helen,
with her mouth full,
cried:

"And that's the man who beat the Austrians,
and the Danes,
and the French,
and who beat the Germans that were inside himself.

And we're like him."

"Speak
for yourself,"
said Tibby.

"Remember that I am cosmopolitan,
please."

"Helen may be right."

"Of course she's right,"
said Helen.

Helen might be right,
but she did not go up
to London.

Margaret did that.

An interrupted holiday is the worst of the minor worries,
and one may be pardoned
for feeling morbid when a business letter snatches one away from the sea and friends.

She could not believe that her father had ever felt the same.

Her eyes had been troubling her lately,
so that she could not read in the train and it bored her
to look at the landscape,
which she had seen but yesterday.

At Southampton she
"waved"
to Frieda;
Frieda was on her way down
to join them at Swanage,
and Mrs. Munt had calculated that their trains would cross.

But Frieda was looking the other way,
and Margaret travelled on
to town feeling solitary and old-maidish.

How like an old maid
to fancy that Mr. Wilcox was courting her! She had once visited a spinster--poor,
silly,
and unattractive--whose mania it was that every man who approached her fell in love.

How Margaret's heart had bled
for the deluded thing! How she had lectured,
reasoned,
and in despair acquiesced!
"I may have been deceived by the curate,
my dear,
but the young fellow who brings the midday post really is fond of me,
and has,
as a matter of fact--"
It had always seemed
to her the most hideous corner of old age,
yet she might be driven into it herself by the mere pressure of virginity.

Mr. Wilcox met her at Waterloo himself.

She felt certain that he was not the same as usual;
for one thing,
he took offence at everything she said.

"This is awfully kind of you,"
she began,
"but I'm afraid it's not going
to do.

The house has not been built that suits the Schlegel family."

"What! Have you come up determined not
to deal?"
"Not exactly."

"Not exactly?

In that case let's be starting."

She lingered
to admire the motor,
which was new,
and a fairer creature than the vermilion giant that had borne Aunt Juley
to her doom three years before.

"Presumably it's very beautiful,"
she said.

"How do you like it,
Crane?"
"Come,
let's be starting,"
repeated her host.

"How on earth did you know that my chauffeur was called Crane?"
"Why,
I know Crane;
I've been
for a drive
with Evie once.

I know that you've got a parlourmaid called Milton.

I know all sorts of things."

"Evie!"
he echoed in injured tones.

"You won't see her.

She's gone out
with Cahill.

It's no fun,
I can tell you,
being left so much alone.

I've got my work all day--indeed,
a great deal too much of it--but when I come home in the evening,
I tell you,
I can't stand the house."

"In my absurd way,
I'm lonely too,"
Margaret replied.

"It's heart-breaking
to leave one's old home.

I scarcely remember anything before Wickham Place,
and Helen and Tibby were born there.

Helen says--"
"You,
too,
feel lonely?"
"Horribly.

Hullo,
Parliament's back!"
Mr. Wilcox glanced at Parliament contemptuously.

The more important ropes of life lay elsewhere.

"Yes,
they are talking again,"
said he.

"But you were going
to say--"
"Only some rubbish about furniture.

Helen says it alone endures while men and houses perish,
and that in the end the world will be a desert of chairs and sofas--just imagine it!--rolling through infinity
with no one
to sit upon them."

"Your sister always likes her little joke."

"She says
'Yes,'
my brother says `No,'
to Ducie Street.

It's no fun helping us,
Mr. Wilcox,
I assure you."

"You are not as unpractical as you pretend.

I shall never believe it."

Margaret laughed.

But she was--quite as unpractical.

She could not concentrate on details.

Parliament,
the Thames,
the irresponsive chauffeur,
would flash into the field of house-hunting,
and all demand some comment or response.

It is impossible
to see modern life steadily and see it whole,
and she had chosen
to see it whole.

Mr. Wilcox saw steadily.

He never bothered over the mysterious or the private.

The Thames might run inland from the sea,
the chauffeur might conceal all passion and philosophy beneath his unhealthy skin.

They knew their own business,
and he knew his.

Yet she liked being
with him.

He was not a rebuke,
but a stimulus,
and banished morbidity.

Some twenty years her senior,
he preserved a gift that she supposed herself
to have already lost--not youth's creative power,
but its self-confidence and optimism.

He was so sure that it was a very pleasant world.

His complexion was robust,
his hair had receded but not thinned,
the thick moustache and the eyes that Helen had compared
to brandy-balls had an agreeable menace in them,
whether they were turned towards the slums or towards the stars.

Some day--in the millennium--there may be no need
for his type.

At present,
homage is due
to it from those who think themselves superior,
and who possibly are.

"At all events you responded
to my telegram promptly,"
he remarked.

"Oh,
even I know a good thing when I see it."

"I'm glad you don't despise the goods of this world."

"Heavens,
no! Only idiots and prigs do that."

"I am glad,
very glad,"
he repeated,
suddenly softening and turning
to her,
as if the remark had pleased him.

"There is so much cant talked in would-be intellectual circles.

I am glad you don't share it.

Self-denial is all very well as a means of strengthening the character.

But I can't stand those people who run down comforts.

They have usually some axe
to grind.

Can you?"
"Comforts are of two kinds,"
said Margaret,
who was keeping herself in hand--"those we can share
with others,
like fire,
weather,
or music;
and those we can't--food,
food,
for instance.

It depends."

"I mean reasonable comforts,
of course.

I shouldn't like
to think that you--"
He bent nearer;
the sentence died unfinished.

Margaret's head turned very stupid,
and the inside of it seemed
to revolve like the beacon in a lighthouse.

He did not kiss her,
for the hour was half-past twelve,
and the car was passing by the stables of Buckingham Palace.

But the atmosphere was so charged
with emotion that people only seemed
to exist on her account,
and she was surprised that Crane did not realise this,
and turn round.

Idiot though she might be,
surely Mr. Wilcox was more--how should one put it?--more psychological than usual.

Always a good judge of character
for business purposes,
he seemed this afternoon
to enlarge his field,
and
to note qualities outside neatness,
obedience,
and decision.

"I want
to go over the whole house,"
she announced when they arrived.

"As soon as I get back
to Swanage,
which will be to-morrow afternoon,
I'll talk it over once more
with Helen and Tibby,
and wire you
'yes'
or
'no.'
"
"Right.

The dining-room."

And they began their survey.

The dining-room was big,
but over-furnished.

Chelsea would have moaned aloud.

Mr. Wilcox had eschewed those decorative schemes that wince,
and relent,
and refrain,
and achieve beauty by sacrificing comfort and pluck.

After so much self-colour and self-denial,
Margaret viewed
with relief the sumptuous dado,
the frieze,
the gilded wall-paper,
amid whose foliage parrots sang.

It would never do
with her own furniture,
but those heavy chairs,
that immense sideboard loaded
with presentation plate,
stood up against its pressure like men.

The room suggested men,
and Margaret,
keen
to derive the modern capitalist from the warriors and hunters of the past,
saw it as an ancient guest-hall,
where the lord sat at meat among his thanes.

Even the Bible--the Dutch Bible that Charles had brought back from the Boer War--fell into position.

Such a room admitted loot.

"Now the entrance-hall."

The entrance-hall was paved.

"Here we fellows smoke."

We fellows smoked in chairs of maroon leather.

It was as if a motor-car had spawned.

"Oh,
jolly!"
said Margaret,
sinking into one of them.

"You do like it?"
he said,
fixing his eyes on her upturned face,
and surely betraying an almost intimate note.

"It's all rubbish not making oneself comfortable.

Isn't it?"
"Ye--es.

Semi-rubbish.

Are those Cruikshanks?"
"Gillrays.

Shall we go on upstairs?"
"Does all this furniture come from Howards End?"
"The Howards End furniture has all gone
to Oniton."

"Does-- However,
I'm concerned
with the house,
not the furniture.

How big is this smoking-room?"
"Thirty by fifteen.

No,
wait a minute.

Fifteen and a half."

"Ah,
well.

Mr. Wilcox,
aren't you ever amused at the solemnity
with which we middle classes approach the subject of houses?"
They proceeded
to the drawing-room.

Chelsea managed better here.

It was sallow and ineffective.

One could visualise the ladies withdrawing
to it,
while their lords discussed life's realities below,
to the accompaniment of cigars.

Had Mrs. Wilcox's drawing-room at Howards End looked thus?

Just as this thought entered Margaret's brain,
Mr. Wilcox did ask her
to be his wife,
and the knowledge that she had been right so overcame her that she nearly fainted.

But the proposal was not
to rank among the world's great love scenes.

"Miss Schlegel"--his voice was firm--"I have had you up on false pretences.

I want
to speak about a much more serious matter than a house."

Margaret almost answered:

"I know--"
"Could you be induced
to share my--is it probable--"
"Oh,
Mr. Wilcox!"
she interrupted,
taking hold of the piano and averting her eyes.

"I see,
I see.

I will write
to you afterwards if I may."

He began
to stammer.

"Miss Schlegel--Margaret you don't understand."

"Oh yes! Indeed,
yes!"
said Margaret.

"I am asking you
to be my wife."

So deep already was her sympathy,
that when he said,
"I am asking you
to be my wife,"
she made herself give a little start.

She must show surprise if he expected it.

An immense joy came over her.

It was indescribable.

It had nothing
to do
with humanity,
and most resembled the all-pervading happiness of fine weather.

Fine weather is due
to the sun,
but Margaret could think of no central radiance here.

She stood in his drawing-room happy,
and longing
to give happiness.

On leaving him she realised that the central radiance had been love.

"You aren't offended,
Miss Schlegel?"
"How could I be offended?"
There was a moment's pause.

He was anxious
to get rid of her,
and she knew it.

She had too much intuition
to look at him as he struggled
for possessions that money cannot buy.

He desired comradeship and affection,
but he feared them,
and she,
who had taught herself only
to desire,
and could have clothed the struggle
with beauty,
held back,
and hesitated
with him.

"Good-bye,"
she continued.

"You will have a letter from me--I am going back
to Swanage to-morrow."

"Thank you."

"Good-bye,
and it's you I thank."

"I may order the motor round,
mayn't I?"
"That would be most kind."

"I wish I had written.

Ought I
to have written?"
"Not at all."

"There's just one question--"
She shook her head.

He looked a little bewildered as they parted.

They parted without shaking hands;
she had kept the interview,
for his sake,
in tints of the quietest grey.

she thrilled
with happiness ere she reached her house.

Others had loved her in the past,
if one apply
to their brief desires so grave a word,
but the others had been
"ninnies"--young men who had nothing
to do,
old men who could find nobody better.

And she had often
'loved,'
too,
but only so far as the facts of sex demanded:

mere yearnings
for the masculine sex
to be dismissed
for what they were worth,
with a sigh.

Never before had her personality been touched.

She was not young or very rich,
and it amazed her that a man of any standing should take her seriously as she sat,
trying
to do accounts in her empty house,
amidst beautiful pictures and noble books,
waves of emotion broke,
as if a tide of passion was flowing through the night air.

She shook her head,
tried
to concentrate her attention,
and failed.

In vain did she repeat:

"But I've been through this sort of thing before."

She had never been through it;
the big machinery,
as opposed
to the little,
had been set in motion,
and the idea that Mr. Wilcox loved,
obsessed her before she came
to love him in return.

She would come
to no decision yet.

"oh,
sir,
this is so sudden"-- that prudish phrase exactly expressed her when her time came.

Premonitions are not preparation.

She must examine more closely her own nature and his;
she must talk it over judicially
with Helen.

It had been a strange love-scene--the central radiance unacknowledged from first
to last.

She,
in his place,
would have said Ich liebe dich,
but perhaps it was not his habit
to open the heart.

He might have done it if she had pressed him--as a matter of duty,
perhaps;
England expects every man
to open his heart once;
but the effort would have jarred him,
and never,
if she could avoid it,
should he lose those defences that he had chosen
to raise against the world.

He must never be bothered
with emotional talk,
or
with a display of sympathy.

He was an elderly man now,
and it would be futile and impudent
to correct him.

Mrs. Wilcox strayed in and out,
ever a welcome ghost;
surveying the scene,
thought Margaret,
without one hint of bitterness.

CHAPTER XIX If one wanted
to show a foreigner England,
perhaps the wisest course would be
to take him
to the final section of the Purbeck Hills,
and stand him on their summit,
a few miles
to the east of Corfe.

Then system after system of our island would roll together under his feet.

Beneath him is the valley of the Frome,
and all the wild lands that come tossing down from Dorchester,
black and gold,
to mirror their gorse in the expanses of Poole.

The valley of the Stour is beyond,
unaccountable stream,
dirty at Blandford,
pure at Wimborne--the Stour,
sliding out of fat fields,
to marry the Avon beneath the tower of Christ church.

The valley of the Avon--invisible,
but far
to the north the trained eye may see Clearbury Ring that guards it,
and the imagination may leap beyond that on
to Salisbury Plain itself,
and beyond the Plain
to all the glorious downs of Central England.

Nor is Suburbia absent.

Bournemouth's ignoble coast cowers
to the right,
heralding the pine-trees that mean,
for all their beauty,
red houses,
and the Stock Exchange,
and extend
to the gates of London itself.

So tremendous is the City's trail! But the cliffs of Freshwater it shall never touch,
and the island will guard the Island's purity till the end of time.

Seen from the west the Wight is beautiful beyond all laws of beauty.

It is as if a fragment of England floated forward
to greet the foreigner--chalk of our chalk,
turf of our turf,
epitome of what will follow.

And behind the fragment lies Southampton,
hostess
to the nations,
and Portsmouth,
a latent fire,
and all around it,
with double and treble collision of tides,
swirls the sea.

How many villages appear in this view! How many castles! How many churches,
vanished or triumphant! How many ships,
railways,
and roads! What incredible variety of men working beneath that lucent sky
to what final end! The reason fails,
like a wave on the Swanage beach;
the imagination swells,
spreads,
and deepens,
until it becomes geographic and encircles England.

So Frieda Mosebach,
now Frau Architect Liesecke,
and mother
to her husband's baby,
was brought up
to these heights
to be impressed,
and,
after a prolonged gaze,
she said that the hills were more swelling here than in Pomerania,
which was true,
but did not seem
to Mrs. Munt apposite.

Poole Harbour was dry,
which led her
to praise the absence of muddy foreshore at Friedrich Wilhelms Bad,
Rugen,
where beech-trees hang over the tideless Baltic,
and cows may contemplate the brine.

Rather unhealthy Mrs. Munt thought this would be,
water being safer when it moved about.

"And your English lakes--Vindermere,
Grasmere they,
then,
unhealthy?"
"No,
Frau Liesecke;
but that is because they are fresh water,
and different.

Salt water ought
to have tides,
and go up and down a great deal,
or else it smells.

Look,
for instance,
at an aquarium."

"An aquarium! Oh,
MEESIS Munt,
you mean
to tell me that fresh aquariums stink less than salt?

Why,
then Victor,
my brother-in-law,
collected many tadpoles--"
"You are not
to say
'stink,'"
interrupted Helen;
"at least,
you may say it,
but you must pretend you are being funny while you say it."

"Then
'smell.'

And the mud of your Pool down there--does it not smell,
or may I say
'stink,'
ha,
ha?"
"There always has been mud in Poole Harbour,"
said Mrs. Munt,
with a slight frown.

"The rivers bring it down,
and a most valuable oyster-fishery depends upon it."

"Yes,
that is so,"
conceded Frieda;
and another international incident was closed.

