"A ROOM WITH A VIEW\n\nBy E. M. Forster\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\nPART ONE\n\nI. The Bertolini\n\nII. In Santa Croce with No Baedeker\n\nIII. Music, Violets, and the Letter \"S\"\n\nIV. Fourth Chapter\n\nV. Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing\n\nVI. The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager,\n       Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish,\n       Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive\n       Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them\n\nVII. They Return\n\nPART TWO\n\nVIII. Medieval\n\nIX. Lucy as a Work of Art\n\nX. Cecil as a Humourist\n\nXI. In Mrs. Vyse's Well-Appointed Flat\n\nXII. Twelfth Chapter\n\nXIII. How Miss Bartlett's Boiler Was So Tiresome\n\nXIV. How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely\n\nXV. The Disaster Within\n\nXVI. Lying to George\n\nXVII. Lying to Cecil\n\nXVIII. Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and the Servants\n\nXIX. Lying to Mr. Emerson\n\nXX. The End of the Middle Ages\n\n\n\n\nPART ONE\n\n\n\nChapter I: The Bertolini\n\n\"The Signora had no business to do it,\" said Miss Bartlett, \"no business\nat all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead\nof which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way\napart. Oh, Lucy!\"\n\n\"And a Cockney, besides!\" said Lucy, who had been further saddened by\nthe Signora's unexpected accent. \"It might be London.\" She looked at the\ntwo rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row\nof white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the\nEnglish people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet\nLaureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at the\nnotice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that\nwas the only other decoration of the wall. \"Charlotte, don't you feel,\ntoo, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all kinds of\nother things are just outside. I suppose it is one's being so tired.\"\n\n\"This meat has surely been used for soup,\" said Miss Bartlett, laying\ndown her fork.\n\n\"I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her\nletter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to\ndo it at all. Oh, it is a shame!\"\n\n\"Any nook does for me,\" Miss Bartlett continued; \"but it does seem hard\nthat you shouldn't have a view.\"\n\nLucy felt that she had been selfish. \"Charlotte, you mustn't spoil me:\nof course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first\nvacant room in the front--\" \"You must have it,\" said Miss Bartlett, part\nof whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother--a piece of\ngenerosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.\n\n\"No, no. You must have it.\"\n\n\"I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy.\"\n\n\"She would never forgive me.\"\n\nThe ladies' voices grew animated, and--if the sad truth be owned--a\nlittle peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness\nthey wrangled. Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one\nof them--one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad--leant\nforward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He\nsaid:\n\n\"I have a view, I have a view.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them\nover for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that\nthey would \"do\" till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was\nill-bred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy\nbuild, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something\nchildish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility.\nWhat exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her\nglance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was\nprobably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the\nswim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then\nsaid: \"A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is!\"\n\n\"This is my son,\" said the old man; \"his name's George. He has a view\ntoo.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Miss Bartlett, repressing Lucy, who was about to speak.\n\n\"What I mean,\" he continued, \"is that you can have our rooms, and we'll\nhave yours. We'll change.\"\n\nThe better class of tourist was shocked at this, and sympathized with\nthe new-comers. Miss Bartlett, in reply, opened her mouth as little\nas possible, and said \"Thank you very much indeed; that is out of the\nquestion.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said the old man, with both fists on the table.\n\n\"Because it is quite out of the question, thank you.\"\n\n\"You see, we don't like to take--\" began Lucy. Her cousin again\nrepressed her.\n\n\"But why?\" he persisted. \"Women like looking at a view; men don't.\" And\nhe thumped with his fists like a naughty child, and turned to his son,\nsaying, \"George, persuade them!\"\n\n\"It's so obvious they should have the rooms,\" said the son. \"There's\nnothing else to say.\"\n\nHe did not look at the ladies as he spoke, but his voice was perplexed\nand sorrowful. Lucy, too, was perplexed; but she saw that they were in\nfor what is known as \"quite a scene,\" and she had an odd feeling that\nwhenever these ill-bred tourists spoke the contest widened and deepened\ntill it dealt, not with rooms and views, but with--well, with something\nquite different, whose existence she had not realized before. Now the\nold man attacked Miss Bartlett almost violently: Why should she not\nchange? What possible objection had she? They would clear out in half an\nhour.\n\nMiss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was\npowerless in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any\none so gross. Her face reddened with displeasure. She looked around as\nmuch as to say, \"Are you all like this?\" And two little old ladies, who\nwere sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging over the backs\nof the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating \"We are not; we are\ngenteel.\"\n\n\"Eat your dinner, dear,\" she said to Lucy, and began to toy again with\nthe meat that she had once censured.\n\nLucy mumbled that those seemed very odd people opposite.\n\n\"Eat your dinner, dear. This pension is a failure. To-morrow we will\nmake a change.\"\n\nHardly had she announced this fell decision when she reversed it. The\ncurtains at the end of the room parted, and revealed a clergyman, stout\nbut attractive, who hurried forward to take his place at the table,\ncheerfully apologizing for his lateness. Lucy, who had not yet acquired\ndecency, at once rose to her feet, exclaiming: \"Oh, oh! Why, it's\nMr. Beebe! Oh, how perfectly lovely! Oh, Charlotte, we must stop now,\nhowever bad the rooms are. Oh!\"\n\nMiss Bartlett said, with more restraint:\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Beebe? I expect that you have forgotten us: Miss\nBartlett and Miss Honeychurch, who were at Tunbridge Wells when you\nhelped the Vicar of St. Peter's that very cold Easter.\"\n\nThe clergyman, who had the air of one on a holiday, did not remember\nthe ladies quite as clearly as they remembered him. But he came forward\npleasantly enough and accepted the chair into which he was beckoned by\nLucy.\n\n\"I AM so glad to see you,\" said the girl, who was in a state of\nspiritual starvation, and would have been glad to see the waiter if\nher cousin had permitted it. \"Just fancy how small the world is. Summer\nStreet, too, makes it so specially funny.\"\n\n\"Miss Honeychurch lives in the parish of Summer Street,\" said Miss\nBartlett, filling up the gap, \"and she happened to tell me in the course\nof conversation that you have just accepted the living--\"\n\n\"Yes, I heard from mother so last week. She didn't know that I knew you\nat Tunbridge Wells; but I wrote back at once, and I said: 'Mr. Beebe\nis--'\"\n\n\"Quite right,\" said the clergyman. \"I move into the Rectory at Summer\nStreet next June. I am lucky to be appointed to such a charming\nneighbourhood.\"\n\n\"Oh, how glad I am! The name of our house is Windy Corner.\" Mr. Beebe\nbowed.\n\n\"There is mother and me generally, and my brother, though it's not often\nwe get him to ch---- The church is rather far off, I mean.\"\n\n\"Lucy, dearest, let Mr. Beebe eat his dinner.\"\n\n\"I am eating it, thank you, and enjoying it.\"\n\nHe preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than\nto Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons. He asked the girl\nwhether she knew Florence well, and was informed at some length that she\nhad never been there before. It is delightful to advise a newcomer, and\nhe was first in the field. \"Don't neglect the country round,\" his advice\nconcluded. \"The first fine afternoon drive up to Fiesole, and round by\nSettignano, or something of that sort.\"\n\n\"No!\" cried a voice from the top of the table. \"Mr. Beebe, you are\nwrong. The first fine afternoon your ladies must go to Prato.\"\n\n\"That lady looks so clever,\" whispered Miss Bartlett to her cousin. \"We\nare in luck.\"\n\nAnd, indeed, a perfect torrent of information burst on them. People told\nthem what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams, how to\nget rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter, how\nmuch the place would grow upon them. The Pension Bertolini had decided,\nalmost enthusiastically, that they would do. Whichever way they looked,\nkind ladies smiled and shouted at them. And above all rose the voice of\nthe clever lady, crying: \"Prato! They must go to Prato. That place is\ntoo sweetly squalid for words. I love it; I revel in shaking off the\ntrammels of respectability, as you know.\"\n\nThe young man named George glanced at the clever lady, and then returned\nmoodily to his plate. Obviously he and his father did not do. Lucy, in\nthe midst of her success, found time to wish they did. It gave her no\nextra pleasure that any one should be left in the cold; and when she\nrose to go, she turned back and gave the two outsiders a nervous little\nbow.\n\nThe father did not see it; the son acknowledged it, not by another bow,\nbut by raising his eyebrows and smiling; he seemed to be smiling across\nsomething.\n\nShe hastened after her cousin, who had already disappeared through the\ncurtains--curtains which smote one in the face, and seemed heavy with\nmore than cloth. Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing\ngood-evening to her guests, and supported by 'Enery, her little boy, and\nVictorier, her daughter. It made a curious little scene, this attempt\nof the Cockney to convey the grace and geniality of the South. And even\nmore curious was the drawing-room, which attempted to rival the solid\ncomfort of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Was this really Italy?\n\nMiss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed arm-chair, which\nhad the colour and the contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr.\nBeebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards and\nforwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some\ninvisible obstacle. \"We are most grateful to you,\" she was saying.\n\"The first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a\npeculiarly mauvais quart d'heure.\"\n\nHe expressed his regret.\n\n\"Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us\nat dinner?\"\n\n\"Emerson.\"\n\n\"Is he a friend of yours?\"\n\n\"We are friendly--as one is in pensions.\"\n\n\"Then I will say no more.\"\n\nHe pressed her very slightly, and she said more.\n\n\"I am, as it were,\" she concluded, \"the chaperon of my young cousin,\nLucy, and it would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation\nto people of whom we know nothing. His manner was somewhat unfortunate.\nI hope I acted for the best.\"\n\n\"You acted very naturally,\" said he. He seemed thoughtful, and after\na few moments added: \"All the same, I don't think much harm would have\ncome of accepting.\"\n\n\"No harm, of course. But we could not be under an obligation.\"\n\n\"He is rather a peculiar man.\" Again he hesitated, and then said gently:\n\"I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor expect you\nto show gratitude. He has the merit--if it is one--of saying exactly\nwhat he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would\nvalue them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than\nhe thought of being polite. It is so difficult--at least, I find it\ndifficult--to understand people who speak the truth.\"\n\nLucy was pleased, and said: \"I was hoping that he was nice; I do so\nalways hope that people will be nice.\"\n\n\"I think he is; nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every\npoint of any importance, and so, I expect--I may say I hope--you will\ndiffer. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When\nhe first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up. He has no\ntact and no manners--I don't mean by that that he has bad manners--and\nhe will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about\nhim to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of\nit.\"\n\n\"Am I to conclude,\" said Miss Bartlett, \"that he is a Socialist?\"\n\nMr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching\nof the lips.\n\n\"And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?\"\n\n\"I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet. He seems a nice\ncreature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his father's\nmannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a Socialist.\"\n\n\"Oh, you relieve me,\" said Miss Bartlett. \"So you think I ought to\nhave accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and\nsuspicious?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" he answered; \"I never suggested that.\"\n\n\"But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent rudeness?\"\n\nHe replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary,\nand got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room.\n\n\"Was I a bore?\" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. \"Why\ndidn't you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I'm sure. I do hope I\nhaven't monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as\nwell as all dinner-time.\"\n\n\"He is nice,\" exclaimed Lucy. \"Just what I remember. He seems to see\ngood in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman.\"\n\n\"My dear Lucia--\"\n\n\"Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh;\nMr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man.\"\n\n\"Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will\napprove of Mr. Beebe.\"\n\n\"I'm sure she will; and so will Freddy.\"\n\n\"I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable\nworld. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind\nthe times.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lucy despondently.\n\nThere was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval\nwas of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy\nCorner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not\ndetermine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss\nBartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added \"I am\nafraid you are finding me a very depressing companion.\"\n\nAnd the girl again thought: \"I must have been selfish or unkind; I must\nbe more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor.\"\n\nFortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been\nsmiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed\nto sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter\ngently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying\nsuccess of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the\nnecessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly\nemptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects\nagreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than\nthe high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding\ntempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe,\nnot a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found\nin her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one\nbetter than something else.\n\n\"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so\nEnglish.\"\n\n\"Yet our rooms smell,\" said poor Lucy. \"We dread going to bed.\"\n\n\"Ah, then you look into the court.\" She sighed. \"If only Mr. Emerson was\nmore tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner.\"\n\n\"I think he was meaning to be kind.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly he was,\" said Miss Bartlett.\n\n\"Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of\ncourse, I was holding back on my cousin's account.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could\nnot be too careful with a young girl.\n\nLucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No\none was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed\nit.\n\n\"About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have\nyou ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most\nindelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?\"\n\n\"Beautiful?\" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. \"Are not beauty\nand delicacy the same?\"\n\n\"So one would have thought,\" said the other helplessly. \"But things are\nso difficult, I sometimes think.\"\n\nShe proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking\nextremely pleasant.\n\n\"Miss Bartlett,\" he cried, \"it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad.\nMr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing what\nI did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and\nask you. He would be so pleased.\"\n\n\"Oh, Charlotte,\" cried Lucy to her cousin, \"we must have the rooms now.\nThe old man is just as nice and kind as he can be.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett was silent.\n\n\"I fear,\" said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, \"that I have been officious. I\nmust apologize for my interference.\"\n\nGravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett\nreply: \"My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with\nyours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at\nFlorence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to\nturn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then,\nMr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and\nthen conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally?\"\n\nShe raised her voice as she spoke; it was heard all over the\ndrawing-room, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The\nclergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with her\nmessage.\n\n\"Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the\nacceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events.\"\n\nMr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously:\n\n\"Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead.\"\n\nThe young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the\nfloor, so low were their chairs.\n\n\"My father,\" he said, \"is in his bath, so you cannot thank him\npersonally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to\nhim as soon as he comes out.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came\nforth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to the\ndelight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy.\n\n\"Poor young man!\" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone.\n\n\"How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do to\nkeep polite.\"\n\n\"In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready,\" said Mr. Beebe. Then\nlooking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own\nrooms, to write up his philosophic diary.\n\n\"Oh, dear!\" breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the\nwinds of heaven had entered the apartment. \"Gentlemen sometimes do not\nrealize--\" Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to understand\nand a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did not thoroughly\nrealize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either, was reduced\nto literature. Taking up Baedeker's Handbook to Northern Italy, she\ncommitted to memory the most important dates of Florentine History. For\nshe was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus the half-hour\ncrept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a sigh, and\nsaid:\n\n\"I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will\nsuperintend the move.\"\n\n\"How you do do everything,\" said Lucy.\n\n\"Naturally, dear. It is my affair.\"\n\n\"But I would like to help you.\"\n\n\"No, dear.\"\n\nCharlotte's energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her\nlife, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So\nLucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet--there was a rebellious spirit\nin her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less\ndelicate and more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room\nwithout any feeling of joy.\n\n\"I want to explain,\" said Miss Bartlett, \"why it is that I have taken\nthe largest room. Naturally, of course, I should have given it to you;\nbut I happen to know that it belongs to the young man, and I was sure\nyour mother would not like it.\"\n\nLucy was bewildered.\n\n\"If you are to accept a favour it is more suitable you should be under\nan obligation to his father than to him. I am a woman of the world, in\nmy small way, and I know where things lead to. However, Mr. Beebe is a\nguarantee of a sort that they will not presume on this.\"\n\n\"Mother wouldn't mind I'm sure,\" said Lucy, but again had the sense of\nlarger and unsuspected issues.\n\nMiss Bartlett only sighed, and enveloped her in a protecting embrace as\nshe wished her good-night. It gave Lucy the sensation of a fog, and when\nshe reached her own room she opened the window and breathed the clean\nnight air, thinking of the kind old man who had enabled her to see the\nlights dancing in the Arno and the cypresses of San Miniato, and the\nfoot-hills of the Apennines, black against the rising moon.\n\nMiss Bartlett, in her room, fastened the window-shutters and locked the\ndoor, and then made a tour of the apartment to see where the cupboards\nled, and whether there were any oubliettes or secret entrances. It was\nthen that she saw, pinned up over the washstand, a sheet of paper on\nwhich was scrawled an enormous note of interrogation. Nothing more.\n\n\"What does it mean?\" she thought, and she examined it carefully by the\nlight of a candle. Meaningless at first, it gradually became menacing,\nobnoxious, portentous with evil. She was seized with an impulse to\ndestroy it, but fortunately remembered that she had no right to do so,\nsince it must be the property of young Mr. Emerson. So she unpinned it\ncarefully, and put it between two pieces of blotting-paper to keep it\nclean for him. Then she completed her inspection of the room, sighed\nheavily according to her habit, and went to bed.\n\n\n\nChapter II: In Santa Croce with No Baedeker\n\nIt was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright\nbare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are\nnot; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport\nin a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to\nfling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings,\nto lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble\nchurches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the\nembankment of the road.\n\nOver the river men were at work with spades and sieves on the sandy\nforeshore, and on the river was a boat, also diligently employed for\nsome mysterious end. An electric tram came rushing underneath the\nwindow. No one was inside it, except one tourist; but its platforms were\noverflowing with Italians, who preferred to stand. Children tried to\nhang on behind, and the conductor, with no malice, spat in their faces\nto make them let go. Then soldiers appeared--good-looking, undersized\nmen--wearing each a knapsack covered with mangy fur, and a great-coat\nwhich had been cut for some larger soldier. Beside them walked officers,\nlooking foolish and fierce, and before them went little boys, turning\nsomersaults in time with the band. The tramcar became entangled in their\nranks, and moved on painfully, like a caterpillar in a swarm of ants.\nOne of the little boys fell down, and some white bullocks came out of\nan archway. Indeed, if it had not been for the good advice of an old man\nwho was selling button-hooks, the road might never have got clear.\n\nOver such trivialities as these many a valuable hour may slip away,\nand the traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of\nGiotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing\nbut the blue sky and the men and women who live under it. So it was as\nwell that Miss Bartlett should tap and come in, and having commented on\nLucy's leaving the door unlocked, and on her leaning out of the window\nbefore she was fully dressed, should urge her to hasten herself, or the\nbest of the day would be gone. By the time Lucy was ready her cousin\nhad done her breakfast, and was listening to the clever lady among the\ncrumbs.\n\nA conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines. Miss Bartlett\nwas, after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the\nmorning settling in; unless Lucy would at all like to go out? Lucy would\nrather like to go out, as it was her first day in Florence, but, of\ncourse, she could go alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of\ncourse she would accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, certainly not; Lucy\nwould stop with her cousin. Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes!\n\nAt this point the clever lady broke in.\n\n\"If it is Mrs. Grundy who is troubling you, I do assure you that you\ncan neglect the good person. Being English, Miss Honeychurch will be\nperfectly safe. Italians understand. A dear friend of mine, Contessa\nBaroncelli, has two daughters, and when she cannot send a maid to school\nwith them, she lets them go in sailor-hats instead. Every one takes\nthem for English, you see, especially if their hair is strained tightly\nbehind.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett was unconvinced by the safety of Contessa Baroncelli's\ndaughters. She was determined to take Lucy herself, her head not being\nso very bad. The clever lady then said that she was going to spend a\nlong morning in Santa Croce, and if Lucy would come too, she would be\ndelighted.\n\n\"I will take you by a dear dirty back way, Miss Honeychurch, and if you\nbring me luck, we shall have an adventure.\"\n\nLucy said that this was most kind, and at once opened the Baedeker, to\nsee where Santa Croce was.\n\n\"Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from Baedeker.\nHe does but touch the surface of things. As to the true Italy--he does\nnot even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found by patient\nobservation.\"\n\nThis sounded very interesting, and Lucy hurried over her breakfast, and\nstarted with her new friend in high spirits. Italy was coming at last.\nThe Cockney Signora and her works had vanished like a bad dream.