"'Bournemouth is,'"
resumed their hostess,
quoting a local rhyme
to which she was much attached--"'Bournemouth is,
Poole was,
and Swanage is
to be the hmst important town of all and biggest of the three.'

Now,
Frau Liesecke,
I have shown you Bournemouth,
and I have shown you Poole,
so let us walk backward a little,
and look down again at Swanage."

"Aunt Juley,
wouldn't that be Meg's train?"
A tiny puff of smoke had been circling the harbour,
and now was bearing southwards towards them over the black and the gold.

"Oh,
dearest Margaret,
I do hope she won't be overtired."

"Oh,
I do wonder--I do wonder whether she's taken the house."

"I hope she hasn't been hasty."

"So do I--oh,
SO do I."

"Will it be as beautiful as Wickham Place?"
Frieda asked.

"I should think it would.

Trust Mr. Wilcox
for doing himself proud.

All those Ducie Street houses are beautiful in their modern way,
and I can't think why he doesn't keep on
with it.

But it's really
for Evie that he went there,
and now that Evie's going
to be married--"
"Ah!"
"You've never seen Miss Wilcox,
Frieda.

How absurdly matrimonial you are!"
"But sister
to that Paul?"
"Yes."

"And
to that Charles,"
said Mrs. Munt
with feeling.

"Oh,
Helen,
Helen,
what a time that was!"
Helen laughed.

"Meg and I haven't got such tender hearts.

If there's a chance of a cheap house,
we go
for it."

"Now look,
Frau Liesecke,
at my niece's train.

You see,
it is coming towards us--coming,
coming;
and,
when it gets
to Corfe,
it will actually go THROUGH the downs,
on which we are standing,
so that,
if we walk over,
as I suggested,
and look down on Swanage,
we shall see it coming on the other side.

Shall we?"
Frieda assented,
and in a few minutes they had crossed the ridge and exchanged the greater view
for the lesser.

Rather a dull valley lay below,
backed by the slope of the coastward downs.

They were looking across the Isle of Purbeck and on
to Swanage,
soon
to be the most important town of all,
and ugliest of the three.

Margaret's train reappeared as promised,
and was greeted
with approval by her aunt.

It came
to a standstill in the middle distance,
and there it had been planned that Tibby should meet her,
and drive her,
and a tea-basket,
up
to join them.

"You see,"
continued Helen
to her cousin,
"the Wilcoxes collect houses as your Victor collects tadpoles.

They have,
one,
Ducie Street;
two,
Howards End,
where my great rumpus was;
three,
a country seat in Shropshire;
four,
Charles has a house in Hilton;
and five,
another near Epsom;
and six,
Evie will have a house when she marries,
and probably a pied-a-terre in the country-- which makes seven.

Oh yes,
and Paul a hut in Africa makes eight.

I wish we could get Howards End.

That was something like a dear little house! Didn't you think so,
Aunt Juley?"
"I had too much
to do,
dear,
to look at it,"
said Mrs. Munt,
with a gracious dignity.

"I had everything
to settle and explain,
and Charles Wilcox
to keep in his place besides.

It isn't likely I should remember much.

I just remember having lunch in your bedroom."

"Yes,
so do I.

But,
oh dear,
dear,
how dreadful it all seems! And in the autumn there began that anti-Pauline movement--you,
and Frieda,
and Meg,
and Mrs. Wilcox,
all obsessed
with the idea that I might yet marry Paul."

"You yet may,"
said Frieda despondently.

Helen shook her head.

"The Great Wilcox Peril will never return.

If I'm certain of anything it's of that."

"One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions."

The remark fell damply on the conversation.

But Helen slipped her arm round her cousin,
somehow liking her the better
for making it.

It was not an original remark,
nor had Frieda appropriated it passionately,
for she had a patriotic rather than a philosophic mind.

Yet it betrayed that interest in the universal which the average Teuton possesses and the average Englishman does not.

It was,
however illogically,
the good,
the beautiful,
the true,
as opposed
to the respectable,
the pretty,
the adequate.

It was a landscape of Bocklin's beside a landscape of Leader's,
strident and ill-considered,
but quivering into supernatural life.

It sharpened idealism,
stirred the soul.

It may have been a bad preparation
for what followed.

"Look!"
cried Aunt Juley,
hurrying away from generalities over the narrow summit of the down.

"Stand where I stand,
and you will see the pony-cart coming.

I see the pony-cart coming."

They stood and saw the pony-cart coming.

Margaret and Tibby were presently seen coming in it.

Leaving the outskirts of Swanage,
it drove
for a little through the budding lanes,
and then began the ascent.

"Have you got the house?"
they shouted,
long before she could possibly hear.

Helen ran down
to meet her.

The highroad passed over a saddle,
and a track went thence at right angles alone the ridge of the down.

"Have you got the house?"
Margaret shook her head.

"Oh,
what a nuisance! So we're as we were?"
"Not exactly."

She got out,
looking tired.

"Some mystery,"
said Tibby.

"We are
to be enlightened presently."

Margaret came close up
to her and whispered that she had had a proposal of marriage from Mr. Wilcox.

Helen was amused.

She opened the gate on
to the downs so that her brother might lead the pony through.

"It's just like a widower,"
she remarked.

"They've cheek enough
for anything,
and invariably select one of their first wife's friends."

Margaret's face flashed despair.

"That type--"
She broke off
with a cry.

"Meg,
not anything wrong
with you?"
"Wait one minute,"
said Margaret,
whispering always.

"But you've never conceivably--you've never--"
She pulled herself together.

"Tibby,
hurry up through;
I can't hold this gate indefinitely.

Aunt Juley! I say,
Aunt Juley,
make the tea,
will you,
and Frieda;
we've got
to talk houses,
and will come on afterwards."

And then,
turning her face
to her sister's,
she burst into tears.

Margaret was stupefied.

She heard herself saying,
"Oh,
really--"
She felt herself touched
with a hand that trembled.

"Don't,"
sobbed Helen,
"don't,
don't,
Meg,
don't!"
She seemed incapable of saying any other word.

Margaret,
trembling herself,
led her forward up the road,
till they strayed through another gate on
to the down.

"Don't,
don't do such a thing! I tell you not to--don't! I know-- don't!"
"What do you know?"
"Panic and emptiness,"
sobbed Helen.

"Don't!"
Then Margaret thought,
"Helen is a little selfish.

I have never behaved like this when there has seemed a chance of her marrying."

She said:

"But we would still see each other very-- often,
and you--"
"It's not a thing like that,"
sobbed Helen.

And she broke right away and wandered distractedly upwards,
stretching her hands towards the view and crying.

"What's happened
to you?"
called Margaret,
following through the wind that gathers at sundown on the northern slopes of hills.

"But it's stupid!"
And suddenly stupidity seized her,
and the immense landscape was blurred.

But Helen turned back.

"I don't know what's happened
to either of us,"
said Margaret,
wiping her eyes.

"We must both have done mad."

Then Helen wiped hers,
and they even laughed a little.

"Look here,
sit down."

"All right;
I'll sit down if you'll sit down."

"There.

(One kiss.)
Now,
whatever,
whatever is the matter?"
"I do mean what I said.

Don't;
it wouldn't do."

"Oh,
Helen,
stop saying
'don't'! It's ignorant.

It's as if your head wasn't out of the slime.

'Don't'
is probably what Mrs. Bast says all the day
to Mr. Bast."

Helen was silent.

"Well?"
"Tell me about it first,
and meanwhile perhaps I'll have got my head out of the slime."

"That's better.

Well,
where shall I begin?

When I arrived at Waterloo--no,
I'll go back before that,
because I'm anxious you should know everything from the first.

The
'first'
was about ten days ago.

It was the day Mr. Bast came
to tea and lost his temper.

I was defending him,
and Mr. Wilcox became jealous about me,
however slightly.

I thought it was the involuntary thing,
which men can't help any more than we can.

You know--at least,
I know in my own case--when a man has said
to me,
'So-and-so's a pretty girl,'
I am seized
with a momentary sourness against So- and-so,
and long
to tweak her ear.

It's a tiresome feeling,
but not an important one,
and one easily manages it.

But it wasn't only this in Mr. Wilcox's case,
I gather now."

"Then you love him?'
Margaret considered.

"It is wonderful knowing that a real man cares
for you,"
she said.

"The mere fact of that grows more tremendous.

Remember,
I've known and liked him steadily
for nearly three years."

"But loved him?"
Margaret peered into her past.

It is pleasant
to analyse feelings while they are still only feelings,
and unembodied in the social fabric.

With her arm round Helen,
and her eyes shifting over the view,
as if this country or that could reveal the secret of her own heart,
she meditated honestly,
and said,
"No."

"But you will?"
"Yes,"
said Margaret,
"of that I'm pretty sure.

Indeed,
I began the moment he spoke
to me."

"And have settled
to marry him?"
"I had,
but am wanting a long talk about it now.

What is it against him,
Helen?

You must try and say."

Helen,
in her turn,
looked outwards.

"It is ever since Paul,"
she said finally.

"But what has Mr. Wilcox
to do
with Paul?"
"But he was there,
they were all there that morning when I came down
to breakfast,
and saw that Paul was frightened--the man who loved me frightened and all his paraphernalia fallen,
so that I knew it was impossible,
because personal relations are the important thing
for ever and ever,
and not this outer life of telegrams and anger."

She poured the sentence forth in one breath,
but her sister understood it,
because it touched on thoughts that were familiar between them.

"That's foolish.

In the first place,
I disagree about the outer life.

Well,
we've often argued that.

The real point is that there is the widest gulf between my love-making and yours.

Yours was romance;
mine will be prose.

I'm not running it down--a very good kind of prose,
but well considered,
well thought out.

For instance,
I know all Mr. Wilcox's faults.

He's afraid of emotion.

He cares too much about success,
too little about the past.

His sympathy lacks poetry,
and so isn't sympathy really.

I'd even say
"--she looked at the shining lagoons--"that,
spiritually,
he's not as honest as I am.

Doesn't that satisfy you?"
"No,
it doesn't,"
said Helen.

"It makes me feel worse and worse.

You must be mad."

Margaret made a movement of irritation.

"I don't intend him,
or any man or any woman,
to be all my life-- good heavens,
no! There are heaps of things in me that he doesn't,
and shall never,
understand."

Thus she spoke before the wedding ceremony and the physical union,
before the astonishing glass shade had fallen that interposes between married couples and the world.

She was
to keep her independence more than do most women as yet.

Marriage was
to alter her fortunes rather than her character,
and she was not far wrong in boasting that she understood her future husband.

Yet he did alter her character--a little.

There was an unforeseen surprise,
a cessation of the winds and odours of life,
a social pressure that would have her think conjugally.

"So
with him,"
she continued.

"There are heaps of things in him-- more especially things that he does that will always be hidden from me.

He has all those public qualities which you so despise and which enable all this--"
She waved her hand at the landscape,
which confirmed anything.

"If Wilcoxes hadn't worked and died in England
for thousands of years,
you and I couldn't sit here without having our throats cut.

There would be no trains,
no ships
to carry us literary people about in,
no fields even.

Just savagery.

No--perhaps not even that.

Without their spirit life might never have moved out of protoplasm.

More and more do I refuse
to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it.

There are times when it seems
to me--"
"And
to me,
and
to all women.

So one kissed Paul."

"That's brutal."

said
'Margaret.

"Mine is an absolutely different case.

I've thought things out."

"It makes no difference thinking things out.

They come
to the same."

"Rubbish!"
There was a long silence,
during which the tide returned into Poole Harbour.

"One would lose something,"
murmured Helen,
apparently
to herself.

The water crept over the mud-flats towards the gorse and the blackened heather.

Branksea Island lost its immense foreshores,
and became a sombre episode of trees.

Frome was forced inward towards Dorchester,
Stour against Wimborne,
Avon towards Salisbury,
and over the immense displacement the sun presided,
leading it
to triumph ere he sank
to rest.

England was alive,
throbbing through all her estuaries,
crying
for joy through the mouths of all her gulls,
and the north wind,
with contrary motion,
blew stronger against her rising seas.

What did it mean?

For what end are her fair complexities,
her changes of soil,
her sinuous coast?

Does she belong
to those who have moulded her and made her feared by other lands,
or
to those who have added nothing
to her power,
but have somehow seen her,
seen the whole island at once,
lying as a jewel in a silver sea,
sailing as a ship of souls,
with all the brave world's fleet accompanying her towards eternity?

CHAPTER XX Margaret had often wondered at the disturbance that takes place in the world's waters,
when Love,
who seems so tiny a pebble,
slips in.

Whom does Love concern beyond the beloved and the lover?

Yet his impact deluges a hundred shores.

No doubt the disturbance is really the spirit of the generations,
welcoming the new generation,
and chafing against the ultimate Fate,
who holds all the seas in the palm of her hand.

But Love cannot understand this.

He cannot comprehend another's infinity;
he is conscious only of his own--flying sunbeam,
falling rose,
pebble that asks
for one quiet plunge below the fretting interplay of space and time.

He knows that he will survive at the end of things,
and be gathered by Fate as a jewel from the slime,
and be handed
with admiration round the assembly of the gods.

"Men did produce this"
they will say,
and,
saying,
they will give men immortality.

But meanwhile--what agitations meanwhile! The foundations of Property and Propriety are laid bare,
twin rocks;
Family Pride flounders
to the surface,
puffing and blowing and refusing
to be comforted;
Theology,
vaguely ascetic,
gets up a nasty ground swell.

Then the lawyers are aroused--cold brood--and creep out of their holes.

They do what they can;
they tidy up Property and Propriety,
reassure Theology and Family Pride.

Half-guineas are poured on the troubled waters,
the lawyers creep back,
and,
if all has gone well,
Love joins one man and woman together in Matrimony.

Margaret had expected the disturbance,
and was not irritated by it.

For a sensitive woman she had steady nerves,
and could bear
with the incongruous and the grotesque;
and,
besides,
there was nothing excessive about her love-affair.

Good-humour was the dominant note of her relations
with Mr. Wilcox,
or,
as I must now call him,
Henry.

Henry did not encourage romance,
and she was no girl
to fidget
for it.

An acquaintance had become a lover,
might become a husband,
but would retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance;
and love must confirm an old relation rather than reveal a new one.

In this spirit she promised
to marry him.

He was in Swanage on the morrow bearing the engagement ring.

They greeted one another
with a hearty cordiality that impressed Aunt Juley.

Henry dined at The Bays,
but had engaged a bedroom in the principal hotel;
he was one of those men who know the principal hotel by instinct.

After dinner he asked Margaret if she wouldn't care
for a turn on the Parade.

She accepted,
and could not repress a little tremor;
it would be her first real love scene.

But as she put on her hat she burst out laughing.

Love was so unlike the article served up in books;
the joy,
though genuine was different;
the mystery an unexpected mystery.

For one thing,
Mr. Wilcox still seemed a stranger.

For a time they talked about the ring;
then she said:

"Do you remember the Embankment at Chelsea?

It can't be ten days ago."

"Yes,"
he said,
laughing.

"And you and your sister were head and ears deep in some Quixotic scheme.

Ah well!"
"I little thought then,
certainly.

Did you?"
"I don't know about that;
I shouldn't like
to say."

"Why,
was it earlier?"
she cried.

"Did you think of me this way earlier! How extraordinarily interesting,
Henry! Tell me."

But Henry had no intention of telling.

Perhaps he could not have told,
for his mental states became obscure as soon as he had passed through them.

He misliked the very word
"interesting,"
connoting it
with wasted energy and even
with morbidity.

Hard facts were enough
for him.

"I didn't think of it,"
she pursued.

"No;
when you spoke
to me in the drawing-room,
that was practically the first.

It was all so different from what it's supposed
to be.

On the stage,
or in books,
a proposal is--how shall I put it?--a full-blown affair,
a hind of bouquet;
it loses its literal meaning.

But in life a proposal really is a proposal--"
"By the way--"
"Oh,
very well."

"I am so glad,"
she answered,
a little surprised.

"What did you talk about?

Me,
presumably."

"About Greece too."

"Greece was a very good card,
Henry.

Tibby's only a boy still,
and one has
to pick and choose subjects a little.

Well done."

"I was telling him I have shares in a currant-farm near Calamata."

"What a delightful thing
to have shares in! Can't we go there
for our honeymoon?"
"What
to do?"
"To eat the currants.

And isn't there marvellous scenery?"
"Moderately,
but it's not the kind of place one could possibly go
to
with a lady."

"Why not?"
"No hotels."

"Some ladies do without hotels.

Are you aware that Helen and I have walked alone over the Apennines,
with our luggage on our backs?"
"I wasn't aware,
and,
if I can manage it,
you will never do such a thing again."

She said more gravely:

"You haven't found time
for a talk
with Helen yet,
I suppose?"
"No."

"Do,
before you go.

I am so anxious you two should be friends."

"Your sister and I have always hit it off,"
he said negligently.

"But we're drifting away from our business.

Let me begin at the beginning.

You know that Evie is going
to marry Percy Cahill."

"Dolly's uncle."

"Exactly.

The girl's madly in love
with him.

A very good sort of fellow,
but he demands--and rightly--a suitable provision
with her.

And in the second place you will naturally understand,
there is Charles.

Before leaving town,
I wrote Charles a very careful letter.

You see,
he has an increasing family and increasing expenses,
and the I.

and W.

A.

is nothing particular just now,
though capable of development."

"Poor fellow!"
murmured Margaret,
looking out
to sea,
and not understanding.

"Charles being the elder son,
some day Charles will have Howards End;
but I am anxious,
in my own happiness,
not
to be unjust
to others."

"Of course not,"
she began,
and then gave a little cry.

"you mean money.

How stupid I am! Of course not!"
Oddly enough,
he winced a little at the word.

"Yes,
Money,
since you put it so frankly.

I am determined
to be just
to all--just
to you,
just
to them.

I am determined that my children shall have me."

"Be generous
to them,"
she said sharply.

"Bother justice!"
"I am determined--and have already written
to Charles
to that effect--"
"But how much have you got?"
"What?"
"How much have you a year?

I've six hundred."

"My income?"
"Yes.

We must begin
with how much you have,
before we can settle how much you can give Charles.

Justice,
and even generosity,
depend on that."

"I must say you're a downright young woman,"
he observed,
patting her arm and laughing a little.

"What a question
to spring on a fellow!"
"Don't you know your income?

Or don't you want
to tell it me?"
"I--"
"That's all right"--now she patted him--"don't tell me.

I don't want
to know.

I can do the sum just as well by proportion.

Divide your income into ten parts.

How many parts would you give
to Evie,
how many
to Charles,
how many
to Paul?"
"The fact is,
my dear,
I hadn't any intention of bothering you
with details.

I only wanted
to let you know that--well,
that something must be done
for the others,
and you've understood me perfectly,
so let's pass on
to the next point."

"Yes,
we've settled that,"
said Margaret,
undisturbed by his strategic blunderings.

"Go ahead;
give away all you can,
bearing in mind that I've a clear six hundred.

What a mercy it is
to have all this money about one."

"We've none too much,
I assure you;
you're marrying a poor man."

"Helen wouldn't agree
with me here,"
she continued.

"Helen daren't slang the rich,
being rich herself,
but she would like to.

There's an odd notion,
that I haven't yet got hold of,
running about at the back of her brain,
that poverty is somehow
'real.'

She dislikes all organisation,
and probably confuses wealth
with the technique of wealth.

Sovereigns in a stocking wouldn't bother her;
cheques do.

Helen is too relentless.

One can't deal in her high-handed manner
with the world."

"There's this other point,
and then I must go back
to my hotel and write some letters.

What's
to be done now about the house in Ducie Street?"
"Keep it on--at least,
it depends.

When do you want
to marry me?"
She raised her voice,
as too often,
and some youths,
who were also taking the evening air,
overheard her.

"Getting a bit hot,
eh?"
said one.

Mr. Wilcox turned on them,
and said sharply,
"I say!"
There was silence.

"Take care I don't report you
to the police."

They moved away quietly enough,
but were only biding their time,
and the rest of the conversation was punctuated by peals of ungovernable laughter.

Lowering his voice and infusing a hint of reproof into it,
he said:

"Evie will probably be married in September.

We could scarcely think of anything before then."

"The earlier the nicer,
Henry.

Females are not supposed
to say such things,
but the earlier the nicer."

"How about September
for us too?"
he asked,
rather dryly.

"Right.

Shall we go into Ducie Street ourselves in September?

Or shall we try
to bounce Helen and Tibby into it?

That's rather an idea.

They are so unbusinesslike,
we could make them do anything by judicious management.

Look here--yes.

We'll do that.

And we ourselves could live at Howards End or Shropshire."

He blew out his cheeks.

"Heavens! how you women do fly round! My head's in a whirl.

Point by point,
Margaret.

Howards End's impossible.

I let it
to Hamar Bryce on a three years'
agreement last March.

Don't you remember?

Oniton.

Well,
that is much,
much too far away
to rely on entirely.

You will be able
to be down there entertaining a certain amount,
but we must have a house within easy reach of Town.

Only Ducie Street has huge drawbacks.

There's a mews behind."

Margaret could not help laughing.

It was the first she had heard of the mews behind Ducie Street.

When she was a possible tenant it had suppressed itself,
not consciously,
but automatically.

The breezy Wilcox manner,
though genuine,
lacked the clearness of vision that is imperative
for truth.

When Henry lived in Ducie Street he remembered the mews;
when he tried
to let he forgot it;
and if any one had remarked that the mews must be either there or not,
he would have felt annoyed,
and afterwards have found some opportunity of stigmatising the speaker as academic.

So does my grocer stigmatise me when I complain of the quality of his sultanas,
and he answers in one breath that they are the best sultanas,
and how can I expect the best sultanas at that price?

It is a flaw inherent in the business mind,
and Margaret may do well
to be tender
to it,
considering all that the business mind has done
for England.

"Yes,
in summer especially,
the mews is a serious nuisance.

The smoking-room,
too,
is an abominable little den.

The house opposite has been taken by operatic people.

Ducie Street's going down,
it's my private opinion."

"How sad! It's only a few years since they built those pretty houses."

"Shows things are moving.

Good
for trade."

"I hate this continual flux of London.

It is an epitome of us at our worst--eternal formlessness;
all the qualities,
good,
bad,
and indifferent,
streaming away--streaming,
streaming
for ever.

That's why I dread it so.

I mistrust rivers,
even in scenery.

Now,
the sea--"
"High tide,
yes."

"Hoy toid"--from the promenading youths.

"And these are the men
to whom we give the vote,"
observed Mr. Wilcox,
omitting
to add that they were also the men
to whom he gave work as clerks--work that scarcely encouraged them
to grow into other men.

"However,
they have their own lives and interests.

Let's get on."

He turned as he spoke,
and prepared
to see her back
to The Bays.

The business was over.

His hotel was in the opposite direction,
and if he accompanied her his letters would be late
for the post.

She implored him not
to come,
but he was obdurate.

"A nice beginning,
if your aunt saw you slip in alone!"
"But I always do go about alone.

Considering I've walked over the Apennines,
it's common sense.

You will make me so angry.

I don't the least take it as a compliment."

He laughed,
and lit a cigar.

"It isn't meant as a compliment,
my dear.

I just won't have you going about in the dark.

Such people about too! It's dangerous."

"Can't I look after myself?

I do wish--"
"Come along,
Margaret;
no wheedling."

A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways,
but Margaret had too firm a grip of life
to make a fuss.

She was,
in her own way,
as masterly.

If he was a fortress she was a mountain peak,
whom all might tread,
but whom the snows made nightly virginal.

Disdaining the heroic outfit,
excitable in her methods,
garrulous,
episodical,
shrill,
she misled her lover much as she had misled her aunt.

He mistook her fertility
for Weakness.

He supposed her
"as clever as they make them,"
but no more,
not realising that she was penetrating
to the depths of his soul,
and approving of what she found there.

And if insight were sufficient,
if the inner life were the whole of life,
their happiness had been assured.

They walked ahead briskly.

The parade and the road after it were well lighted,
but it was darker in Aunt Juley's garden.

As they were going up by the side-paths,
through some rhododendrons,
Mr. Wilcox,
who was in front,
said
"Margaret"
rather huskily,
turned,
dropped his cigar,
and took her in his arMs. She was startled,
and nearly screamed,
but recovered herself at once,
and kissed
with genuine love the lips that were pressed against her own.

It was their first kiss,
and when it was over he saw her safely
to the door and rang the bell
for her but disappeared into the night before the maid answered it.

On looking back,
the incident displeased her.

It was so isolated.

Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it,
and,
worse still,
no tenderness had ensued.

If a man cannot lead up
to passion he can at all events lead down from it,
and she had hoped,
after her complaisance,
for some interchange of gentle words.

But he had hurried away as if ashamed,
and
for an instant she was reminded of Helen and Paul.

CHAPTER XXI Charles had just been scolding his Dolly.

She deserved the scolding,
and had bent before it,
but her head,
though bloody was unsubdued and her began
to mingle
with his retreating thunder.

"You've waked the baby.

I knew you would.

(Rum-ti-foo,
Rackety- tackety-Tompkin!)
I'm not responsible
for what Uncle Percy does,
nor
for anybody else or anything,
so there!"
"Who asked him while I was away?

Who asked my sister down
to meet him?

Who sent them out in the motor day after day?"
"Charles,
that reminds me of some poem."

"Does it indeed?

We shall all be dancing
to a very different music presently.

Miss Schlegel has fairly got us on toast."

"I could simply scratch that woman's eyes out,
and
to say it's my fault is most unfair.

"
"It's your fault,
and five months ago you admitted it."

"I didn't."

"You did."

"Tootle,
tootle,
playing on the pootle!"
exclaimed Dolly,
suddenly devoting herself
to the child.

"It's all very well
to turn the conversation,
but father would never have dreamt of marrying as long as Evie was there
to make him comfortable.

But you must needs start match-making.

Besides,
Cahill's too old."

"Of course,
if you're going
to be rude
to Uncle Percy."

"Miss Schlegel always meant
to get hold of Howards End,
and,
thanks
to you,
she's got it."

"I call the way you twist things round and make them hang together most unfair.

You couldn't have been nastier if you'd caught me flirting.

Could he,
diddums?"
"We're in a bad hole,
and must make the best of it.

I shall answer the pater's letter civilly.

He's evidently anxious
to do the decent thing.

But I do not intend
to forget these Schlegcls in a hurry.

As long as they're on their best behaviour--Do11y,
are you listening?--we'll behave,
too.

But if I find them giving themselves airs or monopolising my father,
or at all ill-treating him,
or worrying him
with their artistic beastliness,
I intend
to put my foot down,
yes,
firmly.

Taking my mother's place! Heaven knows what poor old Paul will say when the news reaches him."

The interlude closes.

It has taken place in Charles's garden at Hilton.

He and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs,
and their motor is regarding them placidly from its garage across the lawn.

A short-frocked edition of Charles also regards them placidly;
a perambulator edition is squeaking;
a third edition is expected shortly.

Nature is turning out Wilcoxes in this peaceful abode,
so that they may inherit the earth.

CHAPTER XXII Margaret greeted her lord
with peculiar tenderness on the morrow.

Mature as he was,
she might yet be able
to help him
to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us
with the passion.

Without it we are meaningless fragments,
half monks,
half beasts,
unconnected arches that have never joined into a man.

With it love is born,
and alights on the highest curve,
glowing against the grey,
sober against the fire.

Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings.

The roads of his soul lie clear,
and he and his friends shall find easy-going.

It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilcox's soul.

From boyhood he had neglected them.

"I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside."

Outwardly he was cheerful,
reliable,
and brave;
but within,
all had reverted
to chaos,
ruled,
so far as it was ruled at all,
by an incomplete asceticism.

Whether as boy,
husband,
or widower,
he had always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad,
a belief that is desirable only when held passionately.

Religion had confirmed him.

The words that were read aloud on Sunday
to him and
to other respectable men were the words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St. Francis into a white-hot hatred of the carnal.

He could not be as the saints and love the Infinite
with a seraphic ardour,
but he could be a little ashamed of loving a wife.

Amabat,
amare timebat.

And it was here that Margaret hoped
to help him.

It did not seem so difficult.

She need trouble him
with no gift of her own.

She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul,
and in the soul of every man.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.

Only connect the prose and the passion,
and both will be exalted,
and human love will be seen at its height.

Live in fragments no longer.

Only connect and the beast and the monk,
robbed of the isolation that is life
to either,
will die.

Nor was the message difficult
to give.

It need not take the form of a good
"talking."

By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span their lives
with beauty.

But she failed.

For there was one quality in Henry
for which she was never prepared,
however much she reminded herself of it:

his obtuseness.

He simply did not notice things,
and there was no more
to be said.

He never noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile,
or that Tibby was not interested in currant plantations;
he never noticed the lights and shades that exist in the greyest conversation,
the finger-posts,
the milestones,
the collisions,
the illimitable views.

Once--on another occasion--she scolded him about it.

He was puzzled,
but replied
with a laugh:

"My motto is Concentrate.

I've no intention of frittering away my strength on that sort of thing."

"It isn't frittering away the strength,"
she protested.

"It's enlarging the space in which you may be strong."

He answered:

"You're a clever little woman,
but my motto's Concentrate."

And this morning he concentrated
with a vengeance.

They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday.

In the daylight the bushes were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning sun.

She was
with Helen,
who had been ominously quiet since the affair was settled.

"Here we all are!"
she cried,
and took him by one hand,
retaining her sister's in the other.

"Here we are.

Good-morning,
Helen."

Helen replied,
"Good-morning,
Mr. Wilcox."

"Henry,
she has had such a nice letter from the queer,
cross boy.

Do you remember him?

He had a sad moustache,
but the back of his head was young."

"I have had a letter too.

Not a nice one--I want
to talk it over
with you";
for Leonard Bast was nothing
to him now that she had given him her word;
the triangle of sex was broken
for ever.

"Thanks
to your hint,
he's clearing out of the Porphyrion."

"Not a bad business that Porphyrion,"
he said absently,
as he took his own letter out of his pocket.

"Not a BAD--"she exclaimed,
dropping his hand.

"Surely,
on Chelsea Embankment--"
"Here's our hostess.

Good-morning,
Mrs. Munt.

Fine rhododendrons.

Good-morning,
Frau Liesecke;
we manage
to grow flowers in England,
don't we?"
"Not a BAD business?"
"No.

My letter's about Howards End.

Bryce has been ordered abroad,
and wants
to sublet it--I am far from sure that I shall give him permission.

There was no clause in the agreement.

In my opinion,
subletting is a mistake.

If he can find me another tenant,
whom I consider suitable,
I may cancel the agreement.

Morning,
Schlegel.

Don't you think that's better than subletting?"
Helen had dropped her hand now,
and he had steered her past the whole party
to the seaward side of the house.

Beneath them was the bourgeois little bay,
which must have yearned all through the centuries
for just such a watering-place as Swanage
to be built on its margin.