\n\nMiss Lavish--for that was the clever lady's name--turned to the right\nalong the sunny Lung' Arno. How delightfully warm! But a wind down\nthe side streets cut like a knife, didn't it? Ponte alle\nGrazie--particularly interesting, mentioned by Dante. San\nMiniato--beautiful as well as interesting; the crucifix that kissed\na murderer--Miss Honeychurch would remember the story. The men on the\nriver were fishing. (Untrue; but then, so is most information.) Then\nMiss Lavish darted under the archway of the white bullocks, and she\nstopped, and she cried:\n\n\"A smell! a true Florentine smell! Every city, let me teach you, has its\nown smell.\"\n\n\"Is it a very nice smell?\" said Lucy, who had inherited from her mother\na distaste to dirt.\n\n\"One doesn't come to Italy for niceness,\" was the retort; \"one comes for\nlife. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!\" bowing right and left. \"Look at that\nadorable wine-cart! How the driver stares at us, dear, simple soul!\"\n\nSo Miss Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence,\nshort, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten's\ngrace. It was a treat for the girl to be with any one so clever and so\ncheerful; and a blue military cloak, such as an Italian officer wears,\nonly increased the sense of festivity.\n\n\"Buon giorno! Take the word of an old woman, Miss Lucy: you will\nnever repent of a little civility to your inferiors. That is the\ntrue democracy. Though I am a real Radical as well. There, now you're\nshocked.\"\n\n\"Indeed, I'm not!\" exclaimed Lucy. \"We are Radicals, too, out and out.\nMy father always voted for Mr. Gladstone, until he was so dreadful about\nIreland.\"\n\n\"I see, I see. And now you have gone over to the enemy.\"\n\n\"Oh, please--! If my father was alive, I am sure he would vote Radical\nagain now that Ireland is all right. And as it is, the glass over our\nfront door was broken last election, and Freddy is sure it was the\nTories; but mother says nonsense, a tramp.\"\n\n\"Shameful! A manufacturing district, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No--in the Surrey hills. About five miles from Dorking, looking over\nthe Weald.\"\n\nMiss Lavish seemed interested, and slackened her trot.\n\n\"What a delightful part; I know it so well. It is full of the very\nnicest people. Do you know Sir Harry Otway--a Radical if ever there\nwas?\"\n\n\"Very well indeed.\"\n\n\"And old Mrs. Butterworth the philanthropist?\"\n\n\"Why, she rents a field of us! How funny!\"\n\nMiss Lavish looked at the narrow ribbon of sky, and murmured: \"Oh, you\nhave property in Surrey?\"\n\n\"Hardly any,\" said Lucy, fearful of being thought a snob. \"Only thirty\nacres--just the garden, all downhill, and some fields.\"\n\nMiss Lavish was not disgusted, and said it was just the size of her\naunt's Suffolk estate. Italy receded. They tried to remember the last\nname of Lady Louisa someone, who had taken a house near Summer Street\nthe other year, but she had not liked it, which was odd of her. And just\nas Miss Lavish had got the name, she broke off and exclaimed:\n\n\"Bless us! Bless us and save us! We've lost the way.\"\n\nCertainly they had seemed a long time in reaching Santa Croce, the tower\nof which had been plainly visible from the landing window. But Miss\nLavish had said so much about knowing her Florence by heart, that Lucy\nhad followed her with no misgivings.\n\n\"Lost! lost! My dear Miss Lucy, during our political diatribes we have\ntaken a wrong turning. How those horrid Conservatives would jeer at us!\nWhat are we to do? Two lone females in an unknown town. Now, this is\nwhat I call an adventure.\"\n\nLucy, who wanted to see Santa Croce, suggested, as a possible solution,\nthat they should ask the way there.\n\n\"Oh, but that is the word of a craven! And no, you are not, not, NOT to\nlook at your Baedeker. Give it to me; I shan't let you carry it. We will\nsimply drift.\"\n\nAccordingly they drifted through a series of those grey-brown streets,\nneither commodious nor picturesque, in which the eastern quarter of the\ncity abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the discontent of Lady\nLouisa, and became discontented herself. For one ravishing moment Italy\nappeared. She stood in the Square of the Annunziata and saw in the\nliving terra-cotta those divine babies whom no cheap reproduction can\never stale. There they stood, with their shining limbs bursting from\nthe garments of charity, and their strong white arms extended against\ncirclets of heaven. Lucy thought she had never seen anything more\nbeautiful; but Miss Lavish, with a shriek of dismay, dragged her\nforward, declaring that they were out of their path now by at least a\nmile.\n\nThe hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast begins, or\nrather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot chestnut paste\nout of a little shop, because it looked so typical. It tasted partly\nof the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the\ngreat unknown. But it gave them strength to drift into another Piazza,\nlarge and dusty, on the farther side of which rose a black-and-white\nfacade of surpassing ugliness. Miss Lavish spoke to it dramatically. It\nwas Santa Croce. The adventure was over.\n\n\"Stop a minute; let those two people go on, or I shall have to speak to\nthem. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! they are going into\nthe church, too. Oh, the Britisher abroad!\"\n\n\"We sat opposite them at dinner last night. They have given us their\nrooms. They were so very kind.\"\n\n\"Look at their figures!\" laughed Miss Lavish. \"They walk through my\nItaly like a pair of cows. It's very naughty of me, but I would like\nto set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back every tourist who\ncouldn't pass it.\"\n\n\"What would you ask us?\"\n\nMiss Lavish laid her hand pleasantly on Lucy's arm, as if to suggest\nthat she, at all events, would get full marks. In this exalted mood they\nreached the steps of the great church, and were about to enter it when\nMiss Lavish stopped, squeaked, flung up her arms, and cried:\n\n\"There goes my local-colour box! I must have a word with him!\"\n\nAnd in a moment she was away over the Piazza, her military cloak\nflapping in the wind; nor did she slacken speed till she caught up an\nold man with white whiskers, and nipped him playfully upon the arm.\n\nLucy waited for nearly ten minutes. Then she began to get tired. The\nbeggars worried her, the dust blew in her eyes, and she remembered that\na young girl ought not to loiter in public places. She descended slowly\ninto the Piazza with the intention of rejoining Miss Lavish, who was\nreally almost too original. But at that moment Miss Lavish and her\nlocal-colour box moved also, and disappeared down a side street, both\ngesticulating largely. Tears of indignation came to Lucy's eyes partly\nbecause Miss Lavish had jilted her, partly because she had taken her\nBaedeker. How could she find her way home? How could she find her way\nabout in Santa Croce? Her first morning was ruined, and she might never\nbe in Florence again. A few minutes ago she had been all high spirits,\ntalking as a woman of culture, and half persuading herself that she\nwas full of originality. Now she entered the church depressed and\nhumiliated, not even able to remember whether it was built by the\nFranciscans or the Dominicans. Of course, it must be a wonderful\nbuilding. But how like a barn! And how very cold! Of course, it\ncontained frescoes by Giotto, in the presence of whose tactile values\nshe was capable of feeling what was proper. But who was to tell\nher which they were? She walked about disdainfully, unwilling to be\nenthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date. There was\nno one even to tell her which, of all the sepulchral slabs that paved\nthe nave and transepts, was the one that was really beautiful, the one\nthat had been most praised by Mr. Ruskin.\n\nThen the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of\nacquiring information, she began to be happy. She puzzled out the\nItalian notices--the notices that forbade people to introduce dogs into\nthe church--the notice that prayed people, in the interest of health and\nout of respect to the sacred edifice in which they found themselves,\nnot to spit. She watched the tourists; their noses were as red as their\nBaedekers, so cold was Santa Croce. She beheld the horrible fate that\novertook three Papists--two he-babies and a she-baby--who began their\ncareer by sousing each other with the Holy Water, and then proceeded to\nthe Machiavelli memorial, dripping but hallowed. Advancing towards it\nvery slowly and from immense distances, they touched the stone with\ntheir fingers, with their handkerchiefs, with their heads, and then\nretreated. What could this mean? They did it again and again. Then Lucy\nrealized that they had mistaken Machiavelli for some saint, hoping\nto acquire virtue. Punishment followed quickly. The smallest he-baby\nstumbled over one of the sepulchral slabs so much admired by Mr. Ruskin,\nand entangled his feet in the features of a recumbent bishop. Protestant\nas she was, Lucy darted forward. She was too late. He fell heavily upon\nthe prelate's upturned toes.\n\n\"Hateful bishop!\" exclaimed the voice of old Mr. Emerson, who had darted\nforward also. \"Hard in life, hard in death. Go out into the sunshine,\nlittle boy, and kiss your hand to the sun, for that is where you ought\nto be. Intolerable bishop!\"\n\nThe child screamed frantically at these words, and at these dreadful\npeople who picked him up, dusted him, rubbed his bruises, and told him\nnot to be superstitious.\n\n\"Look at him!\" said Mr. Emerson to Lucy. \"Here's a mess: a baby hurt,\ncold, and frightened! But what else can you expect from a church?\"\n\nThe child's legs had become as melting wax. Each time that old Mr.\nEmerson and Lucy set it erect it collapsed with a roar. Fortunately an\nItalian lady, who ought to have been saying her prayers, came to the\nrescue. By some mysterious virtue, which mothers alone possess, she\nstiffened the little boy's back-bone and imparted strength to his knees.\nHe stood. Still gibbering with agitation, he walked away.\n\n\"You are a clever woman,\" said Mr. Emerson. \"You have done more than\nall the relics in the world. I am not of your creed, but I do believe in\nthose who make their fellow-creatures happy. There is no scheme of the\nuniverse--\"\n\nHe paused for a phrase.\n\n\"Niente,\" said the Italian lady, and returned to her prayers.\n\n\"I'm not sure she understands English,\" suggested Lucy.\n\nIn her chastened mood she no longer despised the Emersons. She was\ndetermined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than delicate,\nand, if possible, to erase Miss Bartlett's civility by some gracious\nreference to the pleasant rooms.\n\n\"That woman understands everything,\" was Mr. Emerson's reply. \"But what\nare you doing here? Are you doing the church? Are you through with the\nchurch?\"\n\n\"No,\" cried Lucy, remembering her grievance. \"I came here with Miss\nLavish, who was to explain everything; and just by the door--it is too\nbad!--she simply ran away, and after waiting quite a time, I had to come\nin by myself.\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't you?\" said Mr. Emerson.\n\n\"Yes, why shouldn't you come by yourself?\" said the son, addressing the\nyoung lady for the first time.\n\n\"But Miss Lavish has even taken away Baedeker.\"\n\n\"Baedeker?\" said Mr. Emerson. \"I'm glad it's THAT you minded. It's worth\nminding, the loss of a Baedeker. THAT'S worth minding.\"\n\nLucy was puzzled. She was again conscious of some new idea, and was not\nsure whither it would lead her.\n\n\"If you've no Baedeker,\" said the son, \"you'd better join us.\" Was this\nwhere the idea would lead? She took refuge in her dignity.\n\n\"Thank you very much, but I could not think of that. I hope you do not\nsuppose that I came to join on to you. I really came to help with the\nchild, and to thank you for so kindly giving us your rooms last night. I\nhope that you have not been put to any great inconvenience.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said the old man gently, \"I think that you are repeating what\nyou have heard older people say. You are pretending to be touchy; but\nyou are not really. Stop being so tiresome, and tell me instead what\npart of the church you want to see. To take you to it will be a real\npleasure.\"\n\nNow, this was abominably impertinent, and she ought to have been\nfurious. But it is sometimes as difficult to lose one's temper as it\nis difficult at other times to keep it. Lucy could not get cross. Mr.\nEmerson was an old man, and surely a girl might humour him. On the other\nhand, his son was a young man, and she felt that a girl ought to be\noffended with him, or at all events be offended before him. It was at\nhim that she gazed before replying.\n\n\"I am not touchy, I hope. It is the Giottos that I want to see, if you\nwill kindly tell me which they are.\"\n\nThe son nodded. With a look of sombre satisfaction, he led the way to\nthe Peruzzi Chapel. There was a hint of the teacher about him. She felt\nlike a child in school who had answered a question rightly.\n\nThe chapel was already filled with an earnest congregation, and out of\nthem rose the voice of a lecturer, directing them how to worship Giotto,\nnot by tactful valuations, but by the standards of the spirit.\n\n\"Remember,\" he was saying, \"the facts about this church of Santa Croce;\nhow it was built by faith in the full fervour of medievalism, before\nany taint of the Renaissance had appeared. Observe how Giotto in these\nfrescoes--now, unhappily, ruined by restoration--is untroubled by the\nsnares of anatomy and perspective. Could anything be more majestic, more\npathetic, beautiful, true? How little, we feel, avails knowledge and\ntechnical cleverness against a man who truly feels!\"\n\n\"No!\" exclaimed Mr. Emerson, in much too loud a voice for church.\n\"Remember nothing of the sort! Built by faith indeed! That simply means\nthe workmen weren't paid properly. And as for the frescoes, I see no\ntruth in them. Look at that fat man in blue! He must weigh as much as I\ndo, and he is shooting into the sky like an air balloon.\"\n\nHe was referring to the fresco of the \"Ascension of St. John.\" Inside,\nthe lecturer's voice faltered, as well it might. The audience shifted\nuneasily, and so did Lucy. She was sure that she ought not to be with\nthese men; but they had cast a spell over her. They were so serious and\nso strange that she could not remember how to behave.\n\n\"Now, did this happen, or didn't it? Yes or no?\"\n\nGeorge replied:\n\n\"It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go up to\nheaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs; and if I got there I should\nlike my friends to lean out of it, just as they do here.\"\n\n\"You will never go up,\" said his father. \"You and I, dear boy, will\nlie at peace in the earth that bore us, and our names will disappear as\nsurely as our work survives.\"\n\n\"Some of the people can only see the empty grave, not the saint, whoever\nhe is, going up. It did happen like that, if it happened at all.\"\n\n\"Pardon me,\" said a frigid voice. \"The chapel is somewhat small for two\nparties. We will incommode you no longer.\"\n\nThe lecturer was a clergyman, and his audience must be also his flock,\nfor they held prayer-books as well as guide-books in their hands. They\nfiled out of the chapel in silence. Amongst them were the two little old\nladies of the Pension Bertolini--Miss Teresa and Miss Catherine Alan.\n\n\"Stop!\" cried Mr. Emerson. \"There's plenty of room for us all. Stop!\"\n\nThe procession disappeared without a word.\n\nSoon the lecturer could be heard in the next chapel, describing the life\nof St. Francis.\n\n\"George, I do believe that clergyman is the Brixton curate.\"\n\nGeorge went into the next chapel and returned, saying \"Perhaps he is. I\ndon't remember.\"\n\n\"Then I had better speak to him and remind him who I am. It's that Mr.\nEager. Why did he go? Did we talk too loud? How vexatious. I shall go\nand say we are sorry. Hadn't I better? Then perhaps he will come back.\"\n\n\"He will not come back,\" said George.\n\nBut Mr. Emerson, contrite and unhappy, hurried away to apologize to the\nRev. Cuthbert Eager. Lucy, apparently absorbed in a lunette, could hear\nthe lecture again interrupted, the anxious, aggressive voice of the old\nman, the curt, injured replies of his opponent. The son, who took every\nlittle contretemps as if it were a tragedy, was listening also.\n\n\"My father has that effect on nearly everyone,\" he informed her. \"He\nwill try to be kind.\"\n\n\"I hope we all try,\" said she, smiling nervously.\n\n\"Because we think it improves our characters. But he is kind to people\nbecause he loves them; and they find him out, and are offended, or\nfrightened.\"\n\n\"How silly of them!\" said Lucy, though in her heart she sympathized; \"I\nthink that a kind action done tactfully--\"\n\n\"Tact!\"\n\nHe threw up his head in disdain. Apparently she had given the wrong\nanswer. She watched the singular creature pace up and down the chapel.\nFor a young man his face was rugged, and--until the shadows fell upon\nit--hard. Enshadowed, it sprang into tenderness. She saw him once again\nat Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, carrying a burden of\nacorns. Healthy and muscular, he yet gave her the feeling of greyness,\nof tragedy that might only find solution in the night. The feeling soon\npassed; it was unlike her to have entertained anything so subtle. Born\nof silence and of unknown emotion, it passed when Mr. Emerson returned,\nand she could re-enter the world of rapid talk, which was alone familiar\nto her.\n\n\"Were you snubbed?\" asked his son tranquilly.\n\n\"But we have spoilt the pleasure of I don't know how many people. They\nwon't come back.\"\n\n\"...full of innate sympathy...quickness to perceive good in\nothers...vision of the brotherhood of man...\" Scraps of the lecture on\nSt. Francis came floating round the partition wall.\n\n\"Don't let us spoil yours,\" he continued to Lucy. \"Have you looked at\nthose saints?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lucy. \"They are lovely. Do you know which is the tombstone\nthat is praised in Ruskin?\"\n\nHe did not know, and suggested that they should try to guess it. George,\nrather to her relief, refused to move, and she and the old man wandered\nnot unpleasantly about Santa Croce, which, though it is like a barn,\nhas harvested many beautiful things inside its walls. There were also\nbeggars to avoid and guides to dodge round the pillars, and an old lady\nwith her dog, and here and there a priest modestly edging to his\nMass through the groups of tourists. But Mr. Emerson was only half\ninterested. He watched the lecturer, whose success he believed he had\nimpaired, and then he anxiously watched his son.\n\n\"Why will he look at that fresco?\" he said uneasily. \"I saw nothing in\nit.\"\n\n\"I like Giotto,\" she replied. \"It is so wonderful what they say about\nhis tactile values. Though I like things like the Della Robbia babies\nbetter.\"\n\n\"So you ought. A baby is worth a dozen saints. And my baby's worth the\nwhole of Paradise, and as far as I can see he lives in Hell.\"\n\nLucy again felt that this did not do.\n\n\"In Hell,\" he repeated. \"He's unhappy.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear!\" said Lucy.\n\n\"How can he be unhappy when he is strong and alive? What more is one\nto give him? And think how he has been brought up--free from all the\nsuperstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the name\nof God. With such an education as that, I thought he was bound to grow\nup happy.\"\n\nShe was no theologian, but she felt that here was a very foolish old\nman, as well as a very irreligious one. She also felt that her mother\nmight not like her talking to that kind of person, and that Charlotte\nwould object most strongly.\n\n\"What are we to do with him?\" he asked. \"He comes out for his holiday to\nItaly, and behaves--like that; like the little child who ought to have\nbeen playing, and who hurt himself upon the tombstone. Eh? What did you\nsay?\"\n\nLucy had made no suggestion. Suddenly he said:\n\n\"Now don't be stupid over this. I don't require you to fall in love with\nmy boy, but I do think you might try and understand him. You are nearer\nhis age, and if you let yourself go I am sure you are sensible. You\nmight help me. He has known so few women, and you have the time.\nYou stop here several weeks, I suppose? But let yourself go. You are\ninclined to get muddled, if I may judge from last night. Let yourself\ngo. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand,\nand spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them. By\nunderstanding George you may learn to understand yourself. It will be\ngood for both of you.\"\n\nTo this extraordinary speech Lucy found no answer.\n\n\"I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is.\"\n\n\"And what is it?\" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.\n\n\"The old trouble; things won't fit.\"\n\n\"What things?\"\n\n\"The things of the universe. It is quite true. They don't.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?\"\n\nIn his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting\npoetry, he said:\n\n  \"'From far, from eve and morning,\n   And yon twelve-winded sky,\n   The stuff of life to knit me\n   Blew hither: here am I'\n\nGeorge and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that\nwe come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life\nis perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But\nwhy should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and\nwork and rejoice. I don't believe in this world sorrow.\"\n\nMiss Honeychurch assented.\n\n\"Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of\nthe everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a\nYes.\"\n\nSuddenly she laughed; surely one ought to laugh. A young man melancholy\nbecause the universe wouldn't fit, because life was a tangle or a wind,\nor a Yes, or something!\n\n\"I'm very sorry,\" she cried. \"You'll think me unfeeling, but--but--\"\nThen she became matronly. \"Oh, but your son wants employment. Has he no\nparticular hobby? Why, I myself have worries, but I can generally forget\nthem at the piano; and collecting stamps did no end of good for my\nbrother. Perhaps Italy bores him; you ought to try the Alps or the\nLakes.\"\n\nThe old man's face saddened, and he touched her gently with his hand.\nThis did not alarm her; she thought that her advice had impressed him\nand that he was thanking her for it. Indeed, he no longer alarmed her\nat all; she regarded him as a kind thing, but quite silly. Her feelings\nwere as inflated spiritually as they had been an hour ago esthetically,\nbefore she lost Baedeker. The dear George, now striding towards them\nover the tombstones, seemed both pitiable and absurd. He approached, his\nface in the shadow. He said:\n\n\"Miss Bartlett.\"\n\n\"Oh, good gracious me!\" said Lucy, suddenly collapsing and again seeing\nthe whole of life in a new perspective. \"Where? Where?\"\n\n\"In the nave.\"\n\n\"I see. Those gossiping little Miss Alans must have--\" She checked\nherself.\n\n\"Poor girl!\" exploded Mr. Emerson. \"Poor girl!\"\n\nShe could not let this pass, for it was just what she was feeling\nherself.\n\n\"Poor girl? I fail to understand the point of that remark. I think\nmyself a very fortunate girl, I assure you. I'm thoroughly happy, and\nhaving a splendid time. Pray don't waste time mourning over me. There's\nenough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it.\nGood-bye. Thank you both so much for all your kindness. Ah, yes! there\ndoes come my cousin. A delightful morning! Santa Croce is a wonderful\nchurch.\"\n\nShe joined her cousin.\n\n\n\nChapter III: Music, Violets, and the Letter \"S\"\n\nIt so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered\na more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer\neither deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave.\nThe kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept\nthose whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The\ncommonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without\neffort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and\nthinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate\nhis visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions.\nPerhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom. Lucy\nhad done so never.\n\nShe was no dazzling executante; her runs were not at all like strings of\npearls, and she struck no more right notes than was suitable for one\nof her age and situation. Nor was she the passionate young lady, who\nperforms so tragically on a summer's evening with the window open.\nPassion was there, but it could not be easily labelled; it slipped\nbetween love and hatred and jealousy, and all the furniture of the\npictorial style. And she was tragical only in the sense that she was\ngreat, for she loved to play on the side of Victory. Victory of what and\nover what--that is more than the words of daily life can tell us. But\nthat some sonatas of Beethoven are written tragic no one can gainsay;\nyet they can triumph or despair as the player decides, and Lucy had\ndecided that they should triumph.\n\nA very wet afternoon at the Bertolini permitted her to do the thing she\nreally liked, and after lunch she opened the little draped piano. A few\npeople lingered round and praised her playing, but finding that she\nmade no reply, dispersed to their rooms to write up their diaries or\nto sleep. She took no notice of Mr. Emerson looking for his son, nor of\nMiss Bartlett looking for Miss Lavish, nor of Miss Lavish looking for\nher cigarette-case. Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by\nthe mere feel of the notes: they were fingers caressing her own; and by\ntouch, not by sound alone, did she come to her desire.\n\nMr. Beebe, sitting unnoticed in the window, pondered this illogical\nelement in Miss Honeychurch, and recalled the occasion at Tunbridge\nWells when he had discovered it. It was at one of those entertainments\nwhere the upper classes entertain the lower. The seats were filled with\na respectful audience, and the ladies and gentlemen of the parish, under\nthe auspices of their vicar, sang, or recited, or imitated the drawing\nof a champagne cork. Among the promised items was \"Miss Honeychurch.\nPiano. Beethoven,\" and Mr. Beebe was wondering whether it would be\nAdelaida, or the march of The Ruins of Athens, when his composure\nwas disturbed by the opening bars of Opus III. He was in suspense all\nthrough the introduction, for not until the pace quickens does one know\nwhat the performer intends. With the roar of the opening theme he knew\nthat things were going extraordinarily; in the chords that herald the\nconclusion he heard the hammer strokes of victory. He was glad that she\nonly played the first movement, for he could have paid no attention to\nthe winding intricacies of the measures of nine-sixteen. The audience\nclapped, no less respectful. It was Mr. Beebe who started the stamping;\nit was all that one could do.\n\n\"Who is she?\" he asked the vicar afterwards.\n\n\"Cousin of one of my parishioners. I do not consider her choice of a\npiece happy. Beethoven is so usually simple and direct in his appeal\nthat it is sheer perversity to choose a thing like that, which, if\nanything, disturbs.