The waves were colourless,
and the Bournemouth steamer gave a further touch of insipidity,
drawn up against the pier and hooting wildly
for excursionists.

"When there is a sublet I find that damage--"
"Do excuse me,
but about the Porphyrion.

I don't feel easy--might I just bother you,
Henry?"
Her manner was so serious that he stopped,
and asked her a little sharply what she wanted.

"You said on Chelsea Embankment,
surely,
that it was a bad concern,
so we advised this clerk
to clear out.

He writes this morning that he's taken our advice,
and now you say it's not a bad concern."

"A clerk who clears out of any concern,
good or bad,
without securing a berth somewhere else first,
is a fool,
and I've no pity
for him."

"He has not done that.

He's going into a bank in Camden Town,
he says.

The salary's much lower,
but he hopes
to manage--a branch of Dempster's Bank.

Is that all right?"
"Dempster! Why goodness me,
yes."

"More right than the Porphyrion?"
"Yes,
yes,
yes;
safe as houses--safer."

"Very many thanks.

I'm sorry--if you sublet--?"
"If he sublets,
I shan't have the same control.

In theory there should be no more damage done at Howards End;
in practice there will be.

Things may be done
for which no money can compensate.

For instance,
I shouldn't want that fine wych-elm spoilt.

It hangs--Margaret,
we must go and see the old place some time.

It's pretty in its way.

We'll motor down and have lunch
with Charles."

"I should enjoy that,"
said Margaret bravely.

"What about next Wednesday?"
"Wednesday?

No,
I couldn't well do that.

Aunt Juley expects us
to stop here another week at least."

"But you can give that up now."

"Er--no,"
said Margaret,
after a moment's thought.

"Oh,
that'll be all right.

I'll speak
to her."

"This visit is a high solemnity.

My aunt counts on it year after year.

She turns the house upside down
for us;
she invites our special friends--she scarcely knows Frieda,
and we can't leave her on her hands.

I missed one day,
and she would be so hurt if I didn't stay the full ten.

"
"But I'll say a word
to her.

Don't you bother."

"Henry,
I won't go.

Don't bully me."

"You want
to see the house,
though?"
"Very much--I've heard so much about it,
one way or the other.

Aren't there pigs'
teeth in the wych-elm?"
"PIGS TEETH?"
"And you chew the bark
for toothache."

"What a rum notion! Of course not!"
"Perhaps I have confused it
with some other tree.

There are still a great number of sacred trees in England,
it seeMs. "

But he left her
to intercept Mrs. Munt,
whose voice could be heard in the distance;
to be intercepted himself by Helen.

"Oh.

Mr. Wilcox,
about the Porphyrion--"she began and went scarlet all over her face.

"It's all right,"
called Margaret,
catching them up.

"Dempster's Bank's better."

"But I think you told us the Porphyrion was bad,
and would smash before Christmas."

"Did I?

It was still outside the Tariff Ring,
and had
to take rotten policies.

Lately it came in--safe as houses now."

"In other words,
Mr. Bast need never have left it."

"No,
the fellow needn't."

"--and needn't have started life elsewhere at a greatly reduced salary."

"He only says
'reduced,'"
corrected Margaret,
seeing trouble ahead.

"With a man so poor,
every reduction must be great.

I consider it a deplorable misfortune."

Mr. Wilcox,
intent on his business
with Mrs. Munt,
was going steadily on,
but the last remark made him say:

"What?

What's that?

Do you mean that I'm responsible?"
"You're ridiculous,
Helen."

"You seem
to think--"
He looked at his watch.

"Let me explain the point
to you.

It is like this.

You seem
to assume,
when a business concern is conducting a delicate negotiation,
it ought
to keep the public informed stage by stage.

The Porphyrion,
according
to you,
was bound
to say,
'I am trying all I can
to get into the Tariff Ring.

I am not sure that I shall succeed,
but it is the only thing that will save me from insolvency,
and I am trying.'

My dear Helen--"
"Is that your point?

A man who had little money has less--that's mine."

"I am grieved
for your clerk.

But it is all in the days work.

It's part of the battle of life."

"A man who had little money--,
"she repeated,
"has less,
owing
to us.

Under these circumstances I consider
'the battle of life'
a happy expression.

"Oh come,
come!"
he protested pleasantly.

'you're not
to blame.

No one's
to blame."

"Is no one
to blame
for anything?"
"I wouldn't say that,
but you're taking it far too seriously.

Who is this fellow?"
"We have told you about the fellow twice already,"
said Helen.

"You have even met the fellow.

He is very poor and his wife is an extravagant imbecile.

He is capable of better things.

We--we,
the upper classes--thought we would help him from the height of our superior knowledge--and here's the result!"
He raised his finger.

"Now,
a word of advice."

"I require no more advice."

"A word of advice.

Don't take up that sentimental attitude over the poor.

See that she doesn't,
Margaret.

The poor are poor,
and one's sorry
for them,
but there it is.

As civilisation moves forward,
the shoe is bound
to pinch in places,
and it's absurd
to pretend that any one is responsible personally.

Neither you,
nor I,
nor my informant,
nor the man who informed him,
nor the directors of the Porphyrion,
are
to blame
for this clerk's loss of salary.

It's just the shoe pinching--no one can help it;
and it might easily have been worse."

Helen quivered
with indignation.

"By all means subscribe
to charities--subscribe
to them largely-- but don't get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform.

I see a good deal behind the scenes,
and you can take it from me that there is no Social Question--except
for a few journalists who try
to get a living out of the phrase.

There are just rich and poor,
as there always have been and always will be.

Point me out a time when men have been equal--"
"I didn't say--"
"Point me out a time when desire
for equality has made them happier.

No,
no.

You can't.

There always have been rich and poor.

I'm no fatalist.

Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal forces"
(his voice grew complacent;
it always did when he eliminated the personal),
"and there always will be rich and poor.

You can't deny it"
(and now it was a respectful voice)--"and you can't deny that,
in spite of all,
the tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward."

"Owing
to God,
I suppose,"
flashed Helen.

He stared at her.

"You grab the dollars.

God does the rest."

It was no good instructing the girl if she was going
to talk about God in that neurotic modern way.

Fraternal
to the last,
he left her
for the quieter company of Mrs. Munt.

He thought,
"She rather reminds me of Dolly."

Helen looked out at the sea.

"Don't ever discuss political economy
with Henry,"
advised her sister.

"It'll only end in a cry."

"But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science
with religion,"
said Helen slowly.

"I don't like those men.

They are scientific themselves,
and talk of the survival of the fittest,
and cut down the salaries of their clerks,
and stunt the independence of all who may menace their comfort,
but yet they believe that somehow good--it is always that sloppy
'somehow'
will be the outcome,
and that in some mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Brits of today are in pain."

"He is such a man in theory.

But oh,
Helen,
in theory!"
"But oh,
Meg,
what a theory!"
"Why should you put things so bitterly,
dearie?"
"Because I'm an old maid,"
said Helen,
biting her lip.

"I can't think why I go on like this myself."

She shook off her sister's hand and went into the house.

Margaret,
distressed at the day's beginning,
followed the Bournemouth steamer
with her eyes.

She saw that Helen's nerves were exasperated by the unlucky Bast business beyond the bounds of politeness.

There might at any minute be a real explosion,
which even Henry would notice.

Henry must be removed.

"Margaret!"
her aunt called.

"Magsy! It isn't true,
surely,
what Mr. Wilcox says,
that you want
to go away early next week?"
"Not
'want,'"
was Margaret's prompt reply;
"but there is so much
to be settled,
and I do want
to see the Charles's."

"But going away without taking the Weymouth trip,
or even the Lulworth?"
said Mrs. Munt,
coming nearer.

"Without going once more up Nine Barrows Down?"
"I'm afraid so."

Mr. Wilcox rejoined her with,
"Good! I did the breaking of the ice."

A wave of tenderness came over her.

She put a hand on either shoulder,
and looked deeply into the black,
bright eyes.

What was behind their competent stare?

She knew,
but was not disquieted.

CHAPTER XXIII Margaret had no intention of letting things slide,
and the evening before she left Swanage she gave her sister a thorough scolding.

She censured her,
not
for disapproving of the engagement,
but
for throwing over her disapproval a veil of mystery.

Helen was equally frank.

"Yes,"
she said,
with the air of one looking inwards,
"there is a mystery.

I can't help it.

It's not my fault.

It's the way life has been made."

Helen in those days was over-interested in the subconscious self.

She exaggerated the Punch and Judy aspect of life,
and spoke of mankind as puppets,
whom an invisible showman twitches into love and war.

Margaret pointed out that if she dwelt on this she,
too,
would eliminate the personal.

Helen was silent
for a minute,
and then burst into a queer speech,
which cleared the air.

"Go on and marry him.

I think you're splendid;
and if any one can pull it off,
you will."

Margaret denied that there was anything to
"pull off,"
but she continued:

"Yes,
there is,
and I wasn't up
to it
with Paul.

I can do only what's easy.

I can only entice and be enticed.

I can't,
and won't,
attempt difficult relations.

If I marry,
it will either be a man who's strong enough
to boss me or whom I'm strong enough
to boss.

So I shan't ever marry,
for there aren't such men.

And Heaven help any one whom I do marry,
for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say
'Jack Robinson.'

There! Because I'm uneducated.

But you,
you're different;
you're a heroine."

"Oh,
Helen! Am I?

Will it be as dreadful
for poor Henry as all that?"
"You mean
to keep proportion,
and that's heroic,
it's Greek,
and I don't see why it shouldn't succeed
with you.

Go on and fight
with him and help him.

Don't ask me
for help,
or even
for sympathy.

Henceforward I'm going my own way.

I mean
to be thorough,
because thoroughness is easy.

I mean
to dislike your husband,
and
to tell him so.

I mean
to make no concessions
to Tibby.

If Tibby wants
to live
with me,
he must lump me.

I mean
to love you more than ever.

Yes,
I do.

You and I have built up something real,
because it is purely spiritual.

There's no veil of mystery over us.

Unreality and mystery begin as soon as one touches the body.

The popular view is,
as usual,
exactly the wrong one.

Our bothers are over tangible things--money,
husbands,
house-hunting.

But Heaven will work of itself."

Margaret was grateful
for this expression of affection,
and answered,
"Perhaps."

All vistas close in the unseen--no one doubts it--but Helen closed them rather too quickly
for her taste.

At every turn of speech one was confronted
with reality and the absolute.

Perhaps Margaret grew too old
for metaphysics,
perhaps Henry was weaning her from them,
but she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so readily shreds the visible.

The business man who assumes that this life is everything,
and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing,
fail,
on this side and on that,
to hit the truth.

"Yes,
I see,
dear;
it's about half-way between,"
Aunt Juicy had hazarded in earlier years.

No;
truth,
being alive,
was not half-way between anything.

It was only
to be found by continuous excursions into either realm,
and though proportion is the final secret,
to espouse it at the outset is
to insure sterility.

Helen,
agreeing here,
disagreeing there,
would have talked till midnight,
but Margaret,
with her packing
to do,
focussed the conversation on Henry.

She might abuse Henry behind his back,
but please would she always be civil
to him in company?

"I definitely dislike him,
but I'll do what I can,"
promised Helen.

"Do what you can
with my friends in return."

This conversation made Margaret easier.

Their inner life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible
to Aunt Juley,
and impossible
for Tibby or Charles.

There are moments when the inner life actually
"pays,"
when years of self-scrutiny,
conducted
for no ulterior motive,
are suddenly of practical use.

Such moments are still rare in the West;
that they come at all promises a fairer future.

Margaret,
though unable
to understand her sister,
was assured against estrangement,
and returned
to London
with a more peaceful mind.

The following morning,
at eleven o'clock,
she presented herself at the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company.

She was glad
to go there,
for Henry had implied his business rather than described it,
and the formlessness and vagueness that one associates
with Africa itself had hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth.

Not that a visit
to the office cleared things up.

There was just the ordinary surface scum of ledgers and polished counters and brass bars that began and stopped
for no possible reason,
of electric-light globes blossoming in triplets,
of little rabbit-hutches faced
with glass or wire,
of little rabbits.

And even when she penetrated
to the inner depths,
she found only the ordinary table and Turkey carpet,
and though the map over the fireplace did depict a helping of West Africa,
it was a very ordinary map.

Another map hung opposite,
on which the whole continent appeared,
looking like a whale marked out
for a blubber,
and by its side was a door,
shut,
but Henry's voice came through it,
dictating a
"strong"
letter.

She might have been at the Porphyrion,
or Dempster's Bank,
or her own wine-merchant's.

Everything seems just alike in these days.

But perhaps she was seeing the Imperial side of the company rather than its West African,
and Imperialism always had been one of her difficulties.

"One minute!"
called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name.

He touched a bell,
the effect of which was
to produce Charles.

Charles had written his father an adequate letter--more adequate than Evie's,
through which a girlish indignation throbbed.

And he greeted his future stepmother
with propriety.

"I hope that my wife--how do you do?--will give you a decent lunch,"
was his opening.

"I left instructions,
but we live in a rough-and-ready way.

She expects you back
to tea,
too,
after you have had a look at Howards End.

I wonder what you'll think of the place.

I wouldn't touch it
with tongs myself.

Do sit down! It's a measly little place."

"I shall enjoy seeing it,"
said Margaret,
feeling,
for the first time,
shy.

"You'll see it at its worst,
for Bryce decamped abroad last Monday without even arranging
for a charwoman
to clear up after him.

I never saw such a disgraceful mess.

It's unbelievable.

He wasn't in the house a month."

"I've more than a little bone
to pick
with Bryce,"
called Henry from the inner chamber.

"Why did he go so suddenly?"
"Invalid type;
couldn't sleep."

"Poor fellow!"
"Poor fiddlesticks!"
said Mr. Wilcox,
joining them.

"He had the impudence
to put up notice-boards without as much as saying
with your leave or by your leave.

Charles flung them down."

"Yes,
I flung them down,"
said Charles modestly.

"I've sent a telegram after him,
and a pretty sharp one,
too.

He,
and he in person,
is responsible
for the upkeep of that house
for the next three years."

"The keys are at the farm;
we wouldn't have the keys."

"Quite right."

"Dolly would have taken them,
but I was in,
fortunately."

"What's Mr. Bryce like?"
asked Margaret.

But nobody cared.

Mr. Bryce was the tenant,
who had no right
to sublet;
to have defined him further was a waste of time.

On his misdeeds they descanted profusely,
until the girl who had been typing the strong letter game out
with it.

Mr. Wilcox added his signature.

"Now we'll be off,"
said he.

A motor-drive,
a form of felicity detested by Margaret,
awaited her.

Charles saw them in,
civil
to the last,
and in a moment the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company faded away.

But it was not an impressive drive.

Perhaps the weather was
to blame,
being grey and banked high
with weary clouds.

Perhaps Hertfordshire is scarcely intended
for motorists.

Did not a gentleman once motor so quickly through Westmoreland that he missed it?

and if Westmoreland can be missed,
it will fare ill
with a county whose delicate structure particularly needs the attentive eye.

Hertfordshire is England at its quietest,
with little emphasis of river and hill;
it is England meditative.

If Drayton were
with us again
to write a new edition of his incomparable poem,
he would sing the nymphs of Hertfordshire as indeterminate of feature,
with hair obfuscated by the London smoke.

Their eyes would be sad,
and averted from their fate towards the Northern flats,
their leader not Isis or Sabrina,
but the slowly flowing Lea.

No glory of raiment would be theirs,
no urgency of dance;
but they would be real nymphs.