\"\n\n\"Introduce me.\"\n\n\"She will be delighted. She and Miss Bartlett are full of the praises of\nyour sermon.\"\n\n\"My sermon?\" cried Mr. Beebe. \"Why ever did she listen to it?\"\n\nWhen he was introduced he understood why, for Miss Honeychurch,\ndisjoined from her music stool, was only a young lady with a quantity of\ndark hair and a very pretty, pale, undeveloped face. She loved going to\nconcerts, she loved stopping with her cousin, she loved iced coffee and\nmeringues. He did not doubt that she loved his sermon also. But before\nhe left Tunbridge Wells he made a remark to the vicar, which he now\nmade to Lucy herself when she closed the little piano and moved dreamily\ntowards him:\n\n\"If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very\nexciting both for us and for her.\"\n\nLucy at once re-entered daily life.\n\n\"Oh, what a funny thing! Some one said just the same to mother, and she\nsaid she trusted I should never live a duet.\"\n\n\"Doesn't Mrs. Honeychurch like music?\"\n\n\"She doesn't mind it. But she doesn't like one to get excited over\nanything; she thinks I am silly about it. She thinks--I can't make\nout. Once, you know, I said that I liked my own playing better than any\none's. She has never got over it. Of course, I didn't mean that I played\nwell; I only meant--\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said he, wondering why she bothered to explain.\n\n\"Music--\" said Lucy, as if attempting some generality. She could not\ncomplete it, and looked out absently upon Italy in the wet. The whole\nlife of the South was disorganized, and the most graceful nation in\nEurope had turned into formless lumps of clothes.\n\nThe street and the river were dirty yellow, the bridge was dirty grey,\nand the hills were dirty purple. Somewhere in their folds were concealed\nMiss Lavish and Miss Bartlett, who had chosen this afternoon to visit\nthe Torre del Gallo.\n\n\"What about music?\" said Mr. Beebe.\n\n\"Poor Charlotte will be sopped,\" was Lucy's reply.\n\nThe expedition was typical of Miss Bartlett, who would return cold,\ntired, hungry, and angelic, with a ruined skirt, a pulpy Baedeker, and\na tickling cough in her throat. On another day, when the whole world was\nsinging and the air ran into the mouth, like wine, she would refuse to\nstir from the drawing-room, saying that she was an old thing, and no fit\ncompanion for a hearty girl.\n\n\"Miss Lavish has led your cousin astray. She hopes to find the true\nItaly in the wet I believe.\"\n\n\"Miss Lavish is so original,\" murmured Lucy. This was a stock remark,\nthe supreme achievement of the Pension Bertolini in the way of\ndefinition. Miss Lavish was so original. Mr. Beebe had his doubts, but\nthey would have been put down to clerical narrowness. For that, and for\nother reasons, he held his peace.\n\n\"Is it true,\" continued Lucy in awe-struck tone, \"that Miss Lavish is\nwriting a book?\"\n\n\"They do say so.\"\n\n\"What is it about?\"\n\n\"It will be a novel,\" replied Mr. Beebe, \"dealing with modern Italy.\nLet me refer you for an account to Miss Catharine Alan, who uses words\nherself more admirably than any one I know.\"\n\n\"I wish Miss Lavish would tell me herself. We started such friends. But\nI don't think she ought to have run away with Baedeker that morning in\nSanta Croce. Charlotte was most annoyed at finding me practically alone,\nand so I couldn't help being a little annoyed with Miss Lavish.\"\n\n\"The two ladies, at all events, have made it up.\"\n\nHe was interested in the sudden friendship between women so apparently\ndissimilar as Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish. They were always in each\nother's company, with Lucy a slighted third. Miss Lavish he believed\nhe understood, but Miss Bartlett might reveal unknown depths of\nstrangeness, though not perhaps, of meaning. Was Italy deflecting\nher from the path of prim chaperon, which he had assigned to her at\nTunbridge Wells? All his life he had loved to study maiden ladies;\nthey were his specialty, and his profession had provided him with ample\nopportunities for the work. Girls like Lucy were charming to look at,\nbut Mr. Beebe was, from rather profound reasons, somewhat chilly in his\nattitude towards the other sex, and preferred to be interested rather\nthan enthralled.\n\nLucy, for the third time, said that poor Charlotte would be sopped. The\nArno was rising in flood, washing away the traces of the little carts\nupon the foreshore. But in the south-west there had appeared a dull haze\nof yellow, which might mean better weather if it did not mean worse. She\nopened the window to inspect, and a cold blast entered the room, drawing\na plaintive cry from Miss Catharine Alan, who entered at the same moment\nby the door.\n\n\"Oh, dear Miss Honeychurch, you will catch a chill! And Mr. Beebe here\nbesides. Who would suppose this is Italy? There is my sister actually\nnursing the hot-water can; no comforts or proper provisions.\"\n\nShe sidled towards them and sat down, self-conscious as she always was\non entering a room which contained one man, or a man and one woman.\n\n\"I could hear your beautiful playing, Miss Honeychurch, though I was in\nmy room with the door shut. Doors shut; indeed, most necessary. No one\nhas the least idea of privacy in this country. And one person catches it\nfrom another.\"\n\nLucy answered suitably. Mr. Beebe was not able to tell the ladies of\nhis adventure at Modena, where the chambermaid burst in upon him in his\nbath, exclaiming cheerfully, \"Fa niente, sono vecchia.\" He contented\nhimself with saying: \"I quite agree with you, Miss Alan. The Italians\nare a most unpleasant people. They pry everywhere, they see everything,\nand they know what we want before we know it ourselves. We are at their\nmercy. They read our thoughts, they foretell our desires. From the\ncab-driver down to--to Giotto, they turn us inside out, and I resent\nit. Yet in their heart of hearts they are--how superficial! They have no\nconception of the intellectual life. How right is Signora Bertolini, who\nexclaimed to me the other day: 'Ho, Mr. Beebe, if you knew what I suffer\nover the children's edjucaishion. HI won't 'ave my little Victorier\ntaught by a hignorant Italian what can't explain nothink!'\"\n\nMiss Alan did not follow, but gathered that she was being mocked in an\nagreeable way. Her sister was a little disappointed in Mr. Beebe, having\nexpected better things from a clergyman whose head was bald and who\nwore a pair of russet whiskers. Indeed, who would have supposed that\ntolerance, sympathy, and a sense of humour would inhabit that militant\nform?\n\nIn the midst of her satisfaction she continued to sidle, and at last\nthe cause was disclosed. From the chair beneath her she extracted\na gun-metal cigarette-case, on which were powdered in turquoise the\ninitials \"E. L.\"\n\n\"That belongs to Lavish.\" said the clergyman. \"A good fellow, Lavish,\nbut I wish she'd start a pipe.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Beebe,\" said Miss Alan, divided between awe and mirth. \"Indeed,\nthough it is dreadful for her to smoke, it is not quite as dreadful as\nyou suppose. She took to it, practically in despair, after her\nlife's work was carried away in a landslip. Surely that makes it more\nexcusable.\"\n\n\"What was that?\" asked Lucy.\n\nMr. Beebe sat back complacently, and Miss Alan began as follows: \"It was\na novel--and I am afraid, from what I can gather, not a very nice novel.\nIt is so sad when people who have abilities misuse them, and I must say\nthey nearly always do. Anyhow, she left it almost finished in the Grotto\nof the Calvary at the Capuccini Hotel at Amalfi while she went for a\nlittle ink. She said: 'Can I have a little ink, please?' But you know\nwhat Italians are, and meanwhile the Grotto fell roaring on to the\nbeach, and the saddest thing of all is that she cannot remember what she\nhas written. The poor thing was very ill after it, and so got tempted\ninto cigarettes. It is a great secret, but I am glad to say that she is\nwriting another novel. She told Teresa and Miss Pole the other day that\nshe had got up all the local colour--this novel is to be about modern\nItaly; the other was historical--but that she could not start till she\nhad an idea. First she tried Perugia for an inspiration, then she came\nhere--this must on no account get round. And so cheerful through it all!\nI cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone,\neven if you do not approve of them.\"\n\nMiss Alan was always thus being charitable against her better judgement.\nA delicate pathos perfumed her disconnected remarks, giving them\nunexpected beauty, just as in the decaying autumn woods there sometimes\nrise odours reminiscent of spring. She felt she had made almost too many\nallowances, and apologized hurriedly for her toleration.\n\n\"All the same, she is a little too--I hardly like to say unwomanly, but\nshe behaved most strangely when the Emersons arrived.\"\n\nMr. Beebe smiled as Miss Alan plunged into an anecdote which he knew she\nwould be unable to finish in the presence of a gentleman.\n\n\"I don't know, Miss Honeychurch, if you have noticed that Miss Pole, the\nlady who has so much yellow hair, takes lemonade. That old Mr. Emerson,\nwho puts things very strangely--\"\n\nHer jaw dropped. She was silent. Mr. Beebe, whose social resources were\nendless, went out to order some tea, and she continued to Lucy in a\nhasty whisper:\n\n\"Stomach. He warned Miss Pole of her stomach-acidity, he called it--and\nhe may have meant to be kind. I must say I forgot myself and laughed; it\nwas so sudden. As Teresa truly said, it was no laughing matter. But the\npoint is that Miss Lavish was positively ATTRACTED by his mentioning\nS., and said she liked plain speaking, and meeting different grades of\nthought. She thought they were commercial travellers--'drummers' was the\nword she used--and all through dinner she tried to prove that England,\nour great and beloved country, rests on nothing but commerce. Teresa was\nvery much annoyed, and left the table before the cheese, saying as she\ndid so: 'There, Miss Lavish, is one who can confute you better than I,'\nand pointed to that beautiful picture of Lord Tennyson. Then Miss\nLavish said: 'Tut! The early Victorians.' Just imagine! 'Tut! The early\nVictorians.' My sister had gone, and I felt bound to speak. I said:\n'Miss Lavish, I am an early Victorian; at least, that is to say, I\nwill hear no breath of censure against our dear Queen.' It was horrible\nspeaking. I reminded her how the Queen had been to Ireland when she did\nnot want to go, and I must say she was dumbfounded, and made no reply.\nBut, unluckily, Mr. Emerson overheard this part, and called in his deep\nvoice: 'Quite so, quite so! I honour the woman for her Irish visit.' The\nwoman! I tell things so badly; but you see what a tangle we were in\nby this time, all on account of S. having been mentioned in the first\nplace. But that was not all. After dinner Miss Lavish actually came up\nand said: 'Miss Alan, I am going into the smoking-room to talk to those\ntwo nice men. Come, too.' Needless to say, I refused such an unsuitable\ninvitation, and she had the impertinence to tell me that it would\nbroaden my ideas, and said that she had four brothers, all University\nmen, except one who was in the army, who always made a point of talking\nto commercial travellers.\"\n\n\"Let me finish the story,\" said Mr. Beebe, who had returned.\n\n\"Miss Lavish tried Miss Pole, myself, everyone, and finally said:\n'I shall go alone.' She went. At the end of five minutes she returned\nunobtrusively with a green baize board, and began playing patience.\"\n\n\"Whatever happened?\" cried Lucy.\n\n\"No one knows. No one will ever know. Miss Lavish will never dare to\ntell, and Mr. Emerson does not think it worth telling.\"\n\n\"Mr. Beebe--old Mr. Emerson, is he nice or not nice? I do so want to\nknow.\"\n\nMr. Beebe laughed and suggested that she should settle the question for\nherself.\n\n\"No; but it is so difficult. Sometimes he is so silly, and then I do not\nmind him. Miss Alan, what do you think? Is he nice?\"\n\nThe little old lady shook her head, and sighed disapprovingly. Mr.\nBeebe, whom the conversation amused, stirred her up by saying:\n\n\"I consider that you are bound to class him as nice, Miss Alan, after\nthat business of the violets.\"\n\n\"Violets? Oh, dear! Who told you about the violets? How do things get\nround? A pension is a bad place for gossips. No, I cannot forget how\nthey behaved at Mr. Eager's lecture at Santa Croce. Oh, poor Miss\nHoneychurch! It really was too bad. No, I have quite changed. I do NOT\nlike the Emersons. They are not nice.\"\n\nMr. Beebe smiled nonchalantly. He had made a gentle effort to introduce\nthe Emersons into Bertolini society, and the effort had failed. He was\nalmost the only person who remained friendly to them. Miss Lavish, who\nrepresented intellect, was avowedly hostile, and now the Miss Alans,\nwho stood for good breeding, were following her. Miss Bartlett, smarting\nunder an obligation, would scarcely be civil. The case of Lucy was\ndifferent. She had given him a hazy account of her adventures in Santa\nCroce, and he gathered that the two men had made a curious and possibly\nconcerted attempt to annex her, to show her the world from their own\nstrange standpoint, to interest her in their private sorrows and joys.\nThis was impertinent; he did not wish their cause to be championed by a\nyoung girl: he would rather it should fail. After all, he knew nothing\nabout them, and pension joys, pension sorrows, are flimsy things;\nwhereas Lucy would be his parishioner.\n\nLucy, with one eye upon the weather, finally said that she thought the\nEmersons were nice; not that she saw anything of them now. Even their\nseats at dinner had been moved.\n\n\"But aren't they always waylaying you to go out with them, dear?\" said\nthe little lady inquisitively.\n\n\"Only once. Charlotte didn't like it, and said something--quite\npolitely, of course.\"\n\n\"Most right of her. They don't understand our ways. They must find their\nlevel.\"\n\nMr. Beebe rather felt that they had gone under. They had given up their\nattempt--if it was one--to conquer society, and now the father was\nalmost as silent as the son. He wondered whether he would not plan a\npleasant day for these folk before they left--some expedition, perhaps,\nwith Lucy well chaperoned to be nice to them. It was one of Mr. Beebe's\nchief pleasures to provide people with happy memories.\n\nEvening approached while they chatted; the air became brighter; the\ncolours on the trees and hills were purified, and the Arno lost its\nmuddy solidity and began to twinkle. There were a few streaks of\nbluish-green among the clouds, a few patches of watery light upon the\nearth, and then the dripping facade of San Miniato shone brilliantly in\nthe declining sun.\n\n\"Too late to go out,\" said Miss Alan in a voice of relief. \"All the\ngalleries are shut.\"\n\n\"I think I shall go out,\" said Lucy. \"I want to go round the town in the\ncircular tram--on the platform by the driver.\"\n\nHer two companions looked grave. Mr. Beebe, who felt responsible for her\nin the absence of Miss Bartlett, ventured to say:\n\n\"I wish we could. Unluckily I have letters. If you do want to go out\nalone, won't you be better on your feet?\"\n\n\"Italians, dear, you know,\" said Miss Alan.\n\n\"Perhaps I shall meet someone who reads me through and through!\"\n\nBut they still looked disapproval, and she so far conceded to Mr. Beebe\nas to say that she would only go for a little walk, and keep to the\nstreet frequented by tourists.\n\n\"She oughtn't really to go at all,\" said Mr. Beebe, as they watched\nher from the window, \"and she knows it. I put it down to too much\nBeethoven.\"\n\n\n\nChapter IV: Fourth Chapter\n\nMr. Beebe was right. Lucy never knew her desires so clearly as after\nmusic. She had not really appreciated the clergyman's wit, nor the\nsuggestive twitterings of Miss Alan. Conversation was tedious; she\nwanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her on\nthe wind-swept platform of an electric tram. This she might not attempt.\nIt was unladylike. Why? Why were most big things unladylike? Charlotte\nhad once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were inferior\nto men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire\nothers to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by\nmeans of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But\nif she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, then\ndespised, and finally ignored. Poems had been written to illustrate this\npoint.\n\nThere is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have\ngone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She\nreigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was Queen of much early\nVictorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business,\nsweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well. But alas!\nthe creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are springing\nup strange desires. She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast\npanoramas, and green expanses of the sea. She has marked the kingdom\nof this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and war--a radiant\ncrust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the receding\nheavens. Men, declaring that she inspires them to it, move joyfully over\nthe surface, having the most delightful meetings with other men, happy,\nnot because they are masculine, but because they are alive. Before the\nshow breaks up she would like to drop the august title of the Eternal\nWoman, and go there as her transitory self.\n\nLucy does not stand for the medieval lady, who was rather an ideal to\nwhich she was bidden to lift her eyes when feeling serious. Nor has\nshe any system of revolt. Here and there a restriction annoyed her\nparticularly, and she would transgress it, and perhaps be sorry that she\nhad done so. This afternoon she was peculiarly restive. She would really\nlike to do something of which her well-wishers disapproved. As she might\nnot go on the electric tram, she went to Alinari's shop.\n\nThere she bought a photograph of Botticelli's \"Birth of Venus.\" Venus,\nbeing a pity, spoilt the picture, otherwise so charming, and Miss\nBartlett had persuaded her to do without it. (A pity in art of course\nsignified the nude.) Giorgione's \"Tempesta,\" the \"Idolino,\" some of\nthe Sistine frescoes and the Apoxyomenos, were added to it. She felt\na little calmer then, and bought Fra Angelico's \"Coronation,\" Giotto's\n\"Ascension of St. John,\" some Della Robbia babies, and some Guido\nReni Madonnas. For her taste was catholic, and she extended uncritical\napproval to every well-known name.\n\nBut though she spent nearly seven lire, the gates of liberty seemed\nstill unopened. She was conscious of her discontent; it was new to her\nto be conscious of it. \"The world,\" she thought, \"is certainly full\nof beautiful things, if only I could come across them.\" It was not\nsurprising that Mrs. Honeychurch disapproved of music, declaring that it\nalways left her daughter peevish, unpractical, and touchy.\n\n\"Nothing ever happens to me,\" she reflected, as she entered the Piazza\nSignoria and looked nonchalantly at its marvels, now fairly familiar to\nher. The great square was in shadow; the sunshine had come too late to\nstrike it. Neptune was already unsubstantial in the twilight, half god,\nhalf ghost, and his fountain plashed dreamily to the men and satyrs who\nidled together on its marge. The Loggia showed as the triple entrance of\na cave, wherein many a deity, shadowy, but immortal, looking forth\nupon the arrivals and departures of mankind. It was the hour of\nunreality--the hour, that is, when unfamiliar things are real. An older\nperson at such an hour and in such a place might think that sufficient\nwas happening to him, and rest content. Lucy desired more.\n\nShe fixed her eyes wistfully on the tower of the palace, which rose\nout of the lower darkness like a pillar of roughened gold. It seemed\nno longer a tower, no longer supported by earth, but some unattainable\ntreasure throbbing in the tranquil sky. Its brightness mesmerized her,\nstill dancing before her eyes when she bent them to the ground and\nstarted towards home.\n\nThen something did happen.\n\nTwo Italians by the Loggia had been bickering about a debt. \"Cinque\nlire,\" they had cried, \"cinque lire!\" They sparred at each other, and\none of them was hit lightly upon the chest. He frowned; he bent towards\nLucy with a look of interest, as if he had an important message for her.\nHe opened his lips to deliver it, and a stream of red came out between\nthem and trickled down his unshaven chin.\n\nThat was all. A crowd rose out of the dusk. It hid this extraordinary\nman from her, and bore him away to the fountain. Mr. George Emerson\nhappened to be a few paces away, looking at her across the spot where\nthe man had been. How very odd! Across something. Even as she caught\nsight of him he grew dim; the palace itself grew dim, swayed above her,\nfell on to her softly, slowly, noiselessly, and the sky fell with it.\n\nShe thought: \"Oh, what have I done?\"\n\n\"Oh, what have I done?\" she murmured, and opened her eyes.\n\nGeorge Emerson still looked at her, but not across anything. She had\ncomplained of dullness, and lo! one man was stabbed, and another held\nher in his arms.\n\nThey were sitting on some steps in the Uffizi Arcade. He must have\ncarried her. He rose when she spoke, and began to dust his knees. She\nrepeated:\n\n\"Oh, what have I done?\"\n\n\"You fainted.\"\n\n\"I--I am very sorry.\"\n\n\"How are you now?\"\n\n\"Perfectly well--absolutely well.\" And she began to nod and smile.\n\n\"Then let us come home. There's no point in our stopping.\"\n\nHe held out his hand to pull her up. She pretended not to see it. The\ncries from the fountain--they had never ceased--rang emptily. The whole\nworld seemed pale and void of its original meaning.\n\n\"How very kind you have been! I might have hurt myself falling. But now\nI am well. I can go alone, thank you.\"\n\nHis hand was still extended.\n\n\"Oh, my photographs!\" she exclaimed suddenly.\n\n\"What photographs?\"\n\n\"I bought some photographs at Alinari's. I must have dropped them out\nthere in the square.\" She looked at him cautiously. \"Would you add to\nyour kindness by fetching them?\"\n\nHe added to his kindness. As soon as he had turned his back, Lucy arose\nwith the running of a maniac and stole down the arcade towards the Arno.\n\n\"Miss Honeychurch!\"\n\nShe stopped with her hand on her heart.\n\n\"You sit still; you aren't fit to go home alone.\"\n\n\"Yes, I am, thank you so very much.\"\n\n\"No, you aren't. You'd go openly if you were.\"\n\n\"But I had rather--\"\n\n\"Then I don't fetch your photographs.\"\n\n\"I had rather be alone.\"\n\nHe said imperiously: \"The man is dead--the man is probably dead; sit\ndown till you are rested.\" She was bewildered, and obeyed him. \"And\ndon't move till I come back.\"\n\nIn the distance she saw creatures with black hoods, such as appear in\ndreams. The palace tower had lost the reflection of the declining day,\nand joined itself to earth. How should she talk to Mr. Emerson when he\nreturned from the shadowy square? Again the thought occurred to her,\n\"Oh, what have I done?\"--the thought that she, as well as the dying man,\nhad crossed some spiritual boundary.\n\nHe returned, and she talked of the murder. Oddly enough, it was an easy\ntopic. She spoke of the Italian character; she became almost garrulous\nover the incident that had made her faint five minutes before. Being\nstrong physically, she soon overcame the horror of blood. She rose\nwithout his assistance, and though wings seemed to flutter inside her,\nshe walked firmly enough towards the Arno. There a cabman signalled to\nthem; they refused him.\n\n\"And the murderer tried to kiss him, you say--how very odd Italians\nare!--and gave himself up to the police! Mr. Beebe was saying that\nItalians know everything, but I think they are rather childish. When my\ncousin and I were at the Pitti yesterday--What was that?\"\n\nHe had thrown something into the stream.\n\n\"What did you throw in?\"\n\n\"Things I didn't want,\" he said crossly.\n\n\"Mr. Emerson!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Where are the photographs?\"\n\nHe was silent.\n\n\"I believe it was my photographs that you threw away.\"\n\n\"I didn't know what to do with them,\" he cried, and his voice was that\nof an anxious boy. Her heart warmed towards him for the first time.\n\"They were covered with blood. There! I'm glad I've told you; and all\nthe time we were making conversation I was wondering what to do with\nthem.\" He pointed down-stream. \"They've gone.\" The river swirled under\nthe bridge, \"I did mind them so, and one is so foolish, it seemed better\nthat they should go out to the sea--I don't know; I may just mean that\nthey frightened me.\" Then the boy verged into a man. \"For something\ntremendous has happened; I must face it without getting muddled. It\nisn't exactly that a man has died.\"\n\nSomething warned Lucy that she must stop him.\n\n\"It has happened,\" he repeated, \"and I mean to find out what it is.\"\n\n\"Mr. Emerson--\"\n\nHe turned towards her frowning, as if she had disturbed him in some\nabstract quest.\n\n\"I want to ask you something before we go in.\"\n\nThey were close to their pension. She stopped and leant her elbows\nagainst the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at\ntimes a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have\nsuggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before saying:\n\n\"I have behaved ridiculously.\"\n\nHe was following his own thoughts.\n\n\"I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life; I cannot think what\ncame over me.\"\n\n\"I nearly fainted myself,\" he said; but she felt that her attitude\nrepelled him.\n\n\"Well, I owe you a thousand apologies.\"\n\n\"Oh, all right.\"\n\n\"And--this is the real point--you know how silly people are\ngossiping--ladies especially, I am afraid--you understand what I mean?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I don't.\"\n\n\"I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?\"\n\n\"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right.\"\n\n\"Thank you so much. And would you--\"\n\nShe could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below\nthem, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs\ninto it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was\nhopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do her no harm by\nidle gossip; he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind; he might\neven have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry; his thoughts,\nlike his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was useless to say\nto him, \"And would you--\" and hope that he would complete the sentence\nfor himself, averting his eyes from her nakedness like the knight in\nthat beautiful picture. She had been in his arms, and he remembered it,\njust as he remembered the blood on the photographs that she had bought\nin Alinari's shop. It was not exactly that a man had died; something\nhad happened to the living: they had come to a situation where character\ntells, and where childhood enters upon the branching paths of Youth.\n\n\"Well, thank you so much,\" she repeated, \"How quickly these accidents do\nhappen, and then one returns to the old life!\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\nAnxiety moved her to question him.\n\nHis answer was puzzling: \"I shall probably want to live.\"\n\n\"But why, Mr. Emerson? What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I shall want to live, I say.\"\n\nLeaning her elbows on the parapet, she contemplated the River Arno,\nwhose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody to her ears.\n\n\n\nChapter V: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing\n\nIt was a family saying that \"you never knew which way Charlotte Bartlett\nwould turn.\" She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over Lucy's\nadventure, found the abridged account of it quite adequate, and paid\nsuitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George Emerson. She and Miss\nLavish had had an adventure also. They had been stopped at the Dazio\ncoming back, and the young officials there, who seemed impudent and\ndesoeuvre, had tried to search their reticules for provisions. It might\nhave been most unpleasant. Fortunately Miss Lavish was a match for any\none.\n\nFor good or for evil, Lucy was left to face her problem alone. None\nof her friends had seen her, either in the Piazza or, later on, by\nthe embankment. Mr. Beebe, indeed, noticing her startled eyes at\ndinner-time, had again passed to himself the remark of \"Too much\nBeethoven.\" But he only supposed that she was ready for an adventure,\nnot that she had encountered it. This solitude oppressed her; she was\naccustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events,\ncontradicted; it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking\nright or wrong.\n\nAt breakfast next morning she took decisive action. There were two plans\nbetween which she had to choose. Mr. Beebe was walking up to the\nTorre del Gallo with the Emersons and some American ladies. Would Miss\nBartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party? Charlotte declined for\nherself; she had been there in the rain the previous afternoon. But\nshe thought it an admirable idea for Lucy, who hated shopping, changing\nmoney, fetching letters, and other irksome duties--all of which Miss\nBartlett must accomplish this morning and could easily accomplish alone.\n\n\"No, Charlotte!\" cried the girl, with real warmth. \"It's very kind of\nMr. Beebe, but I am certainly coming with you. I had much rather.\"\n\n\"Very well, dear,\" said Miss Bartlett, with a faint flush of pleasure\nthat called forth a deep flush of shame on the cheeks of Lucy. How\nabominably she behaved to Charlotte, now as always! But now she should\nalter. All morning she would be really nice to her.\n\nShe slipped her arm into her cousin's, and they started off along the\nLung' Arno. The river was a lion that morning in strength, voice, and\ncolour. Miss Bartlett insisted on leaning over the parapet to look at\nit. She then made her usual remark, which was \"How I do wish Freddy and\nyour mother could see this, too!\"\n\nLucy fidgeted; it was tiresome of Charlotte to have stopped exactly\nwhere she did.\n\n\"Look, Lucia! Oh, you are watching for the Torre del Gallo party. I\nfeared you would repent you of your choice.\"\n\nSerious as the choice had been, Lucy did not repent. Yesterday had been\na muddle--queer and odd, the kind of thing one could not write down\neasily on paper--but she had a feeling that Charlotte and her shopping\nwere preferable to George Emerson and the summit of the Torre del\nGallo. Since she could not unravel the tangle, she must take care not\nto re-enter it. She could protest sincerely against Miss Bartlett's\ninsinuations.\n\nBut though she had avoided the chief actor, the scenery unfortunately\nremained. Charlotte, with the complacency of fate, led her from the\nriver to the Piazza Signoria. She could not have believed that stones, a\nLoggia, a fountain, a palace tower, would have such significance. For a\nmoment she understood the nature of ghosts.\n\nThe exact site of the murder was occupied, not by a ghost, but by Miss\nLavish, who had the morning newspaper in her hand. She hailed them\nbriskly. The dreadful catastrophe of the previous day had given her an\nidea which she thought would work up into a book.\n\n\"Oh, let me congratulate you!\" said Miss Bartlett. \"After your despair\nof yesterday! What a fortunate thing!\"\n\n\"Aha! Miss Honeychurch, come you here I am in luck. Now, you are to tell\nme absolutely everything that you saw from the beginning.\" Lucy poked at\nthe ground with her parasol.\n\n\"But perhaps you would rather not?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry--if you could manage without it, I think I would rather not.\"\n\nThe elder ladies exchanged glances, not of disapproval; it is suitable\nthat a girl should feel deeply.\n\n\"It is I who am sorry,\" said Miss Lavish \"literary hacks are shameless\ncreatures. I believe there's no secret of the human heart into which we\nwouldn't pry.\"\n\nShe marched cheerfully to the fountain and back, and did a few\ncalculations in realism. Then she said that she had been in the\nPiazza since eight o'clock collecting material. A good deal of it was\nunsuitable, but of course one always had to adapt. The two men had\nquarrelled over a five-franc note. For the five-franc note she should\nsubstitute a young lady, which would raise the tone of the tragedy, and\nat the same time furnish an excellent plot.\n\n\"What is the heroine's name?\" asked Miss Bartlett.\n\n\"Leonora,\" said Miss Lavish; her own name was Eleanor.\n\n\"I do hope she's nice.\"\n\nThat desideratum would not be omitted.\n\n\"And what is the plot?\"\n\nLove, murder, abduction, revenge, was the plot. But it all came while\nthe fountain plashed to the satyrs in the morning sun.\n\n\"I hope you will excuse me for boring on like this,\" Miss Lavish\nconcluded. \"It is so tempting to talk to really sympathetic people.\nOf course, this is the barest outline. There will be a deal of local\ncolouring, descriptions of Florence and the neighbourhood, and I shall\nalso introduce some humorous characters. And let me give you all fair\nwarning: I intend to be unmerciful to the British tourist.\"\n\n\"Oh, you wicked woman,\" cried Miss Bartlett. \"I am sure you are thinking\nof the Emersons.\"\n\nMiss Lavish gave a Machiavellian smile.\n\n\"I confess that in Italy my sympathies are not with my own countrymen.\nIt is the neglected Italians who attract me, and whose lives I am going\nto paint so far as I can. For I repeat and I insist, and I have always\nheld most strongly, that a tragedy such as yesterday's is not the less\ntragic because it happened in humble life.\"\n\nThere was a fitting silence when Miss Lavish had concluded. Then the\ncousins wished success to her labours, and walked slowly away across the\nsquare.\n\n\"She is my idea of a really clever woman,\" said Miss Bartlett. \"That\nlast remark struck me as so particularly true. It should be a most\npathetic novel.\"\n\nLucy assented. At present her great aim was not to get put into it. Her\nperceptions this morning were curiously keen, and she believed that Miss\nLavish had her on trial for an ingenue.\n\n\"She is emancipated, but only in the very best sense of the word,\"\ncontinued Miss Bartlett slowly. \"None but the superficial would be\nshocked at her. We had a long talk yesterday. She believes in justice\nand truth and human interest. She told me also that she has a high\nopinion of the destiny of woman--Mr. Eager! Why, how nice! What a\npleasant surprise!\"\n\n\"Ah, not for me,\" said the chaplain blandly, \"for I have been watching\nyou and Miss Honeychurch for quite a little time.\"\n\n\"We were chatting to Miss Lavish.\"\n\nHis brow contracted.\n\n\"So I saw. Were you indeed? Andate via! sono occupato!\" The last remark\nwas made to a vender of panoramic photographs who was approaching with a\ncourteous smile. \"I am about to venture a suggestion. Would you and\nMiss Honeychurch be disposed to join me in a drive some day this week--a\ndrive in the hills? We might go up by Fiesole and back by Settignano.\nThere is a point on that road where we could get down and have an\nhour's ramble on the hillside. The view thence of Florence is most\nbeautiful--far better than the hackneyed view of Fiesole. It is the view\nthat Alessio Baldovinetti is fond of introducing into his pictures. That\nman had a decided feeling for landscape. Decidedly. But who looks at it\nto-day? Ah, the world is too much for us.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett had not heard of Alessio Baldovinetti, but she knew\nthat Mr. Eager was no commonplace chaplain. He was a member of the\nresidential colony who had made Florence their home. He knew the people\nwho never walked about with Baedekers, who had learnt to take a siesta\nafter lunch, who took drives the pension tourists had never heard of,\nand saw by private influence galleries which were closed to them. Living\nin delicate seclusion, some in furnished flats, others in Renaissance\nvillas on Fiesole's slope, they read, wrote, studied, and exchanged\nideas, thus attaining to that intimate knowledge, or rather perception,\nof Florence which is denied to all who carry in their pockets the\ncoupons of Cook.\n\nTherefore an invitation from the chaplain was something to be proud of.\nBetween the two sections of his flock he was often the only link, and it\nwas his avowed custom to select those of his migratory sheep who seemed\nworthy, and give them a few hours in the pastures of the permanent. Tea\nat a Renaissance villa? Nothing had been said about it yet. But if it\ndid come to that--how Lucy would enjoy it!\n\nA few days ago and Lucy would have felt the same. But the joys of life\nwere grouping themselves anew. A drive in the hills with Mr. Eager and\nMiss Bartlett--even if culminating in a residential tea-party--was\nno longer the greatest of them. She echoed the raptures of Charlotte\nsomewhat faintly. Only when she heard that Mr. Beebe was also coming did\nher thanks become more sincere.\n\n\"So we shall be a partie carree,\" said the chaplain. \"In these days of\ntoil and tumult one has great needs of the country and its message of\npurity. Andate via! andate presto, presto! Ah, the town! Beautiful as it\nis, it is the town.\"\n\nThey assented.\n\n\"This very square--so I am told--witnessed yesterday the most sordid of\ntragedies. To one who loves the Florence of Dante and Savonarola\nthere is something portentous in such desecration--portentous and\nhumiliating.\"\n\n\"Humiliating indeed,\" said Miss Bartlett. \"Miss Honeychurch happened to\nbe passing through as it happened. She can hardly bear to speak of it.\"\nShe glanced at Lucy proudly.\n\n\"And how came we to have you here?\" asked the chaplain paternally.\n\nMiss Bartlett's recent liberalism oozed away at the question. \"Do\nnot blame her, please, Mr. Eager. The fault is mine: I left her\nunchaperoned.\"\n\n\"So you were here alone, Miss Honeychurch?\" His voice suggested\nsympathetic reproof but at the same time indicated that a few harrowing\ndetails would not be unacceptable. His dark, handsome face drooped\nmournfully towards her to catch her reply.\n\n\"Practically.\"\n\n\"One of our pension acquaintances kindly brought her home,\" said Miss\nBartlett, adroitly concealing the sex of the preserver.\n\n\"For her also it must have been a terrible experience. I trust that\nneither of you was at all--that it was not in your immediate proximity?\"\n\nOf the many things Lucy was noticing to-day, not the least remarkable\nwas this: the ghoulish fashion in which respectable people will nibble\nafter blood. George Emerson had kept the subject strangely pure.\n\n\"He died by the fountain, I believe,\" was her reply.\n\n\"And you and your friend--\"\n\n\"Were over at the Loggia.\"\n\n\"That must have saved you much. You have not, of course, seen the\ndisgraceful illustrations which the gutter Press--This man is a public\nnuisance; he knows that I am a resident perfectly well, and yet he goes\non worrying me to buy his vulgar views.\"\n\nSurely the vendor of photographs was in league with Lucy--in the eternal\nleague of Italy with youth. He had suddenly extended his book before\nMiss Bartlett and Mr. Eager, binding their hands together by a long\nglossy ribbon of churches, pictures, and views.\n\n\"This is too much!\" cried the chaplain, striking petulantly at one of\nFra Angelico's angels. She tore. A shrill cry rose from the vendor. The\nbook it seemed, was more valuable than one would have supposed.\n\n\"Willingly would I purchase--\" began Miss Bartlett.\n\n\"Ignore him,\" said Mr. Eager sharply, and they all walked rapidly away\nfrom the square.\n\nBut an Italian can never be ignored, least of all when he has a\ngrievance. His mysterious persecution of Mr. Eager became relentless;\nthe air rang with his threats and lamentations. He appealed to Lucy;\nwould not she intercede? He was poor--he sheltered a family--the tax on\nbread. He waited, he gibbered, he was recompensed, he was dissatisfied,\nhe did not leave them until he had swept their minds clean of all\nthoughts whether pleasant or unpleasant.\n\nShopping was the topic that now ensued. Under the chaplain's guidance\nthey selected many hideous presents and mementoes--florid little\npicture-frames that seemed fashioned in gilded pastry; other little\nframes, more severe, that stood on little easels, and were carven out\nof oak; a blotting book of vellum; a Dante of the same material; cheap\nmosaic brooches, which the maids, next Christmas, would never tell from\nreal; pins, pots, heraldic saucers, brown art-photographs; Eros and\nPsyche in alabaster; St. Peter to match--all of which would have cost\nless in London.\n\nThis successful morning left no pleasant impressions on Lucy. She had\nbeen a little frightened, both by Miss Lavish and by Mr. Eager, she knew\nnot why. And as they frightened her, she had, strangely enough, ceased\nto respect them. She doubted that Miss Lavish was a great artist. She\ndoubted that Mr. Eager was as full of spirituality and culture as she\nhad been led to suppose. They were tried by some new test, and they were\nfound wanting. As for Charlotte--as for Charlotte she was exactly the\nsame. It might be possible to be nice to her; it was impossible to love\nher.\n\n\"The son of a labourer; I happen to know it for a fact. A mechanic of\nsome sort himself when he was young; then he took to writing for the\nSocialistic Press. I came across him at Brixton.\"\n\nThey were talking about the Emersons.\n\n\"How wonderfully people rise in these days!\" sighed Miss Bartlett,\nfingering a model of the leaning Tower of Pisa.\n\n\"Generally,\" replied Mr. Eager, \"one has only sympathy for their\nsuccess. The desire for education and for social advance--in these\nthings there is something not wholly vile. There are some working men\nwhom one would be very willing to see out here in Florence--little as\nthey would make of it.\"\n\n\"Is he a journalist now?\" Miss Bartlett asked.\n\n\"He is not; he made an advantageous marriage.\"\n\nHe uttered this remark with a voice full of meaning, and ended with a\nsigh.\n\n\"Oh, so he has a wife.\"\n\n\"Dead, Miss Bartlett, dead. I wonder--yes I wonder how he has the\neffrontery to look me in the face, to dare to claim acquaintance with\nme. He was in my London parish long ago. The other day in Santa Croce,\nwhen he was with Miss Honeychurch, I snubbed him. Let him beware that he\ndoes not get more than a snub.\"\n\n\"What?\" cried Lucy, flushing.\n\n\"Exposure!\" hissed Mr. Eager.\n\nHe tried to change the subject; but in scoring a dramatic point he had\ninterested his audience more than he had intended. Miss Bartlett was\nfull of very natural curiosity. Lucy, though she wished never to see the\nEmersons again, was not disposed to condemn them on a single word.\n\n\"Do you mean,\" she asked, \"that he is an irreligious man? We know that\nalready.\"\n\n\"Lucy, dear--\" said Miss Bartlett, gently reproving her cousin's\npenetration.\n\n\"I should be astonished if you knew all. The boy--an innocent child at\nthe time--I will exclude. God knows what his education and his inherited\nqualities may have made him.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said Miss Bartlett, \"it is something that we had better not\nhear.\"\n\n\"To speak plainly,\" said Mr. Eager, \"it is. I will say no more.\" For the\nfirst time Lucy's rebellious thoughts swept out in words--for the first\ntime in her life.\n\n\"You have said very little.\"\n\n\"It was my intention to say very little,\" was his frigid reply.\n\nHe gazed indignantly at the girl, who met him with equal indignation.\nShe turned towards him from the shop counter; her breast heaved quickly.\nHe observed her brow, and the sudden strength of her lips. It was\nintolerable that she should disbelieve him.\n\n\"Murder, if you want to know,\" he cried angrily. \"That man murdered his\nwife!\"\n\n\"How?\" she retorted.\n\n\"To all intents and purposes he murdered her. That day in Santa\nCroce--did they say anything against me?\"\n\n\"Not a word, Mr. Eager--not a single word.\"\n\n\"Oh, I thought they had been libelling me to you. But I suppose it is\nonly their personal charms that makes you defend them.\"\n\n\"I'm not defending them,\" said Lucy, losing her courage, and relapsing\ninto the old chaotic methods. \"They're nothing to me.\"\n\n\"How could you think she was defending them?\" said Miss Bartlett, much\ndiscomfited by the unpleasant scene. The shopman was possibly listening.\n\n\"She will find it difficult. For that man has murdered his wife in the\nsight of God.\"\n\nThe addition of God was striking. But the chaplain was really trying\nto qualify a rash remark. A silence followed which might have been\nimpressive, but was merely awkward. Then Miss Bartlett hastily purchased\nthe Leaning Tower, and led the way into the street.\n\n\"I must be going,\" said he, shutting his eyes and taking out his watch.\n\nMiss Bartlett thanked him for his kindness, and spoke with enthusiasm of\nthe approaching drive.\n\n\"Drive? Oh, is our drive to come off?\"\n\nLucy was recalled to her manners, and after a little exertion the\ncomplacency of Mr. Eager was restored.\n\n\"Bother the drive!\" exclaimed the girl, as soon as he had departed. \"It\nis just the drive we had arranged with Mr. Beebe without any fuss at\nall. Why should he invite us in that absurd manner? We might as well\ninvite him. We are each paying for ourselves.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett, who had intended to lament over the Emersons, was\nlaunched by this remark into unexpected thoughts.\n\n\"If that is so, dear--if the drive we and Mr. Beebe are going with Mr.\nEager is really the same as the one we are going with Mr. Beebe, then I\nforesee a sad kettle of fish.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Because Mr. Beebe has asked Eleanor Lavish to come, too.\"\n\n\"That will mean another carriage.\"\n\n\"Far worse. Mr. Eager does not like Eleanor. She knows it herself. The\ntruth must be told; she is too unconventional for him.\"\n\nThey were now in the newspaper-room at the English bank. Lucy stood by\nthe central table, heedless of Punch and the Graphic, trying to answer,\nor at all events to formulate the questions rioting in her brain. The\nwell-known world had broken up, and there emerged Florence, a magic\ncity where people thought and did the most extraordinary things. Murder,\naccusations of murder, a lady clinging to one man and being rude to\nanother--were these the daily incidents of her streets? Was there more\nin her frank beauty than met the eye--the power, perhaps, to evoke\npassions, good and bad, and to bring them speedily to a fulfillment?\n\nHappy Charlotte, who, though greatly troubled over things that did not\nmatter, seemed oblivious to things that did; who could conjecture with\nadmirable delicacy \"where things might lead to,\" but apparently lost\nsight of the goal as she approached it. Now she was crouching in the\ncorner trying to extract a circular note from a kind of linen nose-bag\nwhich hung in chaste concealment round her neck. She had been told that\nthis was the only safe way to carry money in Italy; it must only\nbe broached within the walls of the English bank. As she groped she\nmurmured: \"Whether it is Mr. Beebe who forgot to tell Mr. Eager, or Mr.\nEager who forgot when he told us, or whether they have decided to leave\nEleanor out altogether--which they could scarcely do--but in any case\nwe must be prepared. It is you they really want; I am only asked for\nappearances. You shall go with the two gentlemen, and I and Eleanor will\nfollow behind. A one-horse carriage would do for us. Yet how difficult\nit is!\"\n\n\"It is indeed,\" replied the girl, with a gravity that sounded\nsympathetic.\n\n\"What do you think about it?\" asked Miss Bartlett, flushed from the\nstruggle, and buttoning up her dress.\n\n\"I don't know what I think, nor what I want.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, Lucy! I do hope Florence isn't boring you. Speak the word,\nand, as you know, I would take you to the ends of the earth to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Charlotte,\" said Lucy, and pondered over the offer.\n\nThere were letters for her at the bureau--one from her brother, full\nof athletics and biology; one from her mother, delightful as only her\nmother's letters could be. She had read in it of the crocuses which had\nbeen bought for yellow and were coming up puce, of the new parlour-maid,\nwho had watered the ferns with essence of lemonade, of the semi-detached\ncottages which were ruining Summer Street, and breaking the heart of Sir\nHarry Otway. She recalled the free, pleasant life of her home, where she\nwas allowed to do everything, and where nothing ever happened to her.\nThe road up through the pine-woods, the clean drawing-room, the view\nover the Sussex Weald--all hung before her bright and distinct, but\npathetic as the pictures in a gallery to which, after much experience, a\ntraveller returns.\n\n\"And the news?\" asked Miss Bartlett.\n\n\"Mrs. Vyse and her son have gone to Rome,\" said Lucy, giving the news\nthat interested her least. \"Do you know the Vyses?\"\n\n\"Oh, not that way back. We can never have too much of the dear Piazza\nSignoria.\"\n\n\"They're nice people, the Vyses. So clever--my idea of what's really\nclever. Don't you long to be in Rome?\"\n\n\"I die for it!\"\n\nThe Piazza Signoria is too stony to be brilliant. It has no grass,\nno flowers, no frescoes, no glittering walls of marble or comforting\npatches of ruddy brick. By an odd chance--unless we believe in a\npresiding genius of places--the statues that relieve its severity\nsuggest, not the innocence of childhood, nor the glorious bewilderment\nof youth, but the conscious achievements of maturity. Perseus and\nJudith, Hercules and Thusnelda, they have done or suffered something,\nand though they are immortal, immortality has come to them after\nexperience, not before. Here, not only in the solitude of Nature, might\na hero meet a goddess, or a heroine a god.\n\n\"Charlotte!\" cried the girl suddenly. \"Here's an idea. What if we popped\noff to Rome to-morrow--straight to the Vyses' hotel? For I do know what\nI want. I'm sick of Florence. No, you said you'd go to the ends of the\nearth! Do! Do!\"\n\nMiss Bartlett, with equal vivacity, replied:\n\n\"Oh, you droll person! Pray, what would become of your drive in the\nhills?\"\n\nThey passed together through the gaunt beauty of the square, laughing\nover the unpractical suggestion.\n\n\n\nChapter VI: The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager,\nMr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte\nBartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a\nView; Italians Drive Them.\n\nIt was Phaethon who drove them to Fiesole that memorable day, a youth\nall irresponsibility and fire, recklessly urging his master's horses up\nthe stony hill. Mr. Beebe recognized him at once. Neither the Ages of\nFaith nor the Age of Doubt had touched him; he was Phaethon in Tuscany\ndriving a cab. And it was Persephone whom he asked leave to pick up on\nthe way, saying that she was his sister--Persephone, tall and slender\nand pale, returning with the Spring to her mother's cottage, and still\nshading her eyes from the unaccustomed light. To her Mr. Eager objected,\nsaying that here was the thin edge of the wedge, and one must guard\nagainst imposition. But the ladies interceded, and when it had been made\nclear that it was a very great favour, the goddess was allowed to mount\nbeside the god.\n\nPhaethon at once slipped the left rein over her head, thus enabling\nhimself to drive with his arm round her waist. She did not mind.\nMr. Eager, who sat with his back to the horses, saw nothing of the\nindecorous proceeding, and continued his conversation with Lucy. The\nother two occupants of the carriage were old Mr. Emerson and Miss\nLavish. For a dreadful thing had happened: Mr. Beebe, without consulting\nMr. Eager, had doubled the size of the party. And though Miss Bartlett\nand Miss Lavish had planned all the morning how the people were to sit,\nat the critical moment when the carriages came round they lost their\nheads, and Miss Lavish got in with Lucy, while Miss Bartlett, with\nGeorge Emerson and Mr. Beebe, followed on behind.\n\nIt was hard on the poor chaplain to have his partie carree thus\ntransformed. Tea at a Renaissance villa, if he had ever meditated it,\nwas now impossible. Lucy and Miss Bartlett had a certain style about\nthem, and Mr. Beebe, though unreliable, was a man of parts. But a shoddy\nlady writer and a journalist who had murdered his wife in the sight of\nGod--they should enter no villa at his introduction.\n\nLucy, elegantly dressed in white, sat erect and nervous amid these\nexplosive ingredients, attentive to Mr. Eager, repressive towards Miss\nLavish, watchful of old Mr. Emerson, hitherto fortunately asleep, thanks\nto a heavy lunch and the drowsy atmosphere of Spring. She looked on the\nexpedition as the work of Fate. But for it she would have avoided George\nEmerson successfully. In an open manner he had shown that he wished to\ncontinue their intimacy. She had refused, not because she disliked him,\nbut because she did not know what had happened, and suspected that he\ndid know. And this frightened her.\n\nFor the real event--whatever it was--had taken place, not in the Loggia,\nbut by the river. To behave wildly at the sight of death is pardonable.\nBut to discuss it afterwards, to pass from discussion into silence,\nand through silence into sympathy, that is an error, not of a startled\nemotion, but of the whole fabric. There was really something blameworthy\n(she thought) in their joint contemplation of the shadowy stream, in the\ncommon impulse which had turned them to the house without the passing of\na look or word. This sense of wickedness had been slight at first. She\nhad nearly joined the party to the Torre del Gallo. But each time that\nshe avoided George it became more imperative that she should avoid\nhim again. And now celestial irony, working through her cousin and two\nclergymen, did not suffer her to leave Florence till she had made this\nexpedition with him through the hills.\n\nMeanwhile Mr. Eager held her in civil converse; their little tiff was\nover.\n\n\"So, Miss Honeychurch, you are travelling? As a student of art?