The chauffeur could not travel as quickly as he had hoped,
for the Great North Road was full of Easter traffic.

But he went quite quick enough
for Margaret,
a poor-spirited creature,
who had chickens and children on the brain.

"They're all right,"
said Mr. Wilcox.

"They'll learn--like the swallows and the telegraph-wires."

"Yes,
but,
while they're learning--"
"The motor's come
to stay,"
he answered.

"One must get about.

There's a pretty church--oh,
you aren't sharp enough.

Well,
look out,
if the road worries you--right outward at the scenery."

She looked at the scenery.

It heaved and merged like porridge.

Presently it congealed.

They had arrived.

Charles's house on the left;
on the right the swelling forms of the Six Hills.

Their appearance in such a neighbourhood surprised her.

They interrupted the stream of residences that was thickening up towards Hilton.

Beyond them she saw meadows and a wood,
and beneath them she settled that soldiers of the best kind lay buried.

She hated war and liked soldiers--it was one of her amiable inconsistencies.

But here was Dolly,
dressed up
to the nines,
standing at the door
to greet them,
and here were the first drops of the rain.

They ran in gaily,
and after a long wait in the drawing-room,
sat down
to the rough-and-ready lunch,
every dish of which concealed or exuded cream.

Mr. Bryce was the chief topic of conversation.

Dolly described his visit
with the key,
while her father-in-law gave satisfaction by chaffing her and contradicting all she said.

It was evidently the custom
to laugh at Dolly.

He chaffed Margaret too,
and Margaret roused from a grave meditation was pleased and chaffed him back.

Dolly seemed surprised and eyed her curiously.

After lunch the two children came down.

Margaret disliked babies,
but hit it off better
with the two-year-old,
and sent Dolly into fits of laughter by talking sense
to him.

"Kiss them now,
and come away,"
said Mr. Wilcox.

She came,
but refused
to kiss them;
it was such hard luck on the little things,
she said,
and though Dolly proffered Chorly-worly and Porgly-woggles in turn,
she was obdurate.

By this time it was raining steadily.

The car came round
with the hood up,
and again she lost all sense of space.

In a few minutes they stopped,
and Crane opened the door of the car.

"What's happened?"
asked Margaret.

"What do you suppose?"
said Henry.

A little porch was close up against her face.

"Are we there already?"
"We are."

"Well,
I never! In years ago it seemed so far away."

Smiling,
but somehow disillusioned,
she jumped out,
and her impetus carried her
to the front-door.

She was about
to open it,
when Henry said:

"That's no good;
it's locked.

Who's got the key?"
As he had himself forgotten
to call
for the key at the farm,
no one replied.

He also wanted
to know who had left the front gate open,
since a cow had strayed in from the road,
and was spoiling the croquet lawn.

Then he said rather crossly:

"Margaret,
you wait in the dry.

I'll go down
for the key.

It isn't a hundred yards."

"Mayn't I come too?"
"No;
I shall be back before I'm gone."

Then the car turned away,
and it was as if a curtain had risen.

For the second time that day she saw the appearance of the earth.

There were the greengage-trees that Helen had once described,
there the tennis lawn,
there the hedge that would be glorious
with dog-roses in June,
but the vision now was of black and palest green.

Down by the dell-hole more vivid colours were awakening,
and Lent lilies stood sentinel on its margin,
or advanced in battalions over the grass.

Tulips were a tray of jewels.

She could not see the wych-elm tree,
but a branch of the celebrated vine,
studded
with velvet knobs had covered the perch.

She was struck by the fertility of the soil;
she had seldom been in a garden where the flowers looked so well,
and even the weeds she was idly plucking out of the porch were intensely green.

Why had poor Mr. Bryce fled from all this beauty?

For she had already decided that the place was beautiful.

"Naughty cow! Go away!"
cried Margaret
to the cow,
but without indignation.

Harder came the rain,
pouring out of a windless sky,
and spattering up from the notice-boards of the house-agents,
which lay in a row on the lawn where Charles had hurled them.

She must have interviewed Charles in another world--where one did have interviews.

How Helen would revel in such a notion! Charles dead,
all people dead,
nothing alive but houses and gardens.

The obvious dead,
the intangible alive,
and no connection at all between them! Margaret smiled.

Would that her own fancies were as clear-cut! Would that she could deal as high-handedly
with the world! Smiling and sighing,
she laid her hand upon the door.

It opened.

The house was not locked up at all.

She hesitated.

Ought she
to wait
for Henry?

He felt strongly about property,
and might prefer
to show her over himself.

On the other hand,
he had told her
to keep in the dry,
and the porch was beginning
to drip.

So she went in,
and the draught from inside slammed the door behind.

Desolation greeted her.

Dirty finger-prints were on the hall-windows,
flue and rubbish on its unwashed boards.

The civilisation of luggage had been here
for a month,
and then decamped.

Dining-room and drawing-room--right and left--were guessed only by their wallpapers.

They were just rooms where one could shelter from the rain.

Across the ceiling of each ran a great beam.

The dining-room and hall revealed theirs openly,
but the drawing-room's was match-boarded--because the facts of life must be concealed from ladies?

Drawing-room,
dining-room,
and hall--how petty the names sounded! Here were simply three rooms where children could play and friends shelter from the rain.

Yes,
and they were beautiful.

Then she opened one of the doors opposite--there were two--and exchanged wall-papers
for whitewash.

It was the servants'
part,
though she scarcely realised that:

just rooms again,
where friends might shelter.

The garden at the back was full of flowering cherries and pluMs. Farther on were hints of the meadow and a black cliff of pines.

Yes,
the meadow was beautiful.

Penned in by the desolate weather,
she recaptured the sense of space which the motor had tried
to rob from her.

She remembered again that ten square miles are not ten times as wonderful as one square mile,
that a thousand square miles are not practically the same as heaven.

The phantom of bigness,
which London encourages,
was laid
for ever when she paced from the hall at Howards End
to its kitchen and heard the rain run this way and that where the watershed of the roof divided it.

Now Helen came
to her mind,
scrutinising half Wessex from the ridge of the Purbeck Downs,
and saying:

"You will have
to lose something."

She was not so sure.

For instance she would double her kingdom by opening the door that concealed the stairs.

Now she thought of the map of Africa;
of empires;
of her father;
of the two supreme nations,
streams of whose life warmed her blood,
but,
mingling,
had cooled her brain.

She paced back into the hall,
and as she did so the house reverberated.

"Is that you,
Henry?"
she called.

There was no answer,
but the house reverberated again.

"Henry,
have you got in?"
But it was the heart of the house beating,
faintly at first,
then loudly,
martially.

It dominated the rain.

It is the starved imagination,
not the well-nourished,
that is afraid.

Margaret flung open the door
to the stairs.

A noise as of drums seemed
to deafen her.

A woman,
an old woman,
was descending,
with figure erect,
with face impassive,
with lips that parted and said dryly:

"Oh! Well,
I took you
for Ruth Wilcox."

Margaret stammered:

"I--Mrs. Wilcox--I?"
"In fancy,
of course--in fancy.

You had her way of walking.

Good-day."

And the old woman passed out into the rain.

CHAPTER XXIV
"It gave her quite a turn,"
said Mr. Wilcox,
when retailing the incident
to Dolly at tea-time.

"None of you girls have any nerves,
really.

Of course,
a word from me put it all right,
but silly old Miss Avery--she frightened you,
didn't she,
Margaret?

There you stood clutching a bunch of weeds.

She might have said something,
instead of coming down the stairs
with that alarming bonnet on.

I passed her as I came in.

Enough
to make the car shy.

I believe Miss Avery goes in
for being a character;
some old maids do."

He lit a cigarette.

"It is their last resource.

Heaven knows what she was doing in the place;
but that's Bryce's business,
not mine."

"I wasn't as foolish as you suggest,"
said Margaret
"She only startled me,
for the house had been silent so long."

"Did you take her
for a spook?"
asked Dolly,
for whom
"spooks"'
and
"going
to church"
summarised the unseen.

"Not exactly."

"She really did frighten you,"
said Henry,
who was far from discouraging timidity in females.

"Poor Margaret! And very naturally.

Uneducated classes are so stupid."

"Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?"
Margaret asked,
and found herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly's drawing-room.

"She's just one of the crew at the farm.

People like that always assume things.

She assumed you'd know who she was.

She left all the Howards End keys in the front lobby,
and assumed that you'd seen them as you came in,
that you'd lock up the house when you'd done,
and would bring them on down
to her.

And there was her niece hunting
for them down at the farm.

Lack of education makes people very casual.

Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery once."

"I shouldn't have disliked it,
perhaps."

"Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present,"
said Dolly.

Which was illogical but interesting.

Through Dolly,
Margaret was destined
to learn a good deal.

"But Charles said I must try not
to mind,
because she had known his grandmother."

"As usual,
you've got the story wrong,
my good Dorothea."

"I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house.

Weren't both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End,
too,
was a farm?"
Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke.

His attitude
to his dead wife was curious.

He would allude
to her,
and hear her discussed,
but never mentioned her by name.

Nor was he interested in the dim,
bucolic past.

Dolly was--for the following reason.

"Then hadn't Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle?

Anyhow,
he popped the question,
and Miss Avery,
she said `No.'

Just imagine,
if she'd said
'Yes,'
she would have been Charles's aunt.

(Oh,
I say,
that's rather good!
'Charlie's Aunt'! I must chaff him about that this evening.)
And the man went out and was killed.

Yes,
I
'm certain I've got it right now.

Tom Howard--he was the last of them."

"I believe so,"
said Mr. Wilcox negligently.

"I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!"
Dolly.

"I'm rather on the spot this evening,
eh?"
"I wish you'd ask whether Crane's ended."

"Oh,
Mr. Wilcox,
how can you?"
"Because,
if he has had enough tea,
we ought
to go--Dolly's a good little woman,"
he continued,
"but a little of her goes a long way.

I couldn't live near her if you paid me."

Margaret smiled.

Though presenting a firm front
to outsiders,
no Wilcox could live near,
or near the possessions of,
any other Wilcox.

They had the colonial spirit,
and were always making
for some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved.

Of course,
Howards End was impossible,
so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton.

His objections
to the house were plain as daylight now.

Crane had had enough tea,
and was sent
to the garage,
where their car had been trickling muddy water over Charles's.

The downpour had surely penetrated the Six Hills by now,
bringing news of our restless civilisation.

"Curious mounds,"
said Henry,
"but in
with you now;
another time."

He had
to be up in London by seven--if possible,
by six-thirty.

Once more she lost the sense of space;
once more trees,
houses,
people,
animals,
hills,
merged and heaved into one dirtiness,
and she was at Wickham Place.

Her evening was pleasant.

The sense of flux which had haunted her all the year disappeared
for a time.

She forgot the luggage and the motor-cars,
and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little.

She recaptured the sense of space,
which is the basis of all earthly beauty,
and,
starting from Howards End,
she attempted
to realise England.

She failed--visions do not come when we try,
though they may come through trying.

But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her,
connecting on this side
with the joys of the flesh,
on that
with the inconceivable.

Helen and her father had known this love,
poor Leonard Bast was groping after it,
but it had been hidden from Margaret till this afternoon.

It had certainly come through the house and old Miss Avery.

Through them:

the notion of
"through"
persisted;
her mind trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into words.

Then,
veering back into warmth,
it dwelt on ruddy bricks,
flowering plum-trees,
and all the tangible joys of spring.

Henry,
after allaying her agitation,
had taken her over his property,
and had explained
to her the use and dimensions of the various rooMs. He had sketched the history of the little estate.

"It is so unlucky,"
ran the monologue,
"that money wasn't put into it about fifty years ago.

Then it had four--five--times the land--thirty acres at least.

One could have made something out of it then--a small park,
or at all events shrubberies,
and rebuilt the house farther away from the road.

What's the good of taking it in hand now?

Nothing but the meadow left,
and even that was heavily mortgaged when I first had
to do
with things--yes,
and the house too.

Oh,
it was no joke."

She saw two women as he spoke,
one old,
the other young,
watching their inheritance melt away.

She saw them greet him as a deliverer.

"Mismanagement did it--besides,
the days
for small farms are over.

It doesn't pay-- except
with intensive cultivation.

Small holdings,
back
to the land--ah! philanthropic bunkum.

Take it as a rule that nothing pays on a small scale.

Most of the land you see
(they were standing at an upper window,
the only one which faced west)
belongs
to the people at the Park--they made their pile over copper--good chaps.

Avery's Farm,
Sishe's--what they call the Common,
where you see that ruined oak--one after the other fell in,
and so did this,
as near as is no matter."

But Henry had saved it;
without fine feelings or deep insight,
but he had saved it,
and she loved him
for the deed.

"When I had more control I did what I could--sold off the two and a half animals,
and the mangy pony,
and the superannuated tools;
pulled down the outhouses;
drained;
thinned out I don't know how many guelder-roses and elder-trees;
and inside the house I turned the old kitchen into a hall,
and made a kitchen behind where the dairy was.

Garage and so on came later.

But one could still tell it's been an old farm.

And yet it isn't the place that would fetch one of your artistic crew."

No,
it wasn't;
and if he did not quite understand it,
the artistic crew would still less;
it was English,
and the wych-elm that she saw from the window was an English tree.

No report had prepared her
for its peculiar glory.

It was neither warrior,
nor lover,
nor god;
in none of these roles do the English excel.

It was a comrade bending over the house,
strength and adventure in its roots,
but in its utmost fingers tenderness,
and the girth,
that a dozen men could not have spanned,
became in the end evanescent,
till pale bud clusters seemed
to float in the air.

It was a comrade.

House and tree transcended any similes of sex.

Margaret thought of them now,
and was
to think of them through many a windy night and London day,
but
to compare either
to man,
to woman,
always dwarfed the vision.

Yet they kept within limits of the human.

Their message was not of eternity,
but of hope on this side of the grave.

As she stood in the one,
gazing at the other,
truer relationship had gleamed.

Another touch,
and the account of her day is finished.

They entered the garden
for a minute,
and
to Mr. Wilcox's surprise she was right.

Teeth,
pigs'
teeth,
could be seen in the bark of the wych-elm tree--just the white tips of them showing.

"Extraordinary!"
he cried.

"Who told you?"
"I heard of it one winter in London,"
was her answer,
for she,
too,
avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.

CHAPTER XXV Evie heard of her father's engagement when she was in
for a tennis tournament,
and her play went simply
to pot.

That she should marry and leave him had seemed natural enough;
that he,
left alone,
should do the same was deceitful;
and now Charles and Dolly said that it was all her fault.

"But I never dreamt of such a thing,"
she grumbled.

"Dad took me
to call now and then,
and made me ask her
to Simpson's.

Well,
I'm altogether off dad."

It was also an insult
to their mother's memory;
there they were agreed,
and Evie had the idea of returning Mrs. Wilcox's lace and jewellery
"as a protest."

Against what it would protest she was not clear;
but being only eighteen,
the idea of renunciation appealed
to her,
the more as she did not care
for jewellery or lace.

Dolly then suggested that she and Uncle Percy should pretend
to break off their engagement,
and then perhaps Mr. Wilcox would quarrel
with Miss Schlegel,
and break off his;
or Paul might be cabled for.

But at this point Charles told them not
to talk nonsense.

So Evie settled
to marry as soon as possible;
it was no good hanging about
with these Schlegels eyeing her.

The date of her wedding was consequently put forward from September
to August,
and in the intoxication of presents she recovered much of her good-humour.

Margaret found that she was expected
to figure at this function,
and
to figure largely;
it would be such an opportunity,
said Henry,
for her
to get
to know his set.