\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me, no--oh, no!\"\n\n\"Perhaps as a student of human nature,\" interposed Miss Lavish, \"like\nmyself?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. I am here as a tourist.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed,\" said Mr. Eager. \"Are you indeed? If you will not think me\nrude, we residents sometimes pity you poor tourists not a little--handed\nabout like a parcel of goods from Venice to Florence, from Florence to\nRome, living herded together in pensions or hotels, quite unconscious\nof anything that is outside Baedeker, their one anxiety to get 'done'\nor 'through' and go on somewhere else. The result is, they mix up towns,\nrivers, palaces in one inextricable whirl. You know the American girl\nin Punch who says: 'Say, poppa, what did we see at Rome?' And the father\nreplies: 'Why, guess Rome was the place where we saw the yaller dog.'\nThere's travelling for you. Ha! ha! ha!\"\n\n\"I quite agree,\" said Miss Lavish, who had several times tried to\ninterrupt his mordant wit. \"The narrowness and superficiality of the\nAnglo-Saxon tourist is nothing less than a menace.\"\n\n\"Quite so. Now, the English colony at Florence, Miss Honeychurch--and it\nis of considerable size, though, of course, not all equally--a few are\nhere for trade, for example. But the greater part are students. Lady\nHelen Laverstock is at present busy over Fra Angelico. I mention her\nname because we are passing her villa on the left. No, you can only see\nit if you stand--no, do not stand; you will fall. She is very proud of\nthat thick hedge. Inside, perfect seclusion. One might have gone back\nsix hundred years. Some critics believe that her garden was the scene of\nThe Decameron, which lends it an additional interest, does it not?\"\n\n\"It does indeed!\" cried Miss Lavish. \"Tell me, where do they place the\nscene of that wonderful seventh day?\"\n\nBut Mr. Eager proceeded to tell Miss Honeychurch that on the right lived\nMr. Someone Something, an American of the best type--so rare!--and that\nthe Somebody Elses were farther down the hill. \"Doubtless you know\nher monographs in the series of 'Mediaeval Byways'? He is working at\nGemistus Pletho. Sometimes as I take tea in their beautiful grounds I\nhear, over the wall, the electric tram squealing up the new road with\nits loads of hot, dusty, unintelligent tourists who are going to 'do'\nFiesole in an hour in order that they may say they have been there, and\nI think--think--I think how little they think what lies so near them.\"\n\nDuring this speech the two figures on the box were sporting with each\nother disgracefully. Lucy had a spasm of envy. Granted that they wished\nto misbehave, it was pleasant for them to be able to do so. They were\nprobably the only people enjoying the expedition. The carriage swept\nwith agonizing jolts up through the Piazza of Fiesole and into the\nSettignano road.\n\n\"Piano! piano!\" said Mr. Eager, elegantly waving his hand over his head.\n\n\"Va bene, signore, va bene, va bene,\" crooned the driver, and whipped\nhis horses up again.\n\nNow Mr. Eager and Miss Lavish began to talk against each other on the\nsubject of Alessio Baldovinetti. Was he a cause of the Renaissance, or\nwas he one of its manifestations? The other carriage was left behind. As\nthe pace increased to a gallop the large, slumbering form of Mr. Emerson\nwas thrown against the chaplain with the regularity of a machine.\n\n\"Piano! piano!\" said he, with a martyred look at Lucy.\n\nAn extra lurch made him turn angrily in his seat. Phaethon, who for some\ntime had been endeavouring to kiss Persephone, had just succeeded.\n\nA little scene ensued, which, as Miss Bartlett said afterwards, was\nmost unpleasant. The horses were stopped, the lovers were ordered to\ndisentangle themselves, the boy was to lose his pourboire, the girl was\nimmediately to get down.\n\n\"She is my sister,\" said he, turning round on them with piteous eyes.\n\nMr. Eager took the trouble to tell him that he was a liar.\n\nPhaethon hung down his head, not at the matter of the accusation, but\nat its manner. At this point Mr. Emerson, whom the shock of stopping\nhad awoke, declared that the lovers must on no account be separated, and\npatted them on the back to signify his approval. And Miss Lavish, though\nunwilling to ally him, felt bound to support the cause of Bohemianism.\n\n\"Most certainly I would let them be,\" she cried. \"But I dare say I\nshall receive scant support. I have always flown in the face of the\nconventions all my life. This is what I call an adventure.\"\n\n\"We must not submit,\" said Mr. Eager. \"I knew he was trying it on. He is\ntreating us as if we were a party of Cook's tourists.\"\n\n\"Surely no!\" said Miss Lavish, her ardour visibly decreasing.\n\nThe other carriage had drawn up behind, and sensible Mr. Beebe\ncalled out that after this warning the couple would be sure to behave\nthemselves properly.\n\n\"Leave them alone,\" Mr. Emerson begged the chaplain, of whom he stood\nin no awe. \"Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the\nbox when it happens to sit there? To be driven by lovers--A king might\nenvy us, and if we part them it's more like sacrilege than anything I\nknow.\"\n\nHere the voice of Miss Bartlett was heard saying that a crowd had begun\nto collect.\n\nMr. Eager, who suffered from an over-fluent tongue rather than a\nresolute will, was determined to make himself heard. He addressed the\ndriver again. Italian in the mouth of Italians is a deep-voiced stream,\nwith unexpected cataracts and boulders to preserve it from monotony.\nIn Mr. Eager's mouth it resembled nothing so much as an acid whistling\nfountain which played ever higher and higher, and quicker and quicker,\nand more and more shrilly, till abruptly it was turned off with a click.\n\n\"Signorina!\" said the man to Lucy, when the display had ceased. Why\nshould he appeal to Lucy?\n\n\"Signorina!\" echoed Persephone in her glorious contralto. She pointed at\nthe other carriage. Why?\n\nFor a moment the two girls looked at each other. Then Persephone got\ndown from the box.\n\n\"Victory at last!\" said Mr. Eager, smiting his hands together as the\ncarriages started again.\n\n\"It is not victory,\" said Mr. Emerson. \"It is defeat. You have parted\ntwo people who were happy.\"\n\nMr. Eager shut his eyes. He was obliged to sit next to Mr. Emerson, but\nhe would not speak to him. The old man was refreshed by sleep, and took\nup the matter warmly. He commanded Lucy to agree with him; he shouted\nfor support to his son.\n\n\"We have tried to buy what cannot be bought with money. He has bargained\nto drive us, and he is doing it. We have no rights over his soul.\"\n\nMiss Lavish frowned. It is hard when a person you have classed as\ntypically British speaks out of his character.\n\n\"He was not driving us well,\" she said. \"He jolted us.\"\n\n\"That I deny. It was as restful as sleeping. Aha! he is jolting us now.\nCan you wonder? He would like to throw us out, and most certainly he is\njustified. And if I were superstitious I'd be frightened of the girl,\ntoo. It doesn't do to injure young people. Have you ever heard of\nLorenzo de Medici?\"\n\nMiss Lavish bristled.\n\n\"Most certainly I have. Do you refer to Lorenzo il Magnifico, or to\nLorenzo, Duke of Urbino, or to Lorenzo surnamed Lorenzino on account of\nhis diminutive stature?\"\n\n\"The Lord knows. Possibly he does know, for I refer to Lorenzo the poet.\nHe wrote a line--so I heard yesterday--which runs like this: 'Don't go\nfighting against the Spring.'\"\n\nMr. Eager could not resist the opportunity for erudition.\n\n\"Non fate guerra al Maggio,\" he murmured. \"'War not with the May' would\nrender a correct meaning.\"\n\n\"The point is, we have warred with it. Look.\" He pointed to the Val\nd'Arno, which was visible far below them, through the budding trees.\n\"Fifty miles of Spring, and we've come up to admire them. Do you suppose\nthere's any difference between Spring in nature and Spring in man? But\nthere we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper,\nashamed that the same laws work eternally through both.\"\n\nNo one encouraged him to talk. Presently Mr. Eager gave a signal for the\ncarriages to stop and marshalled the party for their ramble on the hill.\nA hollow like a great amphitheatre, full of terraced steps and misty\nolives, now lay between them and the heights of Fiesole, and the road,\nstill following its curve, was about to sweep on to a promontory which\nstood out in the plain. It was this promontory, uncultivated, wet,\ncovered with bushes and occasional trees, which had caught the fancy of\nAlessio Baldovinetti nearly five hundred years before. He had ascended\nit, that diligent and rather obscure master, possibly with an eye to\nbusiness, possibly for the joy of ascending. Standing there, he had seen\nthat view of the Val d'Arno and distant Florence, which he afterwards\nhad introduced not very effectively into his work. But where exactly had\nhe stood? That was the question which Mr. Eager hoped to solve now. And\nMiss Lavish, whose nature was attracted by anything problematical, had\nbecome equally enthusiastic.\n\nBut it is not easy to carry the pictures of Alessio Baldovinetti in your\nhead, even if you have remembered to look at them before starting. And\nthe haze in the valley increased the difficulty of the quest.\n\nThe party sprang about from tuft to tuft of grass, their anxiety to keep\ntogether being only equalled by their desire to go different directions.\nFinally they split into groups. Lucy clung to Miss Bartlett and Miss\nLavish; the Emersons returned to hold laborious converse with the\ndrivers; while the two clergymen, who were expected to have topics in\ncommon, were left to each other.\n\nThe two elder ladies soon threw off the mask. In the audible whisper\nthat was now so familiar to Lucy they began to discuss, not Alessio\nBaldovinetti, but the drive. Miss Bartlett had asked Mr. George Emerson\nwhat his profession was, and he had answered \"the railway.\" She was very\nsorry that she had asked him. She had no idea that it would be such a\ndreadful answer, or she would not have asked him. Mr. Beebe had turned\nthe conversation so cleverly, and she hoped that the young man was not\nvery much hurt at her asking him.\n\n\"The railway!\" gasped Miss Lavish. \"Oh, but I shall die! Of course it\nwas the railway!\" She could not control her mirth. \"He is the image of a\nporter--on, on the South-Eastern.\"\n\n\"Eleanor, be quiet,\" plucking at her vivacious companion. \"Hush! They'll\nhear--the Emersons--\"\n\n\"I can't stop. Let me go my wicked way. A porter--\"\n\n\"Eleanor!\"\n\n\"I'm sure it's all right,\" put in Lucy. \"The Emersons won't hear, and\nthey wouldn't mind if they did.\"\n\nMiss Lavish did not seem pleased at this.\n\n\"Miss Honeychurch listening!\" she said rather crossly. \"Pouf! Wouf! You\nnaughty girl! Go away!\"\n\n\"Oh, Lucy, you ought to be with Mr. Eager, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"I can't find them now, and I don't want to either.\"\n\n\"Mr. Eager will be offended. It is your party.\"\n\n\"Please, I'd rather stop here with you.\"\n\n\"No, I agree,\" said Miss Lavish. \"It's like a school feast; the boys\nhave got separated from the girls. Miss Lucy, you are to go. We wish to\nconverse on high topics unsuited for your ear.\"\n\nThe girl was stubborn. As her time at Florence drew to its close she was\nonly at ease amongst those to whom she felt indifferent. Such a one was\nMiss Lavish, and such for the moment was Charlotte. She wished she had\nnot called attention to herself; they were both annoyed at her remark\nand seemed determined to get rid of her.\n\n\"How tired one gets,\" said Miss Bartlett. \"Oh, I do wish Freddy and your\nmother could be here.\"\n\nUnselfishness with Miss Bartlett had entirely usurped the functions of\nenthusiasm. Lucy did not look at the view either. She would not enjoy\nanything till she was safe at Rome.\n\n\"Then sit you down,\" said Miss Lavish. \"Observe my foresight.\"\n\nWith many a smile she produced two of those mackintosh squares that\nprotect the frame of the tourist from damp grass or cold marble steps.\nShe sat on one; who was to sit on the other?\n\n\"Lucy; without a moment's doubt, Lucy. The ground will do for me. Really\nI have not had rheumatism for years. If I do feel it coming on I shall\nstand. Imagine your mother's feelings if I let you sit in the wet\nin your white linen.\" She sat down heavily where the ground looked\nparticularly moist. \"Here we are, all settled delightfully. Even if my\ndress is thinner it will not show so much, being brown. Sit down, dear;\nyou are too unselfish; you don't assert yourself enough.\" She cleared\nher throat. \"Now don't be alarmed; this isn't a cold. It's the tiniest\ncough, and I have had it three days. It's nothing to do with sitting\nhere at all.\"\n\nThere was only one way of treating the situation. At the end of five\nminutes Lucy departed in search of Mr. Beebe and Mr. Eager, vanquished\nby the mackintosh square.\n\nShe addressed herself to the drivers, who were sprawling in the\ncarriages, perfuming the cushions with cigars. The miscreant, a bony\nyoung man scorched black by the sun, rose to greet her with the courtesy\nof a host and the assurance of a relative.\n\n\"Dove?\" said Lucy, after much anxious thought.\n\nHis face lit up. Of course he knew where. Not so far either. His arm\nswept three-fourths of the horizon. He should just think he did know\nwhere. He pressed his finger-tips to his forehead and then pushed them\ntowards her, as if oozing with visible extract of knowledge.\n\nMore seemed necessary. What was the Italian for \"clergyman\"?\n\n\"Dove buoni uomini?\" said she at last.\n\nGood? Scarcely the adjective for those noble beings! He showed her his\ncigar.\n\n\"Uno--piu--piccolo,\" was her next remark, implying \"Has the cigar been\ngiven to you by Mr. Beebe, the smaller of the two good men?\"\n\nShe was correct as usual. He tied the horse to a tree, kicked it to make\nit stay quiet, dusted the carriage, arranged his hair, remoulded his\nhat, encouraged his moustache, and in rather less than a quarter of a\nminute was ready to conduct her. Italians are born knowing the way. It\nwould seem that the whole earth lay before them, not as a map, but as a\nchess-board, whereon they continually behold the changing pieces as well\nas the squares. Any one can find places, but the finding of people is a\ngift from God.\n\nHe only stopped once, to pick her some great blue violets. She thanked\nhim with real pleasure. In the company of this common man the world\nwas beautiful and direct. For the first time she felt the influence\nof Spring. His arm swept the horizon gracefully; violets, like other\nthings, existed in great profusion there; \"would she like to see them?\"\n\n\"Ma buoni uomini.\"\n\nHe bowed. Certainly. Good men first, violets afterwards. They proceeded\nbriskly through the undergrowth, which became thicker and thicker. They\nwere nearing the edge of the promontory, and the view was stealing round\nthem, but the brown network of the bushes shattered it into countless\npieces. He was occupied in his cigar, and in holding back the pliant\nboughs. She was rejoicing in her escape from dullness. Not a step, not a\ntwig, was unimportant to her.\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\nThere was a voice in the wood, in the distance behind them. The voice\nof Mr. Eager? He shrugged his shoulders. An Italian's ignorance is\nsometimes more remarkable than his knowledge. She could not make him\nunderstand that perhaps they had missed the clergymen. The view was\nforming at last; she could discern the river, the golden plain, other\nhills.\n\n\"Eccolo!\" he exclaimed.\n\nAt the same moment the ground gave way, and with a cry she fell out of\nthe wood. Light and beauty enveloped her. She had fallen on to a little\nopen terrace, which was covered with violets from end to end.\n\n\"Courage!\" cried her companion, now standing some six feet above.\n\"Courage and love.\"\n\nShe did not answer. From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view,\nand violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating\nthe hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems collecting into\npools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of azure foam. But\nnever again were they in such profusion; this terrace was the well-head,\nthe primal source whence beauty gushed out to water the earth.\n\nStanding at its brink, like a swimmer who prepares, was the good man.\nBut he was not the good man that she had expected, and he was alone.\n\nGeorge had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he\ncontemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant\njoy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue\nwaves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and\nkissed her.\n\nBefore she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called,\n\"Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!\" The silence of life had been broken by Miss Bartlett\nwho stood brown against the view.\n\n\n\nChapter VII: They Return\n\nSome complicated game had been playing up and down the hillside all the\nafternoon. What it was and exactly how the players had sided, Lucy\nwas slow to discover. Mr. Eager had met them with a questioning eye.\nCharlotte had repulsed him with much small talk. Mr. Emerson, seeking\nhis son, was told whereabouts to find him. Mr. Beebe, who wore the\nheated aspect of a neutral, was bidden to collect the factions for the\nreturn home. There was a general sense of groping and bewilderment. Pan\nhad been amongst them--not the great god Pan, who has been buried these\ntwo thousand years, but the little god Pan, who presides over social\ncontretemps and unsuccessful picnics. Mr. Beebe had lost everyone, and\nhad consumed in solitude the tea-basket which he had brought up as a\npleasant surprise. Miss Lavish had lost Miss Bartlett. Lucy had lost Mr.\nEager. Mr. Emerson had lost George. Miss Bartlett had lost a mackintosh\nsquare. Phaethon had lost the game.\n\nThat last fact was undeniable. He climbed on to the box shivering, with\nhis collar up, prophesying the swift approach of bad weather. \"Let us go\nimmediately,\" he told them. \"The signorino will walk.\"\n\n\"All the way? He will be hours,\" said Mr. Beebe.\n\n\"Apparently. I told him it was unwise.\" He would look no one in the\nface; perhaps defeat was particularly mortifying for him. He alone had\nplayed skilfully, using the whole of his instinct, while the others\nhad used scraps of their intelligence. He alone had divined what things\nwere, and what he wished them to be. He alone had interpreted the\nmessage that Lucy had received five days before from the lips of a\ndying man. Persephone, who spends half her life in the grave--she could\ninterpret it also. Not so these English. They gain knowledge slowly, and\nperhaps too late.\n\nThe thoughts of a cab-driver, however just, seldom affect the lives of\nhis employers. He was the most competent of Miss Bartlett's opponents,\nbut infinitely the least dangerous. Once back in the town, he and his\ninsight and his knowledge would trouble English ladies no more. Of\ncourse, it was most unpleasant; she had seen his black head in the\nbushes; he might make a tavern story out of it. But after all, what have\nwe to do with taverns? Real menace belongs to the drawing-room. It\nwas of drawing-room people that Miss Bartlett thought as she journeyed\ndownwards towards the fading sun. Lucy sat beside her; Mr. Eager sat\nopposite, trying to catch her eye; he was vaguely suspicious. They spoke\nof Alessio Baldovinetti.\n\nRain and darkness came on together. The two ladies huddled together\nunder an inadequate parasol. There was a lightning flash, and Miss\nLavish who was nervous, screamed from the carriage in front. At the next\nflash, Lucy screamed also. Mr. Eager addressed her professionally:\n\n\"Courage, Miss Honeychurch, courage and faith. If I might say so, there\nis something almost blasphemous in this horror of the elements. Are we\nseriously to suppose that all these clouds, all this immense electrical\ndisplay, is simply called into existence to extinguish you or me?\"\n\n\"No--of course--\"\n\n\"Even from the scientific standpoint the chances against our being\nstruck are enormous. The steel knives, the only articles which might\nattract the current, are in the other carriage. And, in any case, we are\ninfinitely safer than if we were walking. Courage--courage and faith.\"\n\nUnder the rug, Lucy felt the kindly pressure of her cousin's hand. At\ntimes our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care\nnot what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it\nafterwards. Miss Bartlett, by this timely exercise of her muscles,\ngained more than she would have got in hours of preaching or cross\nexamination.\n\nShe renewed it when the two carriages stopped, half into Florence.\n\n\"Mr. Eager!\" called Mr. Beebe. \"We want your assistance. Will you\ninterpret for us?\"\n\n\"George!\" cried Mr. Emerson. \"Ask your driver which way George went. The\nboy may lose his way. He may be killed.\"\n\n\"Go, Mr. Eager,\" said Miss Bartlett, \"don't ask our driver; our driver is\nno help. Go and support poor Mr. Beebe--, he is nearly demented.\"\n\n\"He may be killed!\" cried the old man. \"He may be killed!\"\n\n\"Typical behaviour,\" said the chaplain, as he quitted the carriage. \"In\nthe presence of reality that kind of person invariably breaks down.\"\n\n\"What does he know?\" whispered Lucy as soon as they were alone.\n\"Charlotte, how much does Mr. Eager know?\"\n\n\"Nothing, dearest; he knows nothing. But--\" she pointed at the\ndriver-\"HE knows everything. Dearest, had we better? Shall I?\" She took\nout her purse. \"It is dreadful to be entangled with low-class people.\nHe saw it all.\" Tapping Phaethon's back with her guide-book, she said,\n\"Silenzio!\" and offered him a franc.\n\n\"Va bene,\" he replied, and accepted it. As well this ending to his day\nas any. But Lucy, a mortal maid, was disappointed in him.\n\nThere was an explosion up the road. The storm had struck the overhead\nwire of the tramline, and one of the great supports had fallen. If they\nhad not stopped perhaps they might have been hurt. They chose to regard\nit as a miraculous preservation, and the floods of love and sincerity,\nwhich fructify every hour of life, burst forth in tumult. They descended\nfrom the carriages; they embraced each other. It was as joyful to be\nforgiven past unworthinesses as to forgive them. For a moment they\nrealized vast possibilities of good.\n\nThe older people recovered quickly. In the very height of their emotion\nthey knew it to be unmanly or unladylike. Miss Lavish calculated that,\neven if they had continued, they would not have been caught in the\naccident. Mr. Eager mumbled a temperate prayer. But the drivers, through\nmiles of dark squalid road, poured out their souls to the dryads and the\nsaints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin.\n\n\"Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can\nunderstand me. You warned me to be careful. And I--I thought I was\ndeveloping.\"\n\n\"Do not cry, dearest. Take your time.\"\n\n\"I have been obstinate and silly--worse than you know, far worse. Once\nby the river--Oh, but he isn't killed--he wouldn't be killed, would he?\"\n\nThe thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was\nworst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she thought\nit must be near to everyone.\n\n\"I trust not. One would always pray against that.\"\n\n\"He is really--I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before.\nBut this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply\nslipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a\nlittle to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold,\nand the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like someone in a\nbook.\"\n\n\"In a book?\"\n\n\"Heroes--gods--the nonsense of schoolgirls.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"But, Charlotte, you know what happened then.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With a\ncertain amount of insight she drew her young cousin affectionately\nto her. All the way back Lucy's body was shaken by deep sighs, which\nnothing could repress.\n\n\"I want to be truthful,\" she whispered. \"It is so hard to be absolutely\ntruthful.\"\n\n\"Don't be troubled, dearest. Wait till you are calmer. We will talk it\nover before bed-time in my room.\"\n\nSo they re-entered the city with hands clasped. It was a shock to the\ngirl to find how far emotion had ebbed in others. The storm had ceased,\nand Mr. Emerson was easier about his son. Mr. Beebe had regained good\nhumour, and Mr. Eager was already snubbing Miss Lavish. Charlotte alone\nshe was sure of--Charlotte, whose exterior concealed so much insight and\nlove.\n\nThe luxury of self-exposure kept her almost happy through the long\nevening. She thought not so much of what had happened as of how she\nshould describe it. All her sensations, her spasms of courage, her\nmoments of unreasonable joy, her mysterious discontent, should be\ncarefully laid before her cousin. And together in divine confidence they\nwould disentangle and interpret them all.\n\n\"At last,\" thought she, \"I shall understand myself. I shan't again\nbe troubled by things that come out of nothing, and mean I don't know\nwhat.\"\n\nMiss Alan asked her to play. She refused vehemently. Music seemed to\nher the employment of a child. She sat close to her cousin, who, with\ncommendable patience, was listening to a long story about lost luggage.\nWhen it was over she capped it by a story of her own. Lucy became rather\nhysterical with the delay. In vain she tried to check, or at all events\nto accelerate, the tale. It was not till a late hour that Miss Bartlett\nhad recovered her luggage and could say in her usual tone of gentle\nreproach:\n\n\"Well, dear, I at all events am ready for Bedfordshire. Come into my\nroom, and I will give a good brush to your hair.\"\n\nWith some solemnity the door was shut, and a cane chair placed for the\ngirl. Then Miss Bartlett said \"So what is to be done?\"\n\nShe was unprepared for the question. It had not occurred to her that she\nwould have to do anything. A detailed exhibition of her emotions was all\nthat she had counted upon.\n\n\"What is to be done? A point, dearest, which you alone can settle.\"\n\nThe rain was streaming down the black windows, and the great room felt\ndamp and chilly, One candle burnt trembling on the chest of drawers\nclose to Miss Bartlett's toque, which cast monstrous and fantastic\nshadows on the bolted door. A tram roared by in the dark, and Lucy felt\nunaccountably sad, though she had long since dried her eyes. She lifted\nthem to the ceiling, where the griffins and bassoons were colourless and\nvague, the very ghosts of joy.\n\n\"It has been raining for nearly four hours,\" she said at last.\n\nMiss Bartlett ignored the remark.\n\n\"How do you propose to silence him?\"\n\n\"The driver?\"\n\n\"My dear girl, no; Mr. George Emerson.\"\n\nLucy began to pace up and down the room.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" she said at last.\n\nShe understood very well, but she no longer wished to be absolutely\ntruthful.\n\n\"How are you going to stop him talking about it?\"\n\n\"I have a feeling that talk is a thing he will never do.\"\n\n\"I, too, intend to judge him charitably. But unfortunately I have met\nthe type before. They seldom keep their exploits to themselves.\"\n\n\"Exploits?\" cried Lucy, wincing under the horrible plural.\n\n\"My poor dear, did you suppose that this was his first? Come here\nand listen to me. I am only gathering it from his own remarks. Do you\nremember that day at lunch when he argued with Miss Alan that liking one\nperson is an extra reason for liking another?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lucy, whom at the time the argument had pleased.\n\n\"Well, I am no prude. There is no need to call him a wicked young man,\nbut obviously he is thoroughly unrefined. Let us put it down to his\ndeplorable antecedents and education, if you wish. But we are no farther\non with our question. What do you propose to do?\"\n\nAn idea rushed across Lucy's brain, which, had she thought of it sooner\nand made it part of her, might have proved victorious.\n\n\"I propose to speak to him,\" said she.\n\nMiss Bartlett uttered a cry of genuine alarm.\n\n\"You see, Charlotte, your kindness--I shall never forget it. But--as you\nsaid--it is my affair. Mine and his.\"\n\n\"And you are going to IMPLORE him, to BEG him to keep silence?\"\n\n\"Certainly not. There would be no difficulty. Whatever you ask him he\nanswers, yes or no; then it is over. I have been frightened of him. But\nnow I am not one little bit.\"\n\n\"But we fear him for you, dear. You are so young and inexperienced, you\nhave lived among such nice people, that you cannot realize what men can\nbe--how they can take a brutal pleasure in insulting a woman whom her\nsex does not protect and rally round. This afternoon, for example, if I\nhad not arrived, what would have happened?\"\n\n\"I can't think,\" said Lucy gravely.\n\nSomething in her voice made Miss Bartlett repeat her question, intoning\nit more vigorously.\n\n\"What would have happened if I hadn't arrived?\"\n\n\"I can't think,\" said Lucy again.\n\n\"When he insulted you, how would you have replied?\"\n\n\"I hadn't time to think. You came.\"\n\n\"Yes, but won't you tell me now what you would have done?\"\n\n\"I should have--\" She checked herself, and broke the sentence off. She\nwent up to the dripping window and strained her eyes into the darkness.\nShe could not think what she would have done.\n\n\"Come away from the window, dear,\" said Miss Bartlett. \"You will be seen\nfrom the road.\"\n\nLucy obeyed. She was in her cousin's power. She could not modulate out\nthe key of self-abasement in which she had started. Neither of them\nreferred again to her suggestion that she should speak to George and\nsettle the matter, whatever it was, with him.\n\nMiss Bartlett became plaintive.\n\n\"Oh, for a real man! We are only two women, you and I. Mr. Beebe is\nhopeless. There is Mr. Eager, but you do not trust him. Oh, for your\nbrother! He is young, but I know that his sister's insult would rouse\nin him a very lion. Thank God, chivalry is not yet dead. There are still\nleft some men who can reverence woman.\"\n\nAs she spoke, she pulled off her rings, of which she wore several, and\nranged them upon the pin cushion. Then she blew into her gloves and\nsaid:\n\n\"It will be a push to catch the morning train, but we must try.\"\n\n\"What train?\"\n\n\"The train to Rome.\" She looked at her gloves critically.\n\nThe girl received the announcement as easily as it had been given.\n\n\"When does the train to Rome go?\"\n\n\"At eight.\"\n\n\"Signora Bertolini would be upset.\"\n\n\"We must face that,\" said Miss Bartlett, not liking to say that she had\ngiven notice already.\n\n\"She will make us pay for a whole week's pension.\"\n\n\"I expect she will. However, we shall be much more comfortable at the\nVyses' hotel. Isn't afternoon tea given there for nothing?\"\n\n\"Yes, but they pay extra for wine.\" After this remark she remained\nmotionless and silent. To her tired eyes Charlotte throbbed and swelled\nlike a ghostly figure in a dream.\n\nThey began to sort their clothes for packing, for there was no time to\nlose, if they were to catch the train to Rome. Lucy, when admonished,\nbegan to move to and fro between the rooms, more conscious of the\ndiscomforts of packing by candlelight than of a subtler ill. Charlotte,\nwho was practical without ability, knelt by the side of an empty trunk,\nvainly endeavouring to pave it with books of varying thickness and size.\nShe gave two or three sighs, for the stooping posture hurt her back,\nand, for all her diplomacy, she felt that she was growing old. The girl\nheard her as she entered the room, and was seized with one of those\nemotional impulses to which she could never attribute a cause. She only\nfelt that the candle would burn better, the packing go easier, the world\nbe happier, if she could give and receive some human love. The impulse\nhad come before to-day, but never so strongly. She knelt down by her\ncousin's side and took her in her arms.\n\nMiss Bartlett returned the embrace with tenderness and warmth. But she\nwas not a stupid woman, and she knew perfectly well that Lucy did not\nlove her, but needed her to love. For it was in ominous tones that she\nsaid, after a long pause:\n\n\"Dearest Lucy, how will you ever forgive me?\"\n\nLucy was on her guard at once, knowing by bitter experience what\nforgiving Miss Bartlett meant. Her emotion relaxed, she modified her\nembrace a little, and she said:\n\n\"Charlotte dear, what do you mean? As if I have anything to forgive!\"\n\n\"You have a great deal, and I have a very great deal to forgive myself,\ntoo. I know well how much I vex you at every turn.\"\n\n\"But no--\"\n\nMiss Bartlett assumed her favourite role, that of the prematurely aged\nmartyr.\n\n\"Ah, but yes! I feel that our tour together is hardly the success I had\nhoped. I might have known it would not do. You want someone younger\nand stronger and more in sympathy with you. I am too uninteresting and\nold-fashioned--only fit to pack and unpack your things.\"\n\n\"Please--\"\n\n\"My only consolation was that you found people more to your taste, and\nwere often able to leave me at home. I had my own poor ideas of what a\nlady ought to do, but I hope I did not inflict them on you more than was\nnecessary. You had your own way about these rooms, at all events.\"\n\n\"You mustn't say these things,\" said Lucy softly.\n\nShe still clung to the hope that she and Charlotte loved each other,\nheart and soul. They continued to pack in silence.\n\n\"I have been a failure,\" said Miss Bartlett, as she struggled with the\nstraps of Lucy's trunk instead of strapping her own. \"Failed to make you\nhappy; failed in my duty to your mother. She has been so generous to me;\nI shall never face her again after this disaster.\"\n\n\"But mother will understand. It is not your fault, this trouble, and it\nisn't a disaster either.\"\n\n\"It is my fault, it is a disaster. She will never forgive me, and\nrightly. For instance, what right had I to make friends with Miss\nLavish?\"\n\n\"Every right.\"\n\n\"When I was here for your sake? If I have vexed you it is equally true\nthat I have neglected you. Your mother will see this as clearly as I do,\nwhen you tell her.\"\n\nLucy, from a cowardly wish to improve the situation, said:\n\n\"Why need mother hear of it?\"\n\n\"But you tell her everything?\"\n\n\"I suppose I do generally.\"\n\n\"I dare not break your confidence. There is something sacred in it.\nUnless you feel that it is a thing you could not tell her.\"\n\nThe girl would not be degraded to this.\n\n\"Naturally I should have told her. But in case she should blame you in\nany way, I promise I will not, I am very willing not to. I will never\nspeak of it either to her or to any one.\"\n\nHer promise brought the long-drawn interview to a sudden close. Miss\nBartlett pecked her smartly on both cheeks, wished her good-night, and\nsent her to her own room.\n\nFor a moment the original trouble was in the background. George would\nseem to have behaved like a cad throughout; perhaps that was the view\nwhich one would take eventually. At present she neither acquitted nor\ncondemned him; she did not pass judgement. At the moment when she was\nabout to judge him her cousin's voice had intervened, and, ever since,\nit was Miss Bartlett who had dominated; Miss Bartlett who, even\nnow, could be heard sighing into a crack in the partition wall;\nMiss Bartlett, who had really been neither pliable nor humble nor\ninconsistent. She had worked like a great artist; for a time--indeed,\nfor years--she had been meaningless, but at the end there was presented\nto the girl the complete picture of a cheerless, loveless world in which\nthe young rush to destruction until they learn better--a shamefaced\nworld of precautions and barriers which may avert evil, but which do not\nseem to bring good, if we may judge from those who have used them most.\n\nLucy was suffering from the most grievous wrong which this world has yet\ndiscovered: diplomatic advantage had been taken of her sincerity, of\nher craving for sympathy and love. Such a wrong is not easily forgotten.\nNever again did she expose herself without due consideration and\nprecaution against rebuff. And such a wrong may react disastrously upon\nthe soul.\n\nThe door-bell rang, and she started to the shutters. Before she reached\nthem she hesitated, turned, and blew out the candle. Thus it was that,\nthough she saw someone standing in the wet below, he, though he looked\nup, did not see her.\n\nTo reach his room he had to go by hers. She was still dressed. It struck\nher that she might slip into the passage and just say that she would\nbe gone before he was up, and that their extraordinary intercourse was\nover.\n\nWhether she would have dared to do this was never proved. At the\ncritical moment Miss Bartlett opened her own door, and her voice said:\n\n\"I wish one word with you in the drawing-room, Mr. Emerson, please.\"\n\nSoon their footsteps returned, and Miss Bartlett said: \"Good-night, Mr.\nEmerson.\"\n\nHis heavy, tired breathing was the only reply; the chaperon had done her\nwork.\n\nLucy cried aloud: \"It isn't true. It can't all be true. I want not to be\nmuddled. I want to grow older quickly.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett tapped on the wall.\n\n\"Go to bed at once, dear. You need all the rest you can get.\"\n\nIn the morning they left for Rome.\n\n\n\n\nPart Two\n\n\nChapter VIII: Medieval\n\nThe drawing-room curtains at Windy Corner had been pulled to meet, for\nthe carpet was new and deserved protection from the August sun. They\nwere heavy curtains, reaching almost to the ground, and the light\nthat filtered through them was subdued and varied. A poet--none was\npresent--might have quoted, \"Life like a dome of many coloured glass,\"\nor might have compared the curtains to sluice-gates, lowered against\nthe intolerable tides of heaven. Without was poured a sea of radiance;\nwithin, the glory, though visible, was tempered to the capacities of\nman.\n\nTwo pleasant people sat in the room. One--a boy of nineteen--was\nstudying a small manual of anatomy, and peering occasionally at a bone\nwhich lay upon the piano. From time to time he bounced in his chair and\npuffed and groaned, for the day was hot and the print small, and the\nhuman frame fearfully made; and his mother, who was writing a letter,\ndid continually read out to him what she had written. And continually\ndid she rise from her seat and part the curtains so that a rivulet of\nlight fell across the carpet, and make the remark that they were still\nthere.\n\n\"Where aren't they?\" said the boy, who was Freddy, Lucy's brother. \"I\ntell you I'm getting fairly sick.\"\n\n\"For goodness' sake go out of my drawing-room, then?\" cried Mrs.\nHoneychurch, who hoped to cure her children of slang by taking it\nliterally.\n\nFreddy did not move or reply.\n\n\"I think things are coming to a head,\" she observed, rather wanting\nher son's opinion on the situation if she could obtain it without undue\nsupplication.\n\n\"Time they did.\"\n\n\"I am glad that Cecil is asking her this once more.\"\n\n\"It's his third go, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Freddy I do call the way you talk unkind.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to be unkind.\" Then he added: \"But I do think Lucy might\nhave got this off her chest in Italy. I don't know how girls manage\nthings, but she can't have said 'No' properly before, or she wouldn't\nhave to say it again now. Over the whole thing--I can't explain--I do\nfeel so uncomfortable.\"\n\n\"Do you indeed, dear? How interesting!\"\n\n\"I feel--never mind.\"\n\nHe returned to his work.\n\n\"Just listen to what I have written to Mrs. Vyse. I said: 'Dear Mrs.\nVyse.'\"\n\n\"Yes, mother, you told me. A jolly good letter.\"\n\n\"I said: 'Dear Mrs. Vyse, Cecil has just asked my permission about\nit, and I should be delighted, if Lucy wishes it. But--'\" She stopped\nreading, \"I was rather amused at Cecil asking my permission at all. He\nhas always gone in for unconventionality, and parents nowhere, and so\nforth. When it comes to the point, he can't get on without me.\"\n\n\"Nor me.\"\n\n\"You?\"\n\nFreddy nodded.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"He asked me for my permission also.\"\n\nShe exclaimed: \"How very odd of him!\"\n\n\"Why so?\" asked the son and heir. \"Why shouldn't my permission be\nasked?\"\n\n\"What do you know about Lucy or girls or anything? What ever did you\nsay?\"\n\n\"I said to Cecil, 'Take her or leave her; it's no business of mine!'\"\n\n\"What a helpful answer!\" But her own answer, though more normal in its\nwording, had been to the same effect.\n\n\"The bother is this,\" began Freddy.\n\nThen he took up his work again, too shy to say what the bother was. Mrs.\nHoneychurch went back to the window.\n\n\"Freddy, you must come. There they still are!\"\n\n\"I don't see you ought to go peeping like that.\"\n\n\"Peeping like that! Can't I look out of my own window?\"\n\nBut she returned to the writing-table, observing, as she passed her\nson, \"Still page 322?\" Freddy snorted, and turned over two leaves. For a\nbrief space they were silent. Close by, beyond the curtains, the gentle\nmurmur of a long conversation had never ceased.\n\n\"The bother is this: I have put my foot in it with Cecil most awfully.\"\nHe gave a nervous gulp. \"Not content with 'permission', which I did\ngive--that is to say, I said, 'I don't mind'--well, not content with\nthat, he wanted to know whether I wasn't off my head with joy. He\npractically put it like this: Wasn't it a splendid thing for Lucy and\nfor Windy Corner generally if he married her? And he would have an\nanswer--he said it would strengthen his hand.\"\n\n\"I hope you gave a careful answer, dear.\"\n\n\"I answered 'No'\" said the boy, grinding his teeth. \"There! Fly into a\nstew! I can't help it--had to say it. I had to say no. He ought never to\nhave asked me.\"\n\n\"Ridiculous child!\" cried his mother. \"You think you're so holy and\ntruthful, but really it's only abominable conceit. Do you suppose that\na man like Cecil would take the slightest notice of anything you say? I\nhope he boxed your ears. How dare you say no?\"\n\n\"Oh, do keep quiet, mother! I had to say no when I couldn't say yes. I\ntried to laugh as if I didn't mean what I said, and, as Cecil laughed\ntoo, and went away, it may be all right. But I feel my foot's in it. Oh,\ndo keep quiet, though, and let a man do some work.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch, with the air of one who has considered the\nsubject, \"I shall not keep quiet. You know all that has passed between\nthem in Rome; you know why he is down here, and yet you deliberately\ninsult him, and try to turn him out of my house.\"\n\n\"Not a bit!\" he pleaded. \"I only let out I didn't like him. I don't hate\nhim, but I don't like him. What I mind is that he'll tell Lucy.\"\n\nHe glanced at the curtains dismally.\n\n\"Well, I like him,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch. \"I know his mother; he's\ngood, he's clever, he's rich, he's well connected--Oh, you needn't kick\nthe piano! He's well connected--I'll say it again if you like: he's\nwell connected.\" She paused, as if rehearsing her eulogy, but her face\nremained dissatisfied. She added: \"And he has beautiful manners.\"\n\n\"I liked him till just now. I suppose it's having him spoiling Lucy's\nfirst week at home; and it's also something that Mr. Beebe said, not\nknowing.\"\n\n\"Mr. Beebe?\" said his mother, trying to conceal her interest. \"I don't\nsee how Mr. Beebe comes in.\"\n\n\"You know Mr. Beebe's funny way, when you never quite know what he\nmeans. He said: 'Mr. Vyse is an ideal bachelor.' I was very cute, I\nasked him what he meant. He said 'Oh, he's like me--better detached.' I\ncouldn't make him say any more, but it set me thinking. Since Cecil has\ncome after Lucy he hasn't been so pleasant, at least--I can't explain.\"\n\n\"You never can, dear. But I can. You are jealous of Cecil because he may\nstop Lucy knitting you silk ties.\"\n\nThe explanation seemed plausible, and Freddy tried to accept it. But at\nthe back of his brain there lurked a dim mistrust. Cecil praised one too\nmuch for being athletic. Was that it? Cecil made one talk in one's own\nway. This tired one. Was that it? And Cecil was the kind of fellow who\nwould never wear another fellow's cap. Unaware of his own profundity,\nFreddy checked himself. He must be jealous, or he would not dislike a\nman for such foolish reasons.\n\n\"Will this do?\" called his mother. \"'Dear Mrs. Vyse,--Cecil has just\nasked my permission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes\nit.' Then I put in at the top, 'and I have told Lucy so.' I must write\nthe letter out again--'and I have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very\nuncertain, and in these days young people must decide for themselves.' I\nsaid that because I didn't want Mrs. Vyse to think us old-fashioned. She\ngoes in for lectures and improving her mind, and all the time a thick\nlayer of flue under the beds, and the maid's dirty thumb-marks where you\nturn on the electric light. She keeps that flat abominably--\"\n\n\"Suppose Lucy marries Cecil, would she live in a flat, or in the\ncountry?\"\n\n\"Don't interrupt so foolishly. Where was I? Oh yes--'Young people must\ndecide for themselves. I know that Lucy likes your son, because she\ntells me everything, and she wrote to me from Rome when he asked her\nfirst.' No, I'll cross that last bit out--it looks patronizing. I'll\nstop at 'because she tells me everything.' Or shall I cross that out,\ntoo?\"\n\n\"Cross it out, too,\" said Freddy.\n\nMrs. Honeychurch left it in.\n\n\"Then the whole thing runs: 'Dear Mrs. Vyse.--Cecil has just asked my\npermission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes it, and\nI have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very uncertain, and in these days\nyoung people must decide for themselves. I know that Lucy likes your\nson, because she tells me everything. But I do not know--'\"\n\n\"Look out!\" cried Freddy.\n\nThe curtains parted.\n\nCecil's first movement was one of irritation. He couldn't bear the\nHoneychurch habit of sitting in the dark to save the furniture.\nInstinctively he give the curtains a twitch, and sent them swinging down\ntheir poles. Light entered. There was revealed a terrace, such as is\nowned by many villas with trees each side of it, and on it a little\nrustic seat, and two flower-beds. But it was transfigured by the view\nbeyond, for Windy Corner was built on the range that overlooks the\nSussex Weald. Lucy, who was in the little seat, seemed on the edge of a\ngreen magic carpet which hovered in the air above the tremulous world.\n\nCecil entered.\n\nAppearing thus late in the story, Cecil must be at once described. He\nwas medieval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with shoulders\nthat seemed braced square by an effort of the will, and a head that\nwas tilted a little higher than the usual level of vision, he resembled\nthose fastidious saints who guard the portals of a French cathedral.\nWell educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically, he\nremained in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world knows\nas self-consciousness, and whom the medieval, with dimmer vision,\nworshipped as asceticism. A Gothic statue implies celibacy, just as\na Greek statue implies fruition, and perhaps this was what Mr. Beebe\nmeant. And Freddy, who ignored history and art, perhaps meant the same\nwhen he failed to imagine Cecil wearing another fellow's cap.\n\nMrs. Honeychurch left her letter on the writing table and moved towards\nher young acquaintance.\n\n\"Oh, Cecil!\" she exclaimed--\"oh, Cecil, do tell me!\"\n\n\"I promessi sposi,\" said he.\n\nThey stared at him anxiously.\n\n\"She has accepted me,\" he said, and the sound of the thing in English\nmade him flush and smile with pleasure, and look more human.\n\n\"I am so glad,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch, while Freddy proffered a hand\nthat was yellow with chemicals. They wished that they also knew Italian,\nfor our phrases of approval and of amazement are so connected with\nlittle occasions that we fear to use them on great ones. We are obliged\nto become vaguely poetic, or to take refuge in Scriptural reminiscences.\n\n\"Welcome as one of the family!\" said Mrs. Honeychurch, waving her hand\nat the furniture. \"This is indeed a joyous day! I feel sure that you\nwill make our dear Lucy happy.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" replied the young man, shifting his eyes to the ceiling.\n\n\"We mothers--\" simpered Mrs. Honeychurch, and then realized that she\nwas affected, sentimental, bombastic--all the things she hated most.\nWhy could she not be Freddy, who stood stiff in the middle of the room;\nlooking very cross and almost handsome?\n\n\"I say, Lucy!\" called Cecil, for conversation seemed to flag.\n\nLucy rose from the seat. She moved across the lawn and smiled in at\nthem, just as if she was going to ask them to play tennis. Then she saw\nher brother's face. Her lips parted, and she took him in her arms. He\nsaid, \"Steady on!\"\n\n\"Not a kiss for me?\" asked her mother.\n\nLucy kissed her also.\n\n\"Would you take them into the garden and tell Mrs. Honeychurch all about\nit?\" Cecil suggested. \"And I'd stop here and tell my mother.\"\n\n\"We go with Lucy?\" said Freddy, as if taking orders.\n\n\"Yes, you go with Lucy.\"\n\nThey passed into the sunlight. Cecil watched them cross the terrace,\nand descend out of sight by the steps. They would descend--he knew their\nways--past the shrubbery, and past the tennis-lawn and the dahlia-bed,\nuntil they reached the kitchen garden, and there, in the presence of the\npotatoes and the peas, the great event would be discussed.\n\nSmiling indulgently, he lit a cigarette, and rehearsed the events that\nhad led to such a happy conclusion.\n\nHe had known Lucy for several years, but only as a commonplace girl\nwho happened to be musical. He could still remember his depression that\nafternoon at Rome, when she and her terrible cousin fell on him out\nof the blue, and demanded to be taken to St. Peter's. That day she had\nseemed a typical tourist--shrill, crude, and gaunt with travel. But\nItaly worked some marvel in her. It gave her light, and--which he held\nmore precious--it gave her shadow. Soon he detected in her a wonderful\nreticence. She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci's, whom we love\nnot so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us. The\nthings are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo's could have\nanything so vulgar as a \"story.\" She did develop most wonderfully day by\nday.\n\nSo it happened that from patronizing civility he had slowly passed if\nnot to passion, at least to a profound uneasiness. Already at Rome he\nhad hinted to her that they might be suitable for each other. It had\ntouched him greatly that she had not broken away at the suggestion.\nHer refusal had been clear and gentle; after it--as the horrid phrase\nwent--she had been exactly the same to him as before. Three months\nlater, on the margin of Italy, among the flower-clad Alps, he had asked\nher again in bald, traditional language. She reminded him of a Leonardo\nmore than ever; her sunburnt features were shadowed by fantastic rock;\nat his words she had turned and stood between him and the light with\nimmeasurable plains behind her. He walked home with her unashamed,\nfeeling not at all like a rejected suitor. The things that really\nmattered were unshaken.\n\nSo now he had asked her once more, and, clear and gentle as ever, she\nhad accepted him, giving no coy reasons for her delay, but simply saying\nthat she loved him and would do her best to make him happy. His mother,\ntoo, would be pleased; she had counselled the step; he must write her a\nlong account.\n\nGlancing at his hand, in case any of Freddy's chemicals had come off\non it, he moved to the writing table. There he saw \"Dear Mrs. Vyse,\"\nfollowed by many erasures. He recoiled without reading any more, and\nafter a little hesitation sat down elsewhere, and pencilled a note on\nhis knee.\n\nThen he lit another cigarette, which did not seem quite as divine as\nthe first, and considered what might be done to make Windy Corner\ndrawing-room more distinctive. With that outlook it should have been a\nsuccessful room, but the trail of Tottenham Court Road was upon it; he\ncould almost visualize the motor-vans of Messrs. Shoolbred and Messrs.\nMaple arriving at the door and depositing this chair, those varnished\nbook-cases, that writing-table. The table recalled Mrs. Honeychurch's\nletter. He did not want to read that letter--his temptations never lay\nin that direction; but he worried about it none the less. It was his\nown fault that she was discussing him with his mother; he had wanted her\nsupport in his third attempt to win Lucy; he wanted to feel that others,\nno matter who they were, agreed with him, and so he had asked their\npermission. Mrs. Honeychurch had been civil, but obtuse in essentials,\nwhile as for Freddy--\"He is only a boy,\" he reflected. \"I represent all\nthat he despises. Why should he want me for a brother-in-law?\"\n\nThe Honeychurches were a worthy family, but he began to realize\nthat Lucy was of another clay; and perhaps--he did not put it very\ndefinitely--he ought to introduce her into more congenial circles as\nsoon as possible.\n\n\"Mr. Beebe!\" said the maid, and the new rector of Summer Street was\nshown in; he had at once started on friendly relations, owing to Lucy's\npraise of him in her letters from Florence.\n\nCecil greeted him rather critically.\n\n\"I've come for tea, Mr. Vyse. Do you suppose that I shall get it?\"\n\n\"I should say so. Food is the thing one does get here--Don't sit in that\nchair; young Honeychurch has left a bone in it.\"\n\n\"Pfui!\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Cecil. \"I know. I can't think why Mrs. Honeychurch allows\nit.\"\n\nFor Cecil considered the bone and the Maples' furniture separately; he\ndid not realize that, taken together, they kindled the room into the\nlife that he desired.\n\n\"I've come for tea and for gossip. Isn't this news?\"\n\n\"News? I don't understand you,\" said Cecil. \"News?\"\n\nMr. Beebe, whose news was of a very different nature, prattled forward.