Sir James Bidder would be there,
and all the Cahills and the Fussells,
and his sister-in-law,
Mrs. Warrington Wilcox,
had fortunately got back from her tour round the world.

Henry she loved,
but his set promised
to be another matter.

He had not the knack of surrounding himself
with nice people--indeed,
for a man of ability and virtue his choice had been singularly unfortunate;
he had no guiding principle beyond a certain preference
for mediocrity;
he was content
to settle one of the greatest things in life haphazard,
and so,
while his investments went right,
his friends generally went wrong.

She would be told,
"Oh,
So-and-so's a good sort--a thundering good sort,"
and find,
on meeting him,
that he was a brute or a bore.

If Henry had shown real affection,
she would have understood,
for affection explains everything.

But he seemed without sentiment.

The
"thundering good sort"
might at any moment become
"a fellow
for whom I never did have much use,
and have less now,"
and be shaken off cheerily into oblivion.

Margaret had done the same as a schoolgirl.

Now she never forgot any one
for whom she had once cared;
she connected,
though the connection might be bitter,
and she hoped that some day Henry would do the same.

Evie was not
to be married from Ducie Street.

She had a fancy
for something rural,
and,
besides,
no one would be in London then,
so she left her boxes
for a few weeks at Oniton Grange,
and her banns were duly published in the parish church,
and
for a couple of days the little town,
dreaming between the ruddy hills,
was roused by the clang of our civilisation,
and drew up by the roadside
to let the motors pass.

Oniton had been a discovery of Mr. Wilcox's--a discovery of which he was not altogether proud.

It was up towards the Welsh border,
and so difficult of access that he had concluded it must be something special.

A ruined castle stood in the grounds.

But having got there,
what was one
to do?

The shooting was bad,
the fishing indifferent,
and womenfolk reported the scenery as nothing much.

The place turned out
to be in the wrong part of Shropshire,
and though he never ran down his own property
to others,
he was only waiting
to get it off his hands,
and then
to let fly.

Evie's marriage was its last appearance in public.

As soon as a tenant was found,
it became a house
for which he never had had much use,
and had less now,
and,
like Howards End,
faded into Limbo.

But on Margaret Oniton was destined
to make a lasting impression.

She regarded it as her future home,
and was anxious
to start straight
with the clergy,
etc.,
and,
if possible,
to see something of the local life.

It was a market-town--as tiny a one as England possesses--and had
for ages served that lonely valley,
and guarded our marches against the Celt.

In spite of the occasion,
in spite of the numbing hilarity that greeted her as soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington,
her senses were awake and watching,
and though Oniton was
to prove one of her innumerable false starts,
she never forgot it,
or the things that happened there.

The London party only numbered eight--the Fussells,
father and son,
two Anglo-Indian ladies named Mrs. Plynlimmon and Lady Edser,
Mrs. Warrington Wilcox and her daughter,
and,
lastly,
the little girl,
very smart and quiet,
who figures at so many weddings,
and who kept a watchful eye on Margaret,
the bride-elect.

Dolly was absent--a domestic event detained her at Hilton;
Paul had cabled a humorous message;
Charles was
to meet them
with a trio of motors at Shrewsbury;
Helen had refused her invitation;
Tibby had never answered his.

The management was excellent,
as was
to be expected
with anything that Henry undertook;
one was conscious of his sensible and generous brain in the background.

They were his guests as soon as they reached the train;
a special label
for their luggage;
a courier;
a special lunch;
they had only
to look pleasant and,
where possible,
pretty.

Margaret thought
with dismay of her own nuptials--presumably under the management of Tibby.

"Mr. Theobald Schlegel and Miss Helen Schlegel request the pleasure of Mrs. Plynlimmon's company on the occasion of the marriage of their sister Margaret."

The formula was incredible,
but it must soon be printed and sent,
and though Wickham Place need not compete
with Oniton,
it must feed its guests properly,
and provide them
with sufficient chairs.

Her wedding would either be ramshackly or bourgeois--she hoped the latter.

Such an affair as the present,
staged
with a deftness that was almost beautiful,
lay beyond her powers and those of her friends.

The low rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst background
for conversation,
and the journey passed pleasantly enough.

Nothing could have exceeded the kindness of the two men.

They raised windows
for some ladies,
and lowered them
for others,
they rang the bell
for the servant,
they identified the colleges as the train slipped past Oxford,
they caught books or bag-purses in the act of tumbling on
to the floor.

Yet there was nothing finicking about their politeness--it had the public-school touch,
and,
though sedulous,
was virile.

More battles than Waterloo have been won on our playing-fields,
and Margaret bowed
to a charm of which she did not wholly approve,
and said nothing when the Oxford colleges were identified wrongly.

"Male and female created He them";
the journey
to Shrewsbury confirmed this questionable statement,
and the long glass saloon,
that moved so easily and felt so comfortable,
became a forcing-house
for the idea of sex.

At Shrewsbury came fresh air.

Margaret was all
for sight-seeing,
and while the others were finishing their tea at the Raven,
she annexed a motor and hurried over the astonishing city.

Her chauffeur was not the faithful Crane,
but an Italian,
who dearly loved making her late.

Charles,
watch in hand,
though
with a level brow,
was standing in front of the hotel when they returned.

It was perfectly all right,
he told her;
she was by no means the last.

And then he dived into the coffee-room,
and she heard him say,
"For God's sake,
hurry the women up;
we shall never be off,"
and Albert Fussell reply,
"Not I;
I've done my share,"
and Colonel Fussell opine that the ladies were getting themselves up
to kill.

Presently Myra
(Mrs. Warrington's daughter)
appeared,
and as she was his cousin,
Charles blew her up a little;
she had been changing her smart travelling hat
for a smart motor hat.

Then Mrs. Warrington herself,
leading the quiet child;
the two Anglo-Indian ladies were always last.

Maids,
courier,
heavy luggage,
had already gone on by a branch-line
to a station nearer Oniton,
but there were five hat-boxes and four dressing-bags
to be packed,
and five dust-cloaks
to be put on,
and
to be put off at the last moment,
because Charles declared them not necessary.

The men presided over everything
with unfailing good-humour.

By half-past five the party was ready,
and went out of Shrewsbury by the Welsh Bridge.

Shropshire had not the reticence of Hertfordshire.

Though robbed of half its magic by swift movement,
it still conveyed the sense of hills.

They were nearing the buttresses that force the Severn eastward and make it an English stream,
and the sun,
sinking over the Sentinels of Wales,
was straight in their eyes.

Having picked up another guest,
they turned southward,
avoiding the greater mountains,
but conscious of an occasional summit,
rounded and mild,
whose colouring differed in quality from that of the lower earth,
and whose contours altered more slowly.

Quiet mysteries were in progress behind those tossing horizons:

the West,
as ever,
was retreating
with some secret which may not be worth the discovery,
but which no practical man will ever discover.

They spoke of Tariff Reform.

Mrs. Warrington was just back from the Colonies.

Like many other critics of Empire,
her mouth had been stopped
with food,
and she could only exclaim at the hospitality
with which she had been received,
and warn the Mother Country against trifling
with young Titans.

"They threaten
to cut the painter,"
she cried,
"and where shall we be then?

Miss Schlegel,
you'll undertake
to keep Henry sound about Tariff Reform?

It is our last hope."

Margaret playfully confessed herself on the other side,
and they began
to quote from their respective handbooks while the motor carried them deep into the hills.

Curious these were rather than impressive,
for their outlines lacked beauty,
and the pink fields on their summits suggested the handkerchiefs of a giant spread out
to dry.

An occasional outcrop of rock,
an occasional wood,
an occasional
"forest,"
treeless and brown,
all hinted at wildness
to follow,
but the main colour was an agricultural green.

The air grew cooler;
they had surmounted the last gradient,
and Oniton lay below them
with its church,
its radiating houses,
its castle,
its river-girt peninsula.

Close
to the castle was a grey mansion unintellectual but kindly,
stretching
with its grounds across the peninsula's neck--the sort of mansion that was built all over England in the beginning of the last century,
while architecture was still an expression of the national character.

That was the Grange,
remarked Albert,
over his shoulder,
and then he jammed the brake on,
and the motor slowed down and stopped.

"I'm sorry,"
said he,
turning round.

"Do you mind getting out--by the door on the right.

Steady on."

"What's happened?"
asked Mrs. Warrington.

Then the car behind them drew up,
and the voice of Charles was heard saying:

"Get the women out at once."

There was a concourse of males,
and Margaret and her companions were hustled out and received into the second car.

What had happened?

As it started off again,
the door of a cottage opened,
and a girl screamed wildly at them.

"What is it?"
the ladies cried.

Charles drove them a hundred yards without speaking.

Then he said:

"It's all right.

Your car just touched a dog."

"But stop!"
cried Margaret,
horrified.

"It didn't hurt him."

"Didn't really hurt him?"
asked Myra.

"No."

"Do PLEASE stop!"
said Margaret,
leaning forward.

She was standing up in the car,
the other occupants holding her knees
to steady her.

"I want
to go back,
please."

Charles took no notice.

"We've left Mr. Fussell behind,"
said another;
"and Angelo,
and Crane."

"Yes,
but no woman."

"I expect a little of
"--Mrs. Warrington scratched her palm--
"will be more
to the point than one of us!"
"The insurance company see
to that,"
remarked Charles,
"and Albert will do the talking."

"I want
to go back,
though,
I say!"
repeated Margaret,
getting angry.

Charles took no notice.

The motor,
loaded
with refugees,
continued
to travel very slowly down the hill.

"The men are there,"
chorused the others.

"They will see
to it."

"The men CAN'T see
to it.

Oh,
this is ridiculous! Charles,
I ask you
to stop."

"Stopping's no good,"
drawled Charles.

"Isn't it?"
said Margaret,
and jumped straight out of the car.

She fell on her knees,
cut her gloves,
shook her hat over her ear.

Cries of alarm followed her.

"You've hurt yourself,"
exclaimed Charles,
jumping after her.

"Of course I've hurt myself!"
she retorted.

"May I ask what--"
"There's nothing
to ask,"
said Margaret.

"Your hand's bleeding."

"I know."

"I'm in
for a frightful row from the pater."

"You should have thought of that sooner,
Charles."

Charles had never been in such a position before.

It was a woman in revolt who was hobbling away from him--and the sight was too strange
to leave any room
for anger.

He recovered himself when the others caught them up:

their sort he understood.

He commanded them
to go back.

Albert Fussell was seen walking towards them.

"It's all right!"
he called.

"It was a cat."

"There!"
exclaimed Charles triumphantly.

"It's only a rotten cat."

"Got room in your car
for a little un?

I cut as soon as I saw it wasn't a dog;
the chauffeurs are tackling the girl."

But Margaret walked forward steadily.

Why should the chauffeurs tackle the girl?

Ladies sheltering behind men,
men sheltering behind servants--the whole system's wrong,
and she must challenge it.

"Miss Schlegel!
'Pon my word,
you've hurt your hand."

"I'm just going
to see,"
said Margaret.

"Don't you wait,
Mr. Fussell."

The second motor came round the corner.

"It is all right,
madam,"
said Crane in his turn.

He had taken
to calling her madam.

"What's all right?

The cat?"
"Yes,
madam.

The girl will receive compensation
for it."

"She was a very ruda girla,"
said Angelo from the third motor thoughtfully.

"Wouldn't you have been rude?"
The Italian spread out his hands,
implying that he had not thought of rudeness,
but would produce it if it pleased her.

The situation became absurd.

The gentlemen were again buzzing round Miss Schlegel
with offers of assistance,
and Lady Edser began
to bind up her hand.

She yielded,
apologising slightly,
and was led back
to the car,
and soon the landscape resumed its motion,
the lonely cottage disappeared,
the castle swelled on its cushion of turf,
and they had arrived.

No doubt she had disgraced herself.

But she felt their whole journey from London had been unreal.

They had no part
with the earth and its emotions.

They were dust,
and a stink,
and cosmopolitan chatter,
and the girl whose cat had been killed had lived more deeply than they.

"Oh,
Henry,"
she exclaimed,
"I have been so naughty,"
for she had decided
to take up this line.

"We ran over a cat.

Charles told me not
to jump out,
but I would,
and look!"
She held out her bandaged hand.

"Your poor Meg went such a flop."

Mr. Wilcox looked bewildered.

In evening dress,
he was standing
to welcome his guests in the hall.

"Thinking it was a dog."

added Mrs. Warrington.

"Ah,
a dog's a companion!"
said Colonel Fussell
"A dog'll remember you."

"Have you hurt yourself,
Margaret?"
"Not
to speak about;
and it's my left hand."

"Well,
hurry up and change."

She obeyed,
as did the others.

Mr. Wilcox then turned
to his son.

"Now,
Charles,
what's happened?'
Charles was absolutely honest.

He described what he believed
to have happened.

Albert had flattened out a cat,
and Miss Schlegel had lost her nerve,
as any woman might.

She had been got safely into the other car,
but when it was in motion had leapt out again,
in spite of all that they could say.

After walking a little on the road,
she had calmed down and had said that she was sorry.

His father accepted this explanation,
and neither knew that Margaret had artfully prepared the way
for it.

It fitted in too well
with their view of feminine nature.

In the smoking-room,
after dinner,
the Colonel put forward the view that Miss Schlegel had jumped it out of devilry.

Well he remembered as a young man,
in the harbour of Gibraltar once,
how a girl--a handsome girl,
too--had jumped overboard
for a bet.

He could see her now,
and all the lads overboard after her.

But Charles and Mr. Wilcox agreed it was much more probably nerves in Miss Schlegel's case.

Charles was depressed.

That woman had a tongue.

She would bring worse disgrace on his father before she had done
with them.

He strolled out on
to the castle mound
to think the matter over.

The evening was exquisite.

On three sides of him a little river whispered,
full of messages from the West;
above his head the ruins made patterns against the sky.

He carefully reviewed their dealings
with this family,
until he fitted Helen,
and Margaret,
and Aunt Juley into an orderly conspiracy.

Paternity had made him suspicious.

He had two children
to look after,
and more coming,
and day by day they seemed less likely
to grow up rich men.

"It is all very well,"
he reflected,
"the pater's saying that he will be just
to all,
but one can't be just indefinitely.

Money isn't elastic.

What's
to happen if Evie has a family?

And,
come
to that,
so may the pater.

There'll not be enough
to go round,
for there's none coming in,
either through Dolly or Percy.

It's damnable!"
He looked enviously at the Grange,
whose windows poured light and laughter.

First and last,
this wedding would cost a pretty penny.

Two ladies were strolling up and down the garden terrace,
and as the syllables
"Imperialism"
were wafted
to his ears,
he guessed that one of them was his aunt.

She might have helped him,
if she too had not had a family
to provide for.

"Every one
for himself,"
he repeated--a maxim which had cheered him in the past,
but which rang grimly enough among the ruins of Oniton.

He lacked his father's ability in business,
and so had an ever higher regard
for money;
unless he could inherit plenty,
he feared
to leave his children poor.

As he sat thinking,
one of the ladies left the terrace and walked into the meadow;
he recognised her as Margaret by the white bandage that gleamed on her arm,
and put out his cigar,
lest the gleam should betray him.

She climbed up the mound in zigzags,
and at times stooped down,
as if she was stroking the turf.

It sounds absolutely incredible,
but
for a moment Charles thought that she was in love
with him,
and had come out
to tempt him.

Charles believed in temptresses,
who are indeed the strong man's necessary complement,
and having no sense of humour,
he could not purge himself of the thought by a smile.