\n\n\"I met Sir Harry Otway as I came up; I have every reason to hope that I\nam first in the field. He has bought Cissie and Albert from Mr. Flack!\"\n\n\"Has he indeed?\" said Cecil, trying to recover himself. Into what a\ngrotesque mistake had he fallen! Was it likely that a clergyman and a\ngentleman would refer to his engagement in a manner so flippant? But his\nstiffness remained, and, though he asked who Cissie and Albert might be,\nhe still thought Mr. Beebe rather a bounder.\n\n\"Unpardonable question! To have stopped a week at Windy Corner and not\nto have met Cissie and Albert, the semi-detached villas that have been\nrun up opposite the church! I'll set Mrs. Honeychurch after you.\"\n\n\"I'm shockingly stupid over local affairs,\" said the young man\nlanguidly. \"I can't even remember the difference between a Parish\nCouncil and a Local Government Board. Perhaps there is no difference, or\nperhaps those aren't the right names. I only go into the country to see\nmy friends and to enjoy the scenery. It is very remiss of me. Italy and\nLondon are the only places where I don't feel to exist on sufferance.\"\n\nMr. Beebe, distressed at this heavy reception of Cissie and Albert,\ndetermined to shift the subject.\n\n\"Let me see, Mr. Vyse--I forget--what is your profession?\"\n\n\"I have no profession,\" said Cecil. \"It is another example of my\ndecadence. My attitude--quite an indefensible one--is that so long as I\nam no trouble to any one I have a right to do as I like. I know I ought\nto be getting money out of people, or devoting myself to things I don't\ncare a straw about, but somehow, I've not been able to begin.\"\n\n\"You are very fortunate,\" said Mr. Beebe. \"It is a wonderful\nopportunity, the possession of leisure.\"\n\nHis voice was rather parochial, but he did not quite see his way to\nanswering naturally. He felt, as all who have regular occupation must\nfeel, that others should have it also.\n\n\"I am glad that you approve. I daren't face the healthy person--for\nexample, Freddy Honeychurch.\"\n\n\"Oh, Freddy's a good sort, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Admirable. The sort who has made England what she is.\"\n\nCecil wondered at himself. Why, on this day of all others, was he so\nhopelessly contrary? He tried to get right by inquiring effusively after\nMr. Beebe's mother, an old lady for whom he had no particular regard.\nThen he flattered the clergyman, praised his liberal-mindedness, his\nenlightened attitude towards philosophy and science.\n\n\"Where are the others?\" said Mr. Beebe at last, \"I insist on extracting\ntea before evening service.\"\n\n\"I suppose Anne never told them you were here. In this house one is so\ncoached in the servants the day one arrives. The fault of Anne is\nthat she begs your pardon when she hears you perfectly, and kicks the\nchair-legs with her feet. The faults of Mary--I forget the faults of\nMary, but they are very grave. Shall we look in the garden?\"\n\n\"I know the faults of Mary. She leaves the dust-pans standing on the\nstairs.\"\n\n\"The fault of Euphemia is that she will not, simply will not, chop the\nsuet sufficiently small.\"\n\nThey both laughed, and things began to go better.\n\n\"The faults of Freddy--\" Cecil continued.\n\n\"Ah, he has too many. No one but his mother can remember the faults of\nFreddy. Try the faults of Miss Honeychurch; they are not innumerable.\"\n\n\"She has none,\" said the young man, with grave sincerity.\n\n\"I quite agree. At present she has none.\"\n\n\"At present?\"\n\n\"I'm not cynical. I'm only thinking of my pet theory about Miss\nHoneychurch. Does it seem reasonable that she should play so\nwonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that one day she will be\nwonderful in both. The water-tight compartments in her will break down,\nand music and life will mingle. Then we shall have her heroically good,\nheroically bad--too heroic, perhaps, to be good or bad.\"\n\nCecil found his companion interesting.\n\n\"And at present you think her not wonderful as far as life goes?\"\n\n\"Well, I must say I've only seen her at Tunbridge Wells, where she was\nnot wonderful, and at Florence. Since I came to Summer Street she has\nbeen away. You saw her, didn't you, at Rome and in the Alps. Oh, I\nforgot; of course, you knew her before. No, she wasn't wonderful in\nFlorence either, but I kept on expecting that she would be.\"\n\n\"In what way?\"\n\nConversation had become agreeable to them, and they were pacing up and\ndown the terrace.\n\n\"I could as easily tell you what tune she'll play next. There was simply\nthe sense that she had found wings, and meant to use them. I can show\nyou a beautiful picture in my Italian diary: Miss Honeychurch as a\nkite, Miss Bartlett holding the string. Picture number two: the string\nbreaks.\"\n\nThe sketch was in his diary, but it had been made afterwards, when he\nviewed things artistically. At the time he had given surreptitious tugs\nto the string himself.\n\n\"But the string never broke?\"\n\n\"No. I mightn't have seen Miss Honeychurch rise, but I should certainly\nhave heard Miss Bartlett fall.\"\n\n\"It has broken now,\" said the young man in low, vibrating tones.\n\nImmediately he realized that of all the conceited, ludicrous,\ncontemptible ways of announcing an engagement this was the worst. He\ncursed his love of metaphor; had he suggested that he was a star and\nthat Lucy was soaring up to reach him?\n\n\"Broken? What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I meant,\" said Cecil stiffly, \"that she is going to marry me.\"\n\nThe clergyman was conscious of some bitter disappointment which he could\nnot keep out of his voice.\n\n\"I am sorry; I must apologize. I had no idea you were intimate with her,\nor I should never have talked in this flippant, superficial way. Mr.\nVyse, you ought to have stopped me.\" And down the garden he saw Lucy\nherself; yes, he was disappointed.\n\nCecil, who naturally preferred congratulations to apologies, drew down\nhis mouth at the corners. Was this the reception his action would get\nfrom the world? Of course, he despised the world as a whole; every\nthoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement. But he was\nsensitive to the successive particles of it which he encountered.\n\nOccasionally he could be quite crude.\n\n\"I am sorry I have given you a shock,\" he said dryly. \"I fear that\nLucy's choice does not meet with your approval.\"\n\n\"Not that. But you ought to have stopped me. I know Miss Honeychurch\nonly a little as time goes. Perhaps I oughtn't to have discussed her so\nfreely with any one; certainly not with you.\"\n\n\"You are conscious of having said something indiscreet?\"\n\nMr. Beebe pulled himself together. Really, Mr. Vyse had the art of\nplacing one in the most tiresome positions. He was driven to use the\nprerogatives of his profession.\n\n\"No, I have said nothing indiscreet. I foresaw at Florence that her\nquiet, uneventful childhood must end, and it has ended. I realized dimly\nenough that she might take some momentous step. She has taken it. She\nhas learnt--you will let me talk freely, as I have begun freely--she has\nlearnt what it is to love: the greatest lesson, some people will tell\nyou, that our earthly life provides.\" It was now time for him to wave\nhis hat at the approaching trio. He did not omit to do so. \"She has\nlearnt through you,\" and if his voice was still clerical, it was now\nalso sincere; \"let it be your care that her knowledge is profitable to\nher.\"\n\n\"Grazie tante!\" said Cecil, who did not like parsons.\n\n\"Have you heard?\" shouted Mrs. Honeychurch as she toiled up the sloping\ngarden. \"Oh, Mr. Beebe, have you heard the news?\"\n\nFreddy, now full of geniality, whistled the wedding march. Youth seldom\ncriticizes the accomplished fact.\n\n\"Indeed I have!\" he cried. He looked at Lucy. In her presence he could\nnot act the parson any longer--at all events not without apology.\n\"Mrs. Honeychurch, I'm going to do what I am always supposed to do, but\ngenerally I'm too shy. I want to invoke every kind of blessing on\nthem, grave and gay, great and small. I want them all their lives to be\nsupremely good and supremely happy as husband and wife, as father and\nmother. And now I want my tea.\"\n\n\"You only asked for it just in time,\" the lady retorted. \"How dare you\nbe serious at Windy Corner?\"\n\nHe took his tone from her. There was no more heavy beneficence, no more\nattempts to dignify the situation with poetry or the Scriptures. None of\nthem dared or was able to be serious any more.\n\nAn engagement is so potent a thing that sooner or later it reduces all\nwho speak of it to this state of cheerful awe. Away from it, in the\nsolitude of their rooms, Mr. Beebe, and even Freddy, might again be\ncritical. But in its presence and in the presence of each other they\nwere sincerely hilarious. It has a strange power, for it compels not\nonly the lips, but the very heart. The chief parallel to compare one\ngreat thing with another--is the power over us of a temple of some alien\ncreed. Standing outside, we deride or oppose it, or at the most feel\nsentimental. Inside, though the saints and gods are not ours, we become\ntrue believers, in case any true believer should be present.\n\nSo it was that after the gropings and the misgivings of the afternoon\nthey pulled themselves together and settled down to a very pleasant\ntea-party. If they were hypocrites they did not know it, and their\nhypocrisy had every chance of setting and of becoming true. Anne,\nputting down each plate as if it were a wedding present, stimulated them\ngreatly. They could not lag behind that smile of hers which she gave\nthem ere she kicked the drawing-room door. Mr. Beebe chirruped. Freddy\nwas at his wittiest, referring to Cecil as the \"Fiasco\"--family honoured\npun on fiance. Mrs. Honeychurch, amusing and portly, promised well as\na mother-in-law. As for Lucy and Cecil, for whom the temple had been\nbuilt, they also joined in the merry ritual, but waited, as earnest\nworshippers should, for the disclosure of some holier shrine of joy.\n\n\n\nChapter IX: Lucy As a Work of Art\n\nA few days after the engagement was announced Mrs. Honeychurch made Lucy\nand her Fiasco come to a little garden-party in the neighbourhood, for\nnaturally she wanted to show people that her daughter was marrying a\npresentable man.\n\nCecil was more than presentable; he looked distinguished, and it was\nvery pleasant to see his slim figure keeping step with Lucy, and his\nlong, fair face responding when Lucy spoke to him. People congratulated\nMrs. Honeychurch, which is, I believe, a social blunder, but it pleased\nher, and she introduced Cecil rather indiscriminately to some stuffy\ndowagers.\n\nAt tea a misfortune took place: a cup of coffee was upset over Lucy's\nfigured silk, and though Lucy feigned indifference, her mother feigned\nnothing of the sort but dragged her indoors to have the frock treated\nby a sympathetic maid. They were gone some time, and Cecil was left with\nthe dowagers. When they returned he was not as pleasant as he had been.\n\n\"Do you go to much of this sort of thing?\" he asked when they were\ndriving home.\n\n\"Oh, now and then,\" said Lucy, who had rather enjoyed herself.\n\n\"Is it typical of country society?\"\n\n\"I suppose so. Mother, would it be?\"\n\n\"Plenty of society,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch, who was trying to remember\nthe hang of one of the dresses.\n\nSeeing that her thoughts were elsewhere, Cecil bent towards Lucy and\nsaid:\n\n\"To me it seemed perfectly appalling, disastrous, portentous.\"\n\n\"I am so sorry that you were stranded.\"\n\n\"Not that, but the congratulations. It is so disgusting, the way an\nengagement is regarded as public property--a kind of waste place where\nevery outsider may shoot his vulgar sentiment. All those old women\nsmirking!\"\n\n\"One has to go through it, I suppose. They won't notice us so much next\ntime.\"\n\n\"But my point is that their whole attitude is wrong. An\nengagement--horrid word in the first place--is a private matter, and\nshould be treated as such.\"\n\nYet the smirking old women, however wrong individually, were racially\ncorrect. The spirit of the generations had smiled through them,\nrejoicing in the engagement of Cecil and Lucy because it promised the\ncontinuance of life on earth. To Cecil and Lucy it promised something\nquite different--personal love. Hence Cecil's irritation and Lucy's\nbelief that his irritation was just.\n\n\"How tiresome!\" she said. \"Couldn't you have escaped to tennis?\"\n\n\"I don't play tennis--at least, not in public. The neighbourhood is\ndeprived of the romance of me being athletic. Such romance as I have is\nthat of the Inglese Italianato.\"\n\n\"Inglese Italianato?\"\n\n\"E un diavolo incarnato! You know the proverb?\"\n\nShe did not. Nor did it seem applicable to a young man who had spent a\nquiet winter in Rome with his mother. But Cecil, since his engagement,\nhad taken to affect a cosmopolitan naughtiness which he was far from\npossessing.\n\n\"Well,\" said he, \"I cannot help it if they do disapprove of me. There\nare certain irremovable barriers between myself and them, and I must\naccept them.\"\n\n\"We all have our limitations, I suppose,\" said wise Lucy.\n\n\"Sometimes they are forced on us, though,\" said Cecil, who saw from her\nremark that she did not quite understand his position.\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"It makes a difference doesn't it, whether we fully fence ourselves in,\nor whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?\"\n\nShe thought a moment, and agreed that it did make a difference.\n\n\"Difference?\" cried Mrs. Honeychurch, suddenly alert. \"I don't see any\ndifference. Fences are fences, especially when they are in the same\nplace.\"\n\n\"We were speaking of motives,\" said Cecil, on whom the interruption\njarred.\n\n\"My dear Cecil, look here.\" She spread out her knees and perched her\ncard-case on her lap. \"This is me. That's Windy Corner. The rest of the\npattern is the other people. Motives are all very well, but the fence\ncomes here.\"\n\n\"We weren't talking of real fences,\" said Lucy, laughing.\n\n\"Oh, I see, dear--poetry.\"\n\nShe leant placidly back. Cecil wondered why Lucy had been amused.\n\n\"I tell you who has no 'fences,' as you call them,\" she said, \"and\nthat's Mr. Beebe.\"\n\n\"A parson fenceless would mean a parson defenceless.\"\n\nLucy was slow to follow what people said, but quick enough to detect\nwhat they meant. She missed Cecil's epigram, but grasped the feeling\nthat prompted it.\n\n\"Don't you like Mr. Beebe?\" she asked thoughtfully.\n\n\"I never said so!\" he cried. \"I consider him far above the average. I\nonly denied--\" And he swept off on the subject of fences again, and was\nbrilliant.\n\n\"Now, a clergyman that I do hate,\" said she wanting to say something\nsympathetic, \"a clergyman that does have fences, and the most dreadful\nones, is Mr. Eager, the English chaplain at Florence. He was truly\ninsincere--not merely the manner unfortunate. He was a snob, and so\nconceited, and he did say such unkind things.\"\n\n\"What sort of things?\"\n\n\"There was an old man at the Bertolini whom he said had murdered his\nwife.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he had.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Why 'no'?\"\n\n\"He was such a nice old man, I'm sure.\"\n\nCecil laughed at her feminine inconsequence.\n\n\"Well, I did try to sift the thing. Mr. Eager would never come to the\npoint. He prefers it vague--said the old man had 'practically' murdered\nhis wife--had murdered her in the sight of God.\"\n\n\"Hush, dear!\" said Mrs. Honeychurch absently.\n\n\"But isn't it intolerable that a person whom we're told to imitate\nshould go round spreading slander? It was, I believe, chiefly owing to\nhim that the old man was dropped. People pretended he was vulgar, but he\ncertainly wasn't that.\"\n\n\"Poor old man! What was his name?\"\n\n\"Harris,\" said Lucy glibly.\n\n\"Let's hope that Mrs. Harris there warn't no sich person,\" said her\nmother.\n\nCecil nodded intelligently.\n\n\"Isn't Mr. Eager a parson of the cultured type?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know. I hate him. I've heard him lecture on Giotto. I hate him.\nNothing can hide a petty nature. I HATE him.\"\n\n\"My goodness gracious me, child!\" said Mrs. Honeychurch. \"You'll blow\nmy head off! Whatever is there to shout over? I forbid you and Cecil to\nhate any more clergymen.\"\n\nHe smiled. There was indeed something rather incongruous in Lucy's moral\noutburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the\nceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay\nher vocation; that a woman's power and charm reside in mystery, not\nin muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the\nbeautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he\ncontemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain\napproval. He forebore to repress the sources of youth.\n\nNature--simplest of topics, he thought--lay around them. He praised the\npine-woods, the deep lasts of bracken, the crimson leaves that spotted\nthe hurt-bushes, the serviceable beauty of the turnpike road. The\noutdoor world was not very familiar to him, and occasionally he went\nwrong in a question of fact. Mrs. Honeychurch's mouth twitched when he\nspoke of the perpetual green of the larch.\n\n\"I count myself a lucky person,\" he concluded, \"When I'm in London I\nfeel I could never live out of it. When I'm in the country I feel the\nsame about the country. After all, I do believe that birds and trees and\nthe sky are the most wonderful things in life, and that the people who\nlive amongst them must be the best. It's true that in nine cases out of\nten they don't seem to notice anything. The country gentleman and\nthe country labourer are each in their way the most depressing of\ncompanions. Yet they may have a tacit sympathy with the workings\nof Nature which is denied to us of the town. Do you feel that, Mrs.\nHoneychurch?\"\n\nMrs. Honeychurch started and smiled. She had not been attending.\nCecil, who was rather crushed on the front seat of the victoria, felt\nirritable, and determined not to say anything interesting again.\n\nLucy had not attended either. Her brow was wrinkled, and she still\nlooked furiously cross--the result, he concluded, of too much moral\ngymnastics. It was sad to see her thus blind to the beauties of an\nAugust wood.\n\n\"'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height,'\" he quoted, and\ntouched her knee with his own.\n\nShe flushed again and said: \"What height?\"\n\n\"'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height, What pleasure lives\nin height (the shepherd sang). In height and in the splendour of the\nhills?' Let us take Mrs. Honeychurch's advice and hate clergymen no\nmore. What's this place?\"\n\n\"Summer Street, of course,\" said Lucy, and roused herself.\n\nThe woods had opened to leave space for a sloping triangular meadow.\nPretty cottages lined it on two sides, and the upper and third side was\noccupied by a new stone church, expensively simple, a charming shingled\nspire. Mr. Beebe's house was near the church. In height it scarcely\nexceeded the cottages. Some great mansions were at hand, but they were\nhidden in the trees. The scene suggested a Swiss Alp rather than the\nshrine and centre of a leisured world, and was marred only by two ugly\nlittle villas--the villas that had competed with Cecil's engagement,\nhaving been acquired by Sir Harry Otway the very afternoon that Lucy had\nbeen acquired by Cecil.\n\n\"Cissie\" was the name of one of these villas, \"Albert\" of the other.\nThese titles were not only picked out in shaded Gothic on the garden\ngates, but appeared a second time on the porches, where they followed\nthe semicircular curve of the entrance arch in block capitals. \"Albert\"\nwas inhabited. His tortured garden was bright with geraniums and\nlobelias and polished shells. His little windows were chastely swathed\nin Nottingham lace. \"Cissie\" was to let. Three notice-boards, belonging\nto Dorking agents, lolled on her fence and announced the not surprising\nfact. Her paths were already weedy; her pocket-handkerchief of a lawn\nwas yellow with dandelions.\n\n\"The place is ruined!\" said the ladies mechanically. \"Summer Street will\nnever be the same again.\"\n\nAs the carriage passed, \"Cissie's\" door opened, and a gentleman came out\nof her.\n\n\"Stop!\" cried Mrs. Honeychurch, touching the coachman with her parasol.\n\"Here's Sir Harry. Now we shall know. Sir Harry, pull those things down\nat once!\"\n\nSir Harry Otway--who need not be described--came to the carriage and\nsaid \"Mrs. Honeychurch, I meant to. I can't, I really can't turn out\nMiss Flack.\"\n\n\"Am I not always right? She ought to have gone before the contract was\nsigned. Does she still live rent free, as she did in her nephew's time?\"\n\n\"But what can I do?\" He lowered his voice. \"An old lady, so very vulgar,\nand almost bedridden.\"\n\n\"Turn her out,\" said Cecil bravely.\n\nSir Harry sighed, and looked at the villas mournfully. He had had full\nwarning of Mr. Flack's intentions, and might have bought the plot before\nbuilding commenced: but he was apathetic and dilatory. He had known\nSummer Street for so many years that he could not imagine it being\nspoilt. Not till Mrs. Flack had laid the foundation stone, and the\napparition of red and cream brick began to rise did he take alarm.\nHe called on Mr. Flack, the local builder,--a most reasonable and\nrespectful man--who agreed that tiles would have made more artistic\nroof, but pointed out that slates were cheaper. He ventured to differ,\nhowever, about the Corinthian columns which were to cling like leeches\nto the frames of the bow windows, saying that, for his part, he liked\nto relieve the facade by a bit of decoration. Sir Harry hinted that a\ncolumn, if possible, should be structural as well as decorative.\n\nMr. Flack replied that all the columns had been ordered, adding, \"and\nall the capitals different--one with dragons in the foliage, another\napproaching to the Ionian style, another introducing Mrs. Flack's\ninitials--everyone different.\" For he had read his Ruskin. He built\nhis villas according to his desire; and not until he had inserted an\nimmovable aunt into one of them did Sir Harry buy.\n\nThis futile and unprofitable transaction filled the knight with sadness\nas he leant on Mrs. Honeychurch's carriage. He had failed in his duties\nto the country-side, and the country-side was laughing at him as well.\nHe had spent money, and yet Summer Street was spoilt as much as ever.\nAll he could do now was to find a desirable tenant for \"Cissie\"--some\none really desirable.\n\n\"The rent is absurdly low,\" he told them, \"and perhaps I am an easy\nlandlord. But it is such an awkward size. It is too large for the\npeasant class and too small for any one the least like ourselves.\"\n\nCecil had been hesitating whether he should despise the villas or\ndespise Sir Harry for despising them. The latter impulse seemed the more\nfruitful.\n\n\"You ought to find a tenant at once,\" he said maliciously. \"It would be\na perfect paradise for a bank clerk.\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" said Sir Harry excitedly. \"That is exactly what I fear, Mr.\nVyse. It will attract the wrong type of people. The train service has\nimproved--a fatal improvement, to my mind. And what are five miles from\na station in these days of bicycles?\"\n\n\"Rather a strenuous clerk it would be,\" said Lucy.\n\nCecil, who had his full share of mediaeval mischievousness, replied\nthat the physique of the lower middle classes was improving at a\nmost appalling rate. She saw that he was laughing at their harmless\nneighbour, and roused herself to stop him.\n\n\"Sir Harry!\" she exclaimed, \"I have an idea. How would you like\nspinsters?\"\n\n\"My dear Lucy, it would be splendid. Do you know any such?\"\n\n\"Yes; I met them abroad.\"\n\n\"Gentlewomen?\" he asked tentatively.\n\n\"Yes, indeed, and at the present moment homeless. I heard from them last\nweek--Miss Teresa and Miss Catharine Alan. I'm really not joking. They\nare quite the right people. Mr. Beebe knows them, too. May I tell them\nto write to you?\"\n\n\"Indeed you may!\" he cried. \"Here we are with the difficulty solved\nalready. How delightful it is! Extra facilities--please tell them they\nshall have extra facilities, for I shall have no agents' fees. Oh,\nthe agents! The appalling people they have sent me! One woman, when\nI wrote--a tactful letter, you know--asking her to explain her social\nposition to me, replied that she would pay the rent in advance. As\nif one cares about that! And several references I took up were most\nunsatisfactory--people swindlers, or not respectable. And oh, the\ndeceit! I have seen a good deal of the seamy side this last week. The\ndeceit of the most promising people. My dear Lucy, the deceit!\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"My advice,\" put in Mrs. Honeychurch, \"is to have nothing to do with\nLucy and her decayed gentlewomen at all. I know the type. Preserve me\nfrom people who have seen better days, and bring heirlooms with them\nthat make the house smell stuffy. It's a sad thing, but I'd far rather\nlet to someone who is going up in the world than to someone who has\ncome down.\"\n\n\"I think I follow you,\" said Sir Harry; \"but it is, as you say, a very\nsad thing.\"\n\n\"The Misses Alan aren't that!\" cried Lucy.\n\n\"Yes, they are,\" said Cecil. \"I haven't met them but I should say they\nwere a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood.\"\n\n\"Don't listen to him, Sir Harry--he's tiresome.\"\n\n\"It's I who am tiresome,\" he replied. \"I oughtn't to come with my\ntroubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway\nwill only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no\nreal help.\"\n\n\"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?\"\n\n\"Please!\"\n\nBut his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed:\n\n\"Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of\ncanaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then\nthe mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man.\"\n\n\"Really--\" he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her\nremark.\n\n\"Men don't gossip over tea-cups. If they get drunk, there's an end of\nthem--they lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they're vulgar,\nthey somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn't spread so. Give me a\nman--of course, provided he's clean.\"\n\nSir Harry blushed. Neither he nor Cecil enjoyed these open compliments\nto their sex. Even the exclusion of the dirty did not leave them much\ndistinction. He suggested that Mrs. Honeychurch, if she had time, should\ndescend from the carriage and inspect \"Cissie\" for herself. She was\ndelighted. Nature had intended her to be poor and to live in such a\nhouse. Domestic arrangements always attracted her, especially when they\nwere on a small scale.\n\nCecil pulled Lucy back as she followed her mother.\n\n\"Mrs. Honeychurch,\" he said, \"what if we two walk home and leave you?\"\n\n\"Certainly!\" was her cordial reply.\n\nSir Harry likewise seemed almost too glad to get rid of them. He beamed\nat them knowingly, said, \"Aha! young people, young people!\" and then\nhastened to unlock the house.