Margaret,
who was engaged
to his father,
and his sister's wedding-guest,
kept on her way without noticing him,
and he admitted that he had wronged her on this point.

But what was she doing?

Why was she stumbling about amongst the rubble and catching her dress in brambles and burrs?

As she edged round the keep,
she must have got
to windward and smelt his cigar-smoke,
for she exclaimed,
"Hullo! Who's that?"
Charles made no answer.

"Saxon or Celt?"
she continued,
laughing in the darkness.

"But it doesn't matter.

Whichever you are,
you will have
to listen
to me.

I love this place.

I love Shropshire.

I hate London.

I am glad that this will be my home.

Ah,
dear"--she was now moving back towards the house--"what a comfort
to have arrived!"
"That woman means mischief,"
thought Charles,
and compressed his lips.

In a few minutes he followed her indoors,
as the ground was getting damp.

Mists were rising from the river,
and presently it became invisible,
though it whispered more loudly.

There had been a heavy downpour in the Welsh hills.

CHAPTER XXVI Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula.

The weather promised well,
and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer each moment that Margaret watched it.

Presently she saw the keep,
and the sun painted the rubble gold,
and charged the white sky
with blue.

The shadow of the house gathered itself together,
and fell over the garden.

A cat looked up at her window and mewed.

Lastly the river appeared,
still holding the mists between its banks and its overhanging alders,
and only visible as far as a hill,
which cut off its upper reaches.

Margaret was fascinated by Oniton.

She had said that she loved it,
but it was rather its romantic tension that held her.

The rounded Druids of whom she had caught glimpses in her drive,
the rivers hurrying down from them
to England,
the carelessly modelled masses of the lower hills,
thrilled her
with poetry.

The house was insignificant,
but the prospect from it would be an eternal joy,
and she thought of all the friends she would have
to stop in it,
and of the conversion of Henry himself
to a rural life.

Society,
too,
promised favourably.

The rector of the parish had dined
with them last night,
and she found that he was a friend of her father's,
and so knew what
to find in her.

She liked him.

He would introduce her
to the town.

While,
on her other side,
Sir James Bidder sat,
repeating that she only had
to give the word,
and he would whip up the county families
for twenty miles round.

Whether Sir James,
who was Garden Seeds,
had promised what he could perform,
she doubted,
but so long as Henry mistook them
for the county families when they did call,
she was content.

Charles Wilcox and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn.

They were going
for a morning dip,
and a servant followed them
with their bathing-suits.

She had meant
to take a stroll herself before breakfast,
but saw that the day was still sacred
to men,
and amused herself by watching their contretemps.

In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be found.

Charles stood by the riverside
with folded hands,
tragical,
while the servant shouted,
and was misunderstood by another servant in the garden.

Then came a difficulty about a springboard,
and soon three people were running backwards and forwards over the meadow,
with orders and counter orders and recriminations and apologies.

If Margaret wanted
to jump from a motor-car,
she jumped;
if Tibby thought paddling would benefit his ankles,
he paddled;
if a clerk desired adventure,
he took a walk in the dark.

But these athletes seemed paralysed.

They could not bathe without their appliances,
though the morning sun was calling and the last mists were rising from the dimpling stream.

Had they found the life of the body after all?

Could not the men whom they despised as milksops beat them,
even on their own ground?

She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her day--no worrying of servants,
no appliances,
beyond good sense.

Her reflections were disturbed by the quiet child,
who had come out
to speak
to the cat,
but was now watching her watch the men.

She called,
"Good-morning,
dear,"
a little sharply.

Her voice spread consternation.

Charles looked round,
and though completely attired in indigo blue,
vanished into the shed,
and was seen no more.

"Miss Wilcox is up--"
the child whispered,
and then became unintelligible.

"What is that?"
it sounded like,
"--cut-yoke--sack-back--"
"I can't hear."

"--On the bed--tissue-paper--"
Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view,
and that a visit would be seemly,
she went
to Evie's room.

All was hilarity here.

Evie,
in a petticoat,
was dancing
with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies,
while the other was adoring yards of white satin.

They screamed,
they laughed,
they sang,
and the dog barked.

Margaret screamed a little too,
but without conviction.

She could not feel that a wedding was so funny.

Perhaps something was missing in her equipment.

Evie gasped:

"Dolly is a rotter not
to be here! Oh,
we would rag just then!"
Then Margaret went down
to breakfast.

Henry was already installed;
he ate slowly and spoke little,
and was,
in Margaret's eyes,
the only member of their party who dodged emotion successfully.

She could not suppose him indifferent either
to the loss of his daughter or
to the presence of his future wife.

Yet he dwelt intact,
only issuing orders occasionally--orders that promoted the comfort of his guests.

He inquired after her hand;
he set her
to pour out the coffee and Mrs. Warrington
to pour out the tea.

When Evie came down there was a moment's awkwardness,
and both ladies rose
to vacate their places.

"Burton,"
called Henry,
"serve tea and coffee from the sideboard!"
It wasn't genuine tact,
but it was tact,
of a sort-- the sort that is as useful as the genuine,
and saves even more situations at Board meetings.

Henry treated a marriage like a funeral,
item by item,
never raising his eyes
to the whole,
and
"Death,
where is thy sting?

Love,
where is thy victory?"
one would exclaim at the close.

After breakfast Margaret claimed a few words
with him.

It was always best
to approach him formally.

She asked
for the interview,
because he was going on
to shoot grouse to-morrow,
and she was returning
to Helen in town.

"Certainly,
dear,"
said he.

"Of course,
I have the time.

What do you want?"
"Nothing."

"I was afraid something had gone wrong."

"No;
I have nothing
to say,
but you may talk."

Glancing at his watch,
he talked of the nasty curve at the lych-gate.

She heard him
with interest.

Her surface could always respond
to his without contempt,
though all her deeper being might be yearning
to help him.

She had abandoned any plan of action.

Love is the best,
and the more she let herself love him,
the more chance was there that he would set his soul in order.

Such a moment as this,
when they sat under fair weather by the walks of their future home,
was so sweet
to her that its sweetness would surely pierce
to him.

Each lift of his eyes,
each parting of the thatched lip from the clean-shaven,
must prelude the tenderness that kills the Monk and the Beast at a single blow.

Disappointed a hundred times,
she still hoped.

She loved him
with too clear a vision
to fear his cloudiness.

Whether he droned trivialities,
as to-day,
or sprang kisses on her in the twilight,
she could pardon him,
she could respond.

"If there is this nasty curve,"
she suggested,
"couldn't we walk
to the church?

Not,
of course,
you and Evie;
but the rest of us might very well go on first,
and that would mean fewer carriages."

"One can't have ladies walking through the Market Square.

The Fussells wouldn't like it;
they were awfully particular at Charles's wedding.

My--she--our party was anxious
to walk,
and certainly the church was just round the corner,
and I shouldn't have minded;
but the Colonel made a great point of it."

"You men shouldn't be so chivalrous,"
said Margaret thoughtfully.

"Why not?"
She knew why not,
but said that she did not know.

He then announced that,
unless she had anything special
to say,
he must visit the wine-cellar,
and they went off together in search of Burton.

Though clumsy and a little inconvenient,
Oniton was a genuine country-house.

They clattered down flagged passages,
looking into room after room,
and scaring unknown maids from the performance of obscure duties.

The wedding-breakfast must be in readiness when they come back from church,
and tea would be served in the garden.

The sight of so many agitated and serious people made Margaret smile,
but she reflected that they were paid
to be serious,
and enjoyed being agitated.

Here were the lower wheels of the machine that was tossing Evie up into nuptial glory.

A little boy blocked their way
with pig-pails.

His mind could not grasp their greatness,
and he said:

"By your leave;
let me pass,
please."

Henry asked him where Burton was.

But the servants were so new that they did not know one another's names.

In the still-room sat the band,
who had stipulated
for champagne as part of their fee,
and who were already drinking beer.

Scents of Araby came from the kitchen,
mingled
with cries.

Margaret knew what had happened there,
for it happened at Wickham Place.

One of the wedding dishes had boiled over,
and the cook was throwing cedar-shavings
to hide the smell.

At last they came upon the butler.

Henry gave him the keys,
and handed Margaret down the cellar-stairs.

Two doors were unlocked.

She,
who kept all her wine at the bottom of the linen-cupboard,
was astonished at the sight.

"We shall never get through it!"
she cried,
and the two men were suddenly drawn into brotherhood,
and exchanged smiles.

She felt as if she had again jumped out of the car while it was moving.

Certainly Oniton would take some digesting.

It would be no small business
to remain herself,
and yet
to assimilate such an establishment.

She must remain herself,
for his sake as well as her own,
since a shadowy wife degrades the husband whom she accompanies;
and she must assimilate
for reasons of common honesty,
since she had no right
to marry a man and make him uncomfortable.

Her only ally was the power of Home.

The loss of Wickham Place had taught her more than its possession.

Howards End had repeated the lesson.

She was determined
to create new sanctities among these hills.

After visiting the wine-cellar,
she dressed,
and then came the wedding,
which seemed a small affair when compared
with the preparations
for it.

Everything went like one o'clock.

Mr. Cahill materialised out of space,
and was waiting
for his bride at the church door.

No one dropped the ring or mispronounced the responses,
or trod on Evie's train,
or cried.

In a few minutes the clergymen performed their duty,
the register was signed,
and they were back in their carriages,
negotiating the dangerous curve by the lych-gate.

Margaret was convinced that they had not been married at all,
and that the Norman church had been intent all the time on other business.

There were more documents
to sign at the house,
and the breakfast
to eat,
and then a few more people dropped in
for the garden party.

There had been a great many refusals,
and after all it was not a very big affair--not as big as Margaret's would be.

She noted the dishes and the strips of red carpet,
that outwardly she might give Henry what was proper.

But inwardly she hoped
for something better than this blend of Sunday church and fox-hunting.

If only some one had been upset! But this wedding had gone off so particularly well--"quite like a durbar"
in the opinion of Lady Edser,
and she thoroughly agreed
with her.

So the wasted day lumbered forward,
the bride and bridegroom drove off,
yelling
with laughter,
and
for the second time the sun retreated towards the hills of Wales.

Henry,
who was more tired than he owned,
came up
to her in the castle meadow,
and,
in tones of unusual softness,
said that he was pleased.

Everything had gone off so well.

She felt that he was praising her,
too,
and blushed;
certainly she had done all she could
with his intractable friends,
and had made a special point of kotowing
to the men.

They were breaking camp this evening;
only the Warringtons and quiet child would stay the night,
and the others were already moving towards the house
to finish their packing.

"I think it did go off well,"
she agreed.

"Since I had
to jump out of the motor,
I'm thankful I lighted on my left hand.

I am so very glad about it,
Henry dear;
I only hope that the guests at ours may be half as comfortable.

You must all remember that we have no practical person among us,
except my aunt,
and she is not used
to entertainments on a large scale."

"I know,"
he said gravely.

"Under the circumstances,
it would be better
to put everything into the hands of Harrods or Whiteley's,
or even
to go
to some hotel."

"You desire a hotel?"
"Yes,
because--well,
I mustn't interfere
with you.

No doubt you want
to be married from your old home."

"My old home's falling into pieces,
Henry.

I only want my new.

Isn't it a perfect evening--"
"The Alexandrina isn't bad--"
"The Alexandrina,"
she echoed,
more occupied
with the threads of smoke that were issuing from their chimneys,
and ruling the sunlit slopes
with parallels of grey.

"It's off Curzon Street."

"Is it?

Let's be married from off Curzon Street."

Then she turned westward,
to gaze at the swirling gold.

Just where the river rounded the hill the sun caught it.

Fairyland must lie above the bend,
and its precious liquid was pouring towards them past Charles's bathing-shed.

She gazed so long that her eyes were dazzled,
and when they moved back
to the house,
she could not recognise the faces of people who were coming out of it.

A parlour-maid was preceding them.

"Who are those people?"
she asked.

"They're callers!"
exclaimed Henry.

"It's too late
for callers."

"Perhaps they're town people who want
to see the wedding presents."

"I'm not at home yet
to townees."

"Well,
hide among the ruins,
and if I can stop them,
I will."

He thanked her.

Margaret went forward,
smiling socially.

She supposed that these were unpunctual guests,
who would have
to be content
with vicarious civility,
since Evie and Charles were gone,
Henry tired,
and the others in their rooMs. She assumed the airs of a hostess;
not
for long.

For one of the group was Helen--Helen in her oldest clothes,
and dominated by that tense,
wounding excitement that had made her a terror in their nursery days.

"What is it?"
she called.

"Oh,
what's wrong?

Is Tibby ill?"
Helen spoke
to her two companions,
who fell back.

Then she bore forward furiously.

"They're starving!"
she shouted.

"I found them starving!"
"Who?

Why have you come?"
"The Basts."

"Oh,
Helen!"
moaned Margaret.

"Whatever have you done now?"
"He has lost his place.

He has been turned out of his bank.

Yes,
he's done for.

We upper classes have ruined him,
and I suppose you'll tell me it's the battle of life.

Starving.

His wife is ill.

Starving.

She fainted in the train."

"Helen,
are you mad?"
"Perhaps.

Yes.

If you like,
I'm mad.

But I've brought them.

I'll stand injustice no longer.

I'll show up the wretchedness that lies under this luxury,
this talk of impersonal forces,
this cant about God doing what we're too slack
to do ourselves."

"Have you actually brought two starving people from London
to Shropshire,
Helen?"
Helen was checked.

She had not thought of this,
and her hysteria abated.

"There was a restaurant car on the train,"
she said.

"Don't be absurd.

They aren't starving,
and you know it.

Now,
begin from the beginning.

I won't have such theatrical nonsense.

How dare you! Yes,
how dare you!"
she repeated,
as anger filled her,
"bursting in
to Evie's wedding in this heartless way.

My goodness! but you've a perverted notion of philanthropy.

Look"-- she indicated the house--"servants,
people out of the windows.

They think it's some vulgar scandal,
and I must explain,
'Oh no,
it's only my sister screaming,
and only two hangers-on of ours,
whom she has brought here
for no conceivable reason.'
"
"Kindly take back that word
'hangers-on,'"
said Helen,
ominously calm.

"Very well,"
conceded Margaret,
who
for all her wrath was determined
to avoid a real quarrel.

"I,
too,
am sorry about them,
but it beats me why you've brought them here,
or why you're here yourself."

"It's our last chance of seeing Mr. Wilcox."

Margaret moved towards the house at this.

She was determined not
to worry Henry.

"He's going
to Scotland.

I know he is.

I insist on seeing him."

"Yes,
to-morrow."

"I knew it was our last chance."

"How do you do,
Mr. Bast?"
said Margaret,
trying
to control her voice.

"This is an odd business.

What view do you take of it?"
"There is Mrs. Bast,
too,"
prompted Helen.

Jacky also shook hands.

She,
like her husband,
was shy,
and,
furthermore,
ill,
and furthermore,
so bestially stupid that she could not grasp what was happening.

She only knew that the lady had swept down like a whirlwind last night,
had paid the rent,
redeemed the furniture,
provided them
with a dinner and a breakfast,
and ordered them
to meet her at Paddington next morning.

Leonard had feebly protested,
and when the morning came,
had suggested that they shouldn't go.

But she,
half mesmerised,
had obeyed.

The lady had told them to,
and they must,
and their bed-sitting-room had accordingly changed into Paddington,
and Paddington into a railway carriage,
that shook,
and grew hot,
and grew cold,
and vanished entirely,
and reappeared amid torrents of expensive scent.

"You have fainted,"
said the lady in an awe-struck voice.

"Perhaps the air will do you good."

And perhaps it had,
for here she was,
feeling rather better among a lot of flowers.

"I'm sure I don't want
to intrude,"
began Leonard,
in answer
to Margaret's question.

"But you have been so kind
to me in the past in warning me about the Porphyrion that I wondered--why,
I wondered whether--"
"Whether we could get him back into the Porphyrion again,"
supplied Helen.

"Meg,
this has been a cheerful business.

A bright evening's work that was on Chelsea Embankment."

Margaret shook her head and returned
to Mr. Bast.

"I don't understand.

You left the Porphyrion because we suggested it was a bad concern,
didn't you?"
"That's right."

"And went into a bank instead?"
"I told you all that,"
said Helen;
"and they reduced their staff after he had been in a month,
and now he's penniless,
and I consider that we and our informant are directly
to blame."

"I hate all this,"
Leonard muttered.

"I hope you do,
Mr. Bast.

But it's no good mincing matters.

You have done yourself no good by coming here.

If you intend
to confront Mr. Wilcox,
and
to call him
to account
for a chance remark,
you will make a very great mistake."

"I brought them.

I did it all,"
cried Helen.

"I can only advise you
to go at once.

My sister has put you in a false position,
and it is kindest
to tell you so.

It's too late
to get
to town,
but you'll find a comfortable hotel in Oniton,
where Mrs. Bast can rest,
and I hope you'll be my guests there."

"That isn't what I want,
Miss Schlegel,"
said Leonard.

"You're very kind,
and no doubt it's a false position,
but you make me miserable.

I seem no good at all."

"It's work he wants,"
interpreted Helen.

"Can't you see?"
Then he said:

"Jacky,
let's go.

We're more bother than we're worth.

We're costing these ladies pounds and pounds already
to get work
for us,
and they never will.

There's nothing we're good enough
to do."

"We would like
to find you work,"
said Margaret rather conventionally.

"We want to--I,
like my sister.

You're only down in your luck.

Go
to the hotel,
have a good night's rest,
and some day you shall pay me back the bill,
if you prefer it."

But Leonard was near the abyss,
and at such moments men see clearly.

"You don't know what you're talking about,"
he said.

"I shall never get work now.

If rich people fail at one profession,
they can try another.

Not I.

I had my groove,
and I've got out of it.

I could do one particular branch of insurance in one particular office well enough
to command a salary,
but that's all.

Poetry's nothing,
Miss Schlegel.

One's thoughts about this and that are nothing.

Your money,
too,
is nothing,
if you'll understand me.

I mean if a man over twenty once loses his own particular job,
it's all over
with him.

I have seen it happen
to others.

Their friends gave them money
for a little,
but in the end they fall over the edge.

It's no good.

It's the whole world pulling.

There always will be rich and poor."

He ceased.

"Won't you have something
to eat?"
said Margaret.

"I don't know what
to do.

It isn't my house,
and though Mr. Wilcox would have been glad
to see you at any other time--as I say,
I don't know what
to do,
but I undertake
to do what I can
for you.

Helen,
offer them something.

Do try a sandwich,
Mrs. Bast."

They moved
to a long table behind which a servant was still standing.

Iced cakes,
sandwiches innumerable,
coffee,
claret-cup,
champagne,
remained almost intact;
their overfed guests could do no more.

Leonard refused.

Jacky thought she could manage a little.

Margaret left them whispering together,
and had a few more words
with Helen.

She said:

"Helen,
I like Mr. Bast.

I agree that he's worth helping.

I agree that we are directly responsible."

"No,
indirectly.

Via Mr. Wilcox."

"Let me tell you once
for all that if you take up that attitude,
I'll do nothing.

No doubt you're right logically,
and are entitled
to say a great many scathing things about Henry.

Only,
I won't have it.

So choose."

Helen looked at the sunset.

"If you promise
to take them quietly
to the George I will speak
to Henry about them--in my own way,
mind;
there is
to be none of this absurd screaming about justice.

I have no use
for justice.

If it was only a question of money,
we could do it ourselves.

But he wants work,
and that we can't give him,
but possibly Henry can."

"It's his duty to,"
grumbled Helen.

"Nor am I concerned
with duty.

I'm concerned
with the characters of various people whom we know,
and how,
things being as they are,
things may be made a little better.

Mr. Wilcox hates being asked favours;
all business men do.

But I am going
to ask him,
at the risk of a rebuff,
because I want
to make things a little better."

"Very well.

I promise.

You take it very calmly."

"Take them off
to the George,
then,
and I'll try.

Poor creatures! but they look tired."

As they parted,
she added:

"I haven't nearly done
with you,
though,
Helen.

You have been most self-indulgent.

I can't get over it.

You have less restraint rather than more as you grow older.

Think it over and alter yourself,
or we shan't have happy lives."

She rejoined Henry.

Fortunately he had been sitting down:

these physical matters were important.

"Was it townees?"
he asked,
greeting her
with a pleasant smile.

"You'll never believe me,"
said Margaret,
sitting down beside him.

"It's all right now,
but it was my sister."

"Helen here?"
he cried,
preparing
to rise.

"But she refused the invitation.

I thought hated weddings."

"Don't get up.

She has not come
to the wedding.

I've bundled her off
to the George."

Inherently hospitable,
he protested.

"No;
she has two of her proteges
with her and must keep
with them."

"Let
'em all come."

"My dear Henry,
did you see them?"
"I did catch sight of a brown bunch of a woman,
certainly."

"The brown bunch was Helen,
but did you catch sight of a sea-green and salmon bunch?"
"What! are they out bean-feasting?"
"No;
business.

They wanted
to see me,
and later on I want
to talk
to you about them."

She was ashamed of her own diplomacy.

In dealing
with a Wilcox,
how tempting it was
to lapse from comradeship,
and
to give him the kind of woman that he desired! Henry took the hint at once,
and said:

"Why later on?

Tell me now.

No time like the present."

"Shall I?"
"If it isn't a long story."

"Oh,
not five minutes;
but there's a sting at the end of it,
for I want you
to find the man some work in your office."

"What are his qualifications?"
"I don't know.

He's a clerk."

"How old?"
"Twenty-five,
perhaps."

"What's his name?"
"Bast,"
said Margaret,
and was about
to remind him that they had met at Wickham Place,
but stopped herself.

It had not been a successful meeting.

"Where was he before?"
"Dempster's Bank."

"Why did he leave?"
he asked,
still remembering nothing.

"They reduced their staff."

"All right;
I'll see him."

It was the reward of her tact and devotion through the day.

Now she understood why some women prefer influence
to rights.

Mrs. Plynlimmon,
when condemning suffragettes,
had said:

"The woman who can't influence her husband
to vote the way she wants ought
to be ashamed of herself."

Margaret had winced,
but she was influencing Henry now,
and though pleased at her little victory,
she knew that she had won it by the methods of the harem.

"I should be glad if you took him,"
she said,
"but I don't know whether he's qualified."

"I'll do what I can.

But,
Margaret,
this mustn't be taken as a precedent."

"No,
of course--of course--"
"I can't fit in your proteges every day.

Business would suffer."

"I can promise you he's the last.

He--he's rather a special case."

"Proteges always are."

She let it stand at that.

He rose
with a little extra touch of complacency,
and held out his hand
to help her up.

How wide the gulf between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought
to be! And she herself--hovering as usual between the two,
now accepting men as they are,
now yearning
with her sister
for Truth.

Love and Truth--their warfare seems eternal perhaps the whole visible world rests on it,
and if they were one,
life itself,
like the spirits when Prospero was reconciled
to his brother,
might vanish into air,
into thin air.

"Your protege has made us late,"
said he.

"The Fussells--will just be starting."

On the whole she sided
with men as they are.

Henry would save the Basts as he had saved Howards End,
while Helen and her friends were discussing the ethics of salvation.

His was a slap-dash method,
but the world has been built slap-dash,
and the beauty of mountain and river and sunset may be but the varnish
with which the unskilled artificer hides his joins.

Oniton,
like herself,
was imperfect.

Its apple-trees were stunted,
its castle ruinous.

It,
too,
had suffered in the border warfare between the Anglo-Saxon and the Celt,
between things as they are and as they ought
to be.

Once more the west was retreating,
once again the orderly stars were dotting the eastern sky.

There is certainly no rest
for us on the earth.

But there is happiness,
and as Margaret descended the mound on her lover's arm,
she felt that she was having her share.

To her annoyance,
Mrs. Bast was still in the garden;
the husband and Helen had left her there
to finish her meal while they went
to engage rooMs. Margaret found this woman repellent.

She had felt,
when shaking her hand,
an overpowering shame.

She remembered the motive of her call at Wickham Place,
and smelt again odours from the abyss--odours the more disturbing because they were involuntary.

For there was no malice in Jacky.

There she sat,
a piece of cake in one hand,
an empty champagne glass in the other,
doing no harm
to anybody.

"She's overtired,"
Margaret whispered.

"She's something else,"
said Henry.

"This won't do.

I can't have her in my garden in this state."

"Is she--"
Margaret hesitated
to add
"drunk."

Now that she was going
to marry him,
he had grown particular.

He discountenanced risque conversations now.

Henry went up
to the woman.

She raised her face,
which gleamed in the twilight like a puff-ball.

"Madam,
you will be more comfortable at the hotel,"
he said sharply.

Jacky replied:

"If it isn't Hen!"
"Ne crois pas que le mari lui ressemble,"
apologised Margaret.

"Il est tout a fait different."

"Henry!"
she repeated,
quite distinctly.

Mr. Wilcox was much annoyed.

"I congratulate you on your proteges,"
he remarked.

"Hen,
don't go.

You do love me,
dear,
don't you?"
"Bless us,
what a person!"
sighed Margaret,
gathering up her skirts.

Jacky pointed
with her cake.

"You're a nice boy,
you are."

She yawned.

"There now,
I love you."

"Henry,
I am awfully sorry."

"And pray why?"
he asked,
and looked at her so sternly that she feared he was ill.

He seemed more scandalised than the facts demanded.

"To have brought this down on you."

"Pray don't apologise."

The voice continued.

"Why does she call you
'Hen'?"
said Margaret innocently.

"Has she ever seen you before?"
"Seen Hen before!"
said Jacky.

"Who hasn't seen Hen?

He's serving you like me,
my boys! You wait-- Still we love
'em."

"Are you now satisfied?"
Henry asked.

Margaret began
to grow frightened.

"I don't know what it is all about,"
she said.

"Let's come in."

But he thought she was acting.

He thought he was trapped.

He saw his whole life crumbling.

"Don't you indeed?"
he said bitingly.

"I do.

Allow me
to congratulate you on the success of your plan."

"This is Helen's plan,
not mine."

"I now understand your interest in the Basts.

Very well thought out.

I am amused at your caution,
Margaret.

You are quite right-- it was necessary.

I am a man,
and have lived a man's past.

I have the honour
to release you from your engagement."

Still she could not understand.

She knew of life's seamy side as a theory;
she could not grasp it as a fact.

More words from Jacky were necessary--words unequivocal,
undenied.

"So that--"
burst from her,
and she went indoors.

She stopped herself from saying more.

"So what?"
asked Colonel Fussell,
who was getting ready
to start in the hall.

"We were saying--Henry and I were just having the fiercest argument,
my point being--"
Seizing his fur coat from a footman,
she offered
to help him on.

He protested,
and there was a playful little scene.

"No,
let me do that,"
said Henry,
following.

"Thanks so much! You see--he has forgiven me!"
The Colonel said gallantly:

"I don't expect there's much
to forgive."

He got into the car.

The ladies followed him after an interval.

Maids,
courier,
and heavier luggage had been sent on earlier by the branch-line.

Still chattering,
still thanking their host and patronising their future hostess,
the guests were borne away.

Then Margaret continued:

"So that woman has been your mistress?"
"You put it
with your usual delicacy,"
he replied.

"When,
please?"
"Why?"
"When,
please?"
"Ten years ago."

She left him without a word.

For it was not her tragedy;
it was Mrs. Wilcox's.

CHAPTER XXVII Helen began
to wonder why she had spent a matter of eight pounds in making some people ill and others angry.

Now that the wave of excitement was ebbing,
and had left her,
Mr. Bast,
and Mrs. Bast stranded
for the night in a Shropshire hotel,
she asked herself what forces had made the wave flow.

At all events,
no harm was done.

Margaret would play the game properly now,
and though Helen disapproved of her sister's methods,
she knew that the Basts would benefit by them in the long-run.

"Mr. Wilcox is so illogical,"
she explained
to Leonard,
who had put his wife
to bed,
and was sitting
with her in the empty coffee-room.

"If we told him it was his duty
to take you on,
he might refuse
to do it.

The fact is,
he isn't properly educated.

I don't want
to set you against him,
but you'll find him a trial."

"I can never thank you sufficiently,
Miss Schlegel,"
was all that Leonard felt equal to.

"I believe in personal responsibility.

Don't you?

And in personal everything.

I hate--I suppose I oughtn't
to say that--but the Wilcoxes are on the wrong tack surely.

Or perhaps it isn't their fault.

Perhaps the little thing that says
'I'
is missing out of the middle of their heads,
and then it's a waste of time
to blame them.

There's a nightmare of a theory that says a special race is being born which will rule the rest of us in the future just because it lacks the little thing that says
'I.'

Had you heard that?"
"I get no time
for reading."

"Had you thought it,
then?

That there are two kinds of people--our kind,
who live straight from the middle of their heads,
and the other kind who can't,
because their heads have no middle?

They can't say
'I.'

They AREN'T in fact,
and so they're supermen.

Pierpont Morgan has never said
'I'
in his life."

Leonard roused himself.

If his benefactress wanted intellectual conversation,
she must have it.

She was more important than his ruined past.

"I never got on
to Nietzsche,"
he said.

"But I always understood that those supermen were rather what you may call egoists."

"Oh no,
that's wrong,"
replied Helen.

"No superman ever said
'I want,'
because
'I want'
must lead
to the question,
'Who am I?'
and so
to Pity and
to Justice.

He only says
'want.'

'Want Europe,'
if he's Napoleon;
'want wives,'
if he's Bluebeard;
'want Botticelli,'
if he's Pierpont Morgan.

Never the
'I';
and if you could pierce through the superman,
you'd find panic and emptiness in the middle."

Leonard was silent
for a moment.

Then he said:

"May I take it,
Miss Schlegel,
that you and I are both the sort that say
'I'?"
"Of course."

"And your sister,
too?"
"Of course,"
repeated Helen,
a little sharply.

She was annoyed
with Margaret,
but did not want her discussed.

"All presentable people say
'I.'
"
"But Mr. Wilcox--he is not perhaps--"
"I don't know that it's any good discussing Mr. Wilcox either."

"Quite so,
quite so,"
he agreed.

Helen asked herself why she had snubbed him.

Once or twice during the day she had encouraged him
to criticise,
and then had pulled him up short.

Was she afraid of him presuming?

If so,
it was disgusting of her.

But he was thinking the snub quite natural.

Everything she did was natural,
and incapable of causing offence.

While the Miss Schlegels were together he had felt them scarcely human--a sort of admonitory whirligig.

But a Miss Schlegel alone was different.

She was in Helen's case unmarried,
in Margaret's about
to be married,
in neither case an echo of her sister.

A light had fallen at last into this rich upper world,
and he saw that it was full of men and women,
some of whom were more friendly
to him than others.

Helen had become
"his"
Miss Schlegel,
who scolded him and corresponded
with him,
and had swept down yesterday
with grateful vehemence.

Margaret,