\n\n\"Hopeless vulgarian!\" exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of\nearshot.\n\n\"Oh, Cecil!\"\n\n\"I can't help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man.\"\n\n\"He isn't clever, but really he is nice.\"\n\n\"No, Lucy, he stands for all that is bad in country life. In London he\nwould keep his place. He would belong to a brainless club, and his wife\nwould give brainless dinner parties. But down here he acts the little\ngod with his gentility, and his patronage, and his sham aesthetics, and\neveryone--even your mother--is taken in.\"\n\n\"All that you say is quite true,\" said Lucy, though she felt\ndiscouraged. \"I wonder whether--whether it matters so very much.\"\n\n\"It matters supremely. Sir Harry is the essence of that garden-party.\nOh, goodness, how cross I feel! How I do hope he'll get some vulgar\ntenant in that villa--some woman so really vulgar that he'll notice\nit. GENTLEFOLKS! Ugh! with his bald head and retreating chin! But let's\nforget him.\"\n\nThis Lucy was glad enough to do. If Cecil disliked Sir Harry Otway and\nMr. Beebe, what guarantee was there that the people who really mattered\nto her would escape? For instance, Freddy. Freddy was neither clever,\nnor subtle, nor beautiful, and what prevented Cecil from saying, any\nminute, \"It would be wrong not to loathe Freddy\"? And what would she\nreply? Further than Freddy she did not go, but he gave her anxiety\nenough. She could only assure herself that Cecil had known Freddy some\ntime, and that they had always got on pleasantly, except, perhaps,\nduring the last few days, which was an accident, perhaps.\n\n\"Which way shall we go?\" she asked him.\n\nNature--simplest of topics, she thought--was around them. Summer Street\nlay deep in the woods, and she had stopped where a footpath diverged\nfrom the highroad.\n\n\"Are there two ways?\"\n\n\"Perhaps the road is more sensible, as we're got up smart.\"\n\n\"I'd rather go through the wood,\" said Cecil, With that subdued\nirritation that she had noticed in him all the afternoon. \"Why is it,\nLucy, that you always say the road? Do you know that you have never once\nbeen with me in the fields or the wood since we were engaged?\"\n\n\"Haven't I? The wood, then,\" said Lucy, startled at his queerness, but\npretty sure that he would explain later; it was not his habit to leave\nher in doubt as to his meaning.\n\nShe led the way into the whispering pines, and sure enough he did\nexplain before they had gone a dozen yards.\n\n\"I had got an idea--I dare say wrongly--that you feel more at home with\nme in a room.\"\n\n\"A room?\" she echoed, hopelessly bewildered.\n\n\"Yes. Or, at the most, in a garden, or on a road. Never in the real\ncountry like this.\"\n\n\"Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean? I have never felt anything of the\nsort. You talk as if I was a kind of poetess sort of person.\"\n\n\"I don't know that you aren't. I connect you with a view--a certain type\nof view. Why shouldn't you connect me with a room?\"\n\nShe reflected a moment, and then said, laughing:\n\n\"Do you know that you're right? I do. I must be a poetess after all.\nWhen I think of you it's always as in a room. How funny!\"\n\nTo her surprise, he seemed annoyed.\n\n\"A drawing-room, pray? With no view?\"\n\n\"Yes, with no view, I fancy. Why not?\"\n\n\"I'd rather,\" he said reproachfully, \"that you connected me with the open\nair.\"\n\nShe said again, \"Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean?\"\n\nAs no explanation was forthcoming, she shook off the subject as too\ndifficult for a girl, and led him further into the wood, pausing every\nnow and then at some particularly beautiful or familiar combination of\nthe trees. She had known the wood between Summer Street and Windy Corner\never since she could walk alone; she had played at losing Freddy in it,\nwhen Freddy was a purple-faced baby; and though she had been to Italy,\nit had lost none of its charm.\n\nPresently they came to a little clearing among the pines--another tiny\ngreen alp, solitary this time, and holding in its bosom a shallow pool.\n\nShe exclaimed, \"The Sacred Lake!\"\n\n\"Why do you call it that?\"\n\n\"I can't remember why. I suppose it comes out of some book. It's only a\npuddle now, but you see that stream going through it? Well, a good deal\nof water comes down after heavy rains, and can't get away at once, and\nthe pool becomes quite large and beautiful. Then Freddy used to bathe\nthere. He is very fond of it.\"\n\n\"And you?\"\n\nHe meant, \"Are you fond of it?\" But she answered dreamily, \"I bathed\nhere, too, till I was found out. Then there was a row.\"\n\nAt another time he might have been shocked, for he had depths of\nprudishness within him. But now? with his momentary cult of the fresh\nair, he was delighted at her admirable simplicity. He looked at her as\nshe stood by the pool's edge. She was got up smart, as she phrased it,\nand she reminded him of some brilliant flower that has no leaves of its\nown, but blooms abruptly out of a world of green.\n\n\"Who found you out?\"\n\n\"Charlotte,\" she murmured. \"She was stopping with us.\nCharlotte--Charlotte.\"\n\n\"Poor girl!\"\n\nShe smiled gravely. A certain scheme, from which hitherto he had shrunk,\nnow appeared practical.\n\n\"Lucy!\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose we ought to be going,\" was her reply.\n\n\"Lucy, I want to ask something of you that I have never asked before.\"\n\nAt the serious note in his voice she stepped frankly and kindly towards\nhim.\n\n\"What, Cecil?\"\n\n\"Hitherto never--not even that day on the lawn when you agreed to marry\nme--\"\n\nHe became self-conscious and kept glancing round to see if they were\nobserved. His courage had gone.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Up to now I have never kissed you.\"\n\nShe was as scarlet as if he had put the thing most indelicately.\n\n\"No--more you have,\" she stammered.\n\n\"Then I ask you--may I now?\"\n\n\"Of course, you may, Cecil. You might before. I can't run at you, you\nknow.\"\n\nAt that supreme moment he was conscious of nothing but absurdities. Her\nreply was inadequate. She gave such a business-like lift to her veil.\nAs he approached her he found time to wish that he could recoil. As\nhe touched her, his gold pince-nez became dislodged and was flattened\nbetween them.\n\nSuch was the embrace. He considered, with truth, that it had been a\nfailure. Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget\ncivility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature.\nAbove all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way.\nWhy could he not do as any labourer or navvy--nay, as any young man\nbehind the counter would have done? He recast the scene. Lucy was\nstanding flowerlike by the water, he rushed up and took her in his\narms; she rebuked him, permitted him and revered him ever after for his\nmanliness. For he believed that women revere men for their manliness.\n\nThey left the pool in silence, after this one salutation. He waited for\nher to make some remark which should show him her inmost thoughts. At\nlast she spoke, and with fitting gravity.\n\n\"Emerson was the name, not Harris.\"\n\n\"What name?\"\n\n\"The old man's.\"\n\n\"What old man?\"\n\n\"That old man I told you about. The one Mr. Eager was so unkind to.\"\n\nHe could not know that this was the most intimate conversation they had\never had.\n\n\n\nChapter X: Cecil as a Humourist\n\nThe society out of which Cecil proposed to rescue Lucy was perhaps no\nvery splendid affair, yet it was more splendid than her antecedents\nentitled her to. Her father, a prosperous local solicitor, had built\nWindy Corner, as a speculation at the time the district was opening up,\nand, falling in love with his own creation, had ended by living there\nhimself. Soon after his marriage the social atmosphere began to alter.\nOther houses were built on the brow of that steep southern slope and\nothers, again, among the pine-trees behind, and northward on the chalk\nbarrier of the downs. Most of these houses were larger than Windy\nCorner, and were filled by people who came, not from the district, but\nfrom London, and who mistook the Honeychurches for the remnants of an\nindigenous aristocracy. He was inclined to be frightened, but his wife\naccepted the situation without either pride or humility. \"I cannot think\nwhat people are doing,\" she would say, \"but it is extremely fortunate\nfor the children.\" She called everywhere; her calls were returned with\nenthusiasm, and by the time people found out that she was not exactly\nof their milieu, they liked her, and it did not seem to matter. When Mr.\nHoneychurch died, he had the satisfaction--which few honest solicitors\ndespise--of leaving his family rooted in the best society obtainable.\n\nThe best obtainable. Certainly many of the immigrants were rather\ndull, and Lucy realized this more vividly since her return from Italy.\nHitherto she had accepted their ideals without questioning--their kindly\naffluence, their inexplosive religion, their dislike of paper-bags,\norange-peel, and broken bottles. A Radical out and out, she learnt to\nspeak with horror of Suburbia. Life, so far as she troubled to conceive\nit, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and\nidentical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside\nit were poverty and vulgarity for ever trying to enter, just as the\nLondon fog tries to enter the pine-woods pouring through the gaps in\nthe northern hills. But, in Italy, where any one who chooses may warm\nhimself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished.\nHer senses expanded; she felt that there was no one whom she might not\nget to like, that social barriers were irremovable, doubtless, but not\nparticularly high. You jump over them just as you jump into a peasant's\nolive-yard in the Apennines, and he is glad to see you. She returned\nwith new eyes.\n\nSo did Cecil; but Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance, but to\nirritation. He saw that the local society was narrow, but, instead\nof saying, \"Does that very much matter?\" he rebelled, and tried to\nsubstitute for it the society he called broad. He did not realize that\nLucy had consecrated her environment by the thousand little civilities\nthat create a tenderness in time, and that though her eyes saw its\ndefects, her heart refused to despise it entirely. Nor did he realize\na more important point--that if she was too great for this society, she\nwas too great for all society, and had reached the stage where personal\nintercourse would alone satisfy her. A rebel she was, but not of the\nkind he understood--a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but\nequality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the most\npriceless of all possessions--her own soul.\n\nPlaying bumble-puppy with Minnie Beebe, niece to the rector, and\naged thirteen--an ancient and most honourable game, which consists in\nstriking tennis-balls high into the air, so that they fall over the net\nand immoderately bounce; some hit Mrs. Honeychurch; others are lost. The\nsentence is confused, but the better illustrates Lucy's state of mind,\nfor she was trying to talk to Mr. Beebe at the same time.\n\n\"Oh, it has been such a nuisance--first he, then they--no one knowing\nwhat they wanted, and everyone so tiresome.\"\n\n\"But they really are coming now,\" said Mr. Beebe. \"I wrote to Miss\nTeresa a few days ago--she was wondering how often the butcher called,\nand my reply of once a month must have impressed her favourably. They\nare coming. I heard from them this morning.\n\n\"I shall hate those Miss Alans!\" Mrs. Honeychurch cried. \"Just because\nthey're old and silly one's expected to say 'How sweet!' I hate\ntheir 'if'-ing and 'but'-ing and 'and'-ing. And poor Lucy--serve her\nright--worn to a shadow.\"\n\nMr. Beebe watched the shadow springing and shouting over the\ntennis-court. Cecil was absent--one did not play bumble-puppy when he\nwas there.\n\n\"Well, if they are coming--No, Minnie, not Saturn.\" Saturn was a\ntennis-ball whose skin was partially unsewn. When in motion his orb was\nencircled by a ring. \"If they are coming, Sir Harry will let them move\nin before the twenty-ninth, and he will cross out the clause about\nwhitewashing the ceilings, because it made them nervous, and put in the\nfair wear and tear one.--That doesn't count. I told you not Saturn.\"\n\n\"Saturn's all right for bumble-puppy,\" cried Freddy, joining them.\n\"Minnie, don't you listen to her.\"\n\n\"Saturn doesn't bounce.\"\n\n\"Saturn bounces enough.\"\n\n\"No, he doesn't.\"\n\n\"Well; he bounces better than the Beautiful White Devil.\"\n\n\"Hush, dear,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch.\n\n\"But look at Lucy--complaining of Saturn, and all the time's got the\nBeautiful White Devil in her hand, ready to plug it in. That's right,\nMinnie, go for her--get her over the shins with the racquet--get her\nover the shins!\"\n\nLucy fell, the Beautiful White Devil rolled from her hand.\n\nMr. Beebe picked it up, and said: \"The name of this ball is Vittoria\nCorombona, please.\" But his correction passed unheeded.\n\nFreddy possessed to a high degree the power of lashing little girls\nto fury, and in half a minute he had transformed Minnie from a\nwell-mannered child into a howling wilderness. Up in the house Cecil\nheard them, and, though he was full of entertaining news, he did not\ncome down to impart it, in case he got hurt. He was not a coward and\nbore necessary pain as well as any man. But he hated the physical\nviolence of the young. How right it was! Sure enough it ended in a cry.\n\n\"I wish the Miss Alans could see this,\" observed Mr. Beebe, just as\nLucy, who was nursing the injured Minnie, was in turn lifted off her\nfeet by her brother.\n\n\"Who are the Miss Alans?\" Freddy panted.\n\n\"They have taken Cissie Villa.\"\n\n\"That wasn't the name--\"\n\nHere his foot slipped, and they all fell most agreeably on to the grass.\nAn interval elapses.\n\n\"Wasn't what name?\" asked Lucy, with her brother's head in her lap.\n\n\"Alan wasn't the name of the people Sir Harry's let to.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Freddy! You know nothing about it.\"\n\n\"Nonsense yourself! I've this minute seen him. He said to me: 'Ahem!\nHoneychurch,'\"--Freddy was an indifferent mimic--\"'ahem! ahem! I have at\nlast procured really dee-sire-rebel tenants.' I said, 'ooray, old boy!'\nand slapped him on the back.\"\n\n\"Exactly. The Miss Alans?\"\n\n\"Rather not. More like Anderson.\"\n\n\"Oh, good gracious, there isn't going to be another muddle!\" Mrs.\nHoneychurch exclaimed. \"Do you notice, Lucy, I'm always right? I said\ndon't interfere with Cissie Villa. I'm always right. I'm quite uneasy at\nbeing always right so often.\"\n\n\"It's only another muddle of Freddy's. Freddy doesn't even know the name\nof the people he pretends have taken it instead.\"\n\n\"Yes, I do. I've got it. Emerson.\"\n\n\"What name?\"\n\n\"Emerson. I'll bet you anything you like.\"\n\n\"What a weathercock Sir Harry is,\" said Lucy quietly. \"I wish I had\nnever bothered over it at all.\"\n\nThen she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe,\nwhose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that THAT was\nthe proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong.\n\nMeanwhile the name of the new tenants had diverted Mrs. Honeychurch from\nthe contemplation of her own abilities.\n\n\"Emerson, Freddy? Do you know what Emersons they are?\"\n\n\"I don't know whether they're any Emersons,\" retorted Freddy, who was\ndemocratic. Like his sister and like most young people, he was naturally\nattracted by the idea of equality, and the undeniable fact that there\nare different kinds of Emersons annoyed him beyond measure.\n\n\"I trust they are the right sort of person. All right, Lucy\"--she was\nsitting up again--\"I see you looking down your nose and thinking your\nmother's a snob. But there is a right sort and a wrong sort, and it's\naffectation to pretend there isn't.\"\n\n\"Emerson's a common enough name,\" Lucy remarked.\n\nShe was gazing sideways. Seated on a promontory herself, she could see\nthe pine-clad promontories descending one beyond another into the Weald.\nThe further one descended the garden, the more glorious was this lateral\nview.\n\n\"I was merely going to remark, Freddy, that I trusted they were no\nrelations of Emerson the philosopher, a most trying man. Pray, does that\nsatisfy you?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" he grumbled. \"And you will be satisfied, too, for they're\nfriends of Cecil; so\"--elaborate irony--\"you and the other country\nfamilies will be able to call in perfect safety.\"\n\n\"CECIL?\" exclaimed Lucy.\n\n\"Don't be rude, dear,\" said his mother placidly. \"Lucy, don't screech.\nIt's a new bad habit you're getting into.\"\n\n\"But has Cecil--\"\n\n\"Friends of Cecil's,\" he repeated, \"'and so really dee-sire-rebel. Ahem!\nHoneychurch, I have just telegraphed to them.'\"\n\nShe got up from the grass.\n\nIt was hard on Lucy. Mr. Beebe sympathized with her very much. While she\nbelieved that her snub about the Miss Alans came from Sir Harry Otway,\nshe had borne it like a good girl. She might well \"screech\" when\nshe heard that it came partly from her lover. Mr. Vyse was a\ntease--something worse than a tease: he took a malicious pleasure\nin thwarting people. The clergyman, knowing this, looked at Miss\nHoneychurch with more than his usual kindness.\n\nWhen she exclaimed, \"But Cecil's Emersons--they can't possibly be the\nsame ones--there is that--\" he did not consider that the exclamation\nwas strange, but saw in it an opportunity of diverting the conversation\nwhile she recovered her composure. He diverted it as follows:\n\n\"The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don't suppose it\nwill prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from them to friends\nof Mr. Vyse's. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest people! The queerest\npeople! For our part we liked them, didn't we?\" He appealed to Lucy.\n\"There was a great scene over some violets. They picked violets and\nfilled all the vases in the room of these very Miss Alans who have\nfailed to come to Cissie Villa. Poor little ladies! So shocked and so\npleased. It used to be one of Miss Catharine's great stories. 'My dear\nsister loves flowers,' it began. They found the whole room a mass of\nblue--vases and jugs--and the story ends with 'So ungentlemanly and yet\nso beautiful.' It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect those\nFlorentine Emersons with violets.\"\n\n\"Fiasco's done you this time,\" remarked Freddy, not seeing that his\nsister's face was very red. She could not recover herself. Mr. Beebe saw\nit, and continued to divert the conversation.\n\n\"These particular Emersons consisted of a father and a son--the son\na goodly, if not a good young man; not a fool, I fancy, but very\nimmature--pessimism, et cetera. Our special joy was the father--such a\nsentimental darling, and people declared he had murdered his wife.\"\n\nIn his normal state Mr. Beebe would never have repeated such gossip,\nbut he was trying to shelter Lucy in her little trouble. He repeated any\nrubbish that came into his head.\n\n\"Murdered his wife?\" said Mrs. Honeychurch. \"Lucy, don't desert us--go\non playing bumble-puppy. Really, the Pension Bertolini must have been\nthe oddest place. That's the second murderer I've heard of as being\nthere. Whatever was Charlotte doing to stop? By-the-by, we really must\nask Charlotte here some time.\"\n\nMr. Beebe could recall no second murderer. He suggested that his hostess\nwas mistaken. At the hint of opposition she warmed. She was perfectly\nsure that there had been a second tourist of whom the same story had\nbeen told. The name escaped her. What was the name? Oh, what was the\nname? She clasped her knees for the name. Something in Thackeray. She\nstruck her matronly forehead.\n\nLucy asked her brother whether Cecil was in.\n\n\"Oh, don't go!\" he cried, and tried to catch her by the ankles.\n\n\"I must go,\" she said gravely. \"Don't be silly. You always overdo it\nwhen you play.\"\n\nAs she left them her mother's shout of \"Harris!\" shivered the tranquil\nair, and reminded her that she had told a lie and had never put it\nright. Such a senseless lie, too, yet it shattered her nerves and\nmade her connect these Emersons, friends of Cecil's, with a pair of\nnondescript tourists. Hitherto truth had come to her naturally. She\nsaw that for the future she must be more vigilant, and be--absolutely\ntruthful? Well, at all events, she must not tell lies. She hurried up\nthe garden, still flushed with shame. A word from Cecil would soothe\nher, she was sure.\n\n\"Cecil!\"\n\n\"Hullo!\" he called, and leant out of the smoking-room window. He\nseemed in high spirits. \"I was hoping you'd come. I heard you all\nbear-gardening, but there's better fun up here. I, even I, have won a\ngreat victory for the Comic Muse. George Meredith's right--the cause of\nComedy and the cause of Truth are really the same; and I, even I, have\nfound tenants for the distressful Cissie Villa. Don't be angry! Don't be\nangry! You'll forgive me when you hear it all.\"\n\nHe looked very attractive when his face was bright, and he dispelled her\nridiculous forebodings at once.\n\n\"I have heard,\" she said. \"Freddy has told us. Naughty Cecil! I suppose\nI must forgive you. Just think of all the trouble I took for nothing!\nCertainly the Miss Alans are a little tiresome, and I'd rather have nice\nfriends of yours. But you oughtn't to tease one so.\"\n\n\"Friends of mine?\" he laughed. \"But, Lucy, the whole joke is to come!\nCome here.\" But she remained standing where she was. \"Do you know where\nI met these desirable tenants? In the National Gallery, when I was up to\nsee my mother last week.\"\n\n\"What an odd place to meet people!\" she said nervously. \"I don't quite\nunderstand.\"\n\n\"In the Umbrian Room. Absolute strangers. They were admiring Luca\nSignorelli--of course, quite stupidly. However, we got talking, and they\nrefreshed me not a little. They had been to Italy.\"\n\n\"But, Cecil--\" proceeded hilariously.\n\n\"In the course of conversation they said that they wanted a country\ncottage--the father to live there, the son to run down for week-ends.\nI thought, 'What a chance of scoring off Sir Harry!' and I took\ntheir address and a London reference, found they weren't actual\nblackguards--it was great sport--and wrote to him, making out--\"\n\n\"Cecil! No, it's not fair. I've probably met them before--\"\n\nHe bore her down.\n\n\"Perfectly fair. Anything is fair that punishes a snob. That old man\nwill do the neighbourhood a world of good. Sir Harry is too disgusting\nwith his 'decayed gentlewomen.' I meant to read him a lesson some time.\nNo, Lucy, the classes ought to mix, and before long you'll agree with\nme. There ought to be intermarriage--all sorts of things. I believe in\ndemocracy--\"\n\n\"No, you don't,\" she snapped. \"You don't know what the word means.\"\n\nHe stared at her, and felt again that she had failed to be Leonardesque.\n\"No, you don't!\"\n\nHer face was inartistic--that of a peevish virago.\n\n\"It isn't fair, Cecil. I blame you--I blame you very much indeed. You\nhad no business to undo my work about the Miss Alans, and make me look\nridiculous. You call it scoring off Sir Harry, but do you realize that\nit is all at my expense? I consider it most disloyal of you.\"\n\nShe left him.\n\n\"Temper!\" he thought, raising his eyebrows.\n\nNo, it was worse than temper--snobbishness. As long as Lucy thought\nthat his own smart friends were supplanting the Miss Alans, she had\nnot minded. He perceived that these new tenants might be of value\neducationally. He would tolerate the father and draw out the son, who\nwas silent. In the interests of the Comic Muse and of Truth, he would\nbring them to Windy Corner.\n\n\n\nChapter XI: In Mrs. Vyse's Well-Appointed Flat\n\nThe Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did not\ndisdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the Emersons to\nWindy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she carried through the\nnegotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway signed the agreement,\nmet Mr. Emerson, who was duly disillusioned. The Miss Alans were\nduly offended, and wrote a dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held\nresponsible for the failure. Mr. Beebe planned pleasant moments for the\nnew-comers, and told Mrs. Honeychurch that Freddy must call on them as\nsoon as they arrived. Indeed, so ample was the Muse's equipment that she\npermitted Mr. Harris, never a very robust criminal, to droop his head,\nto be forgotten, and to die.\n\nLucy--to descend from bright heaven to earth, whereon there are shadows\nbecause there are hills--Lucy was at first plunged into despair, but\nsettled after a little thought that it did not matter the very least.\nNow that she was engaged, the Emersons would scarcely insult her and\nwere welcome into the neighbourhood. And Cecil was welcome to bring whom\nhe would into the neighbourhood. Therefore Cecil was welcome to bring\nthe Emersons into the neighbourhood. But, as I say, this took a little\nthinking, and--so illogical are girls--the event remained rather greater\nand rather more dreadful than it should have done. She was glad that\na visit to Mrs. Vyse now fell due; the tenants moved into Cissie Villa\nwhile she was safe in the London flat.\n\n\"Cecil--Cecil darling,\" she whispered the evening she arrived, and crept\ninto his arms.\n\nCecil, too, became demonstrative. He saw that the needful fire had been\nkindled in Lucy. At last she longed for attention, as a woman should,\nand looked up to him because he was a man.\n\n\"So you do love me, little thing?\" he murmured.\n\n\"Oh, Cecil, I do, I do! I don't know what I should do without you.\"\n\nSeveral days passed. Then she had a letter from Miss Bartlett. A\ncoolness had sprung up between the two cousins, and they had not\ncorresponded since they parted in August. The coolness dated from what\nCharlotte would call \"the flight to Rome,\" and in Rome it had increased\namazingly. For the companion who is merely uncongenial in the mediaeval\nworld becomes exasperating in the classical. Charlotte, unselfish in the\nForum, would have tried a sweeter temper than Lucy's, and once, in the\nBaths of Caracalla, they had doubted whether they could continue\ntheir tour. Lucy had said she would join the Vyses--Mrs. Vyse was an\nacquaintance of her mother, so there was no impropriety in the plan and\nMiss Bartlett had replied that she was quite used to being abandoned\nsuddenly. Finally nothing happened; but the coolness remained, and, for\nLucy, was even increased when she opened the letter and read as follows.\nIt had been forwarded from Windy Corner.\n\n\n\"Tunbridge Wells,\n\n\"September.\n\n\"Dearest Lucia,\n\n\"I have news of you at last! Miss Lavish has been bicycling in your\nparts, but was not sure whether a call would be welcome. Puncturing\nher tire near Summer Street, and it being mended while she sat very\nwoebegone in that pretty churchyard, she saw to her astonishment, a door\nopen opposite and the younger Emerson man come out. He said his father\nhad just taken the house. He SAID he did not know that you lived in the\nneighbourhood (?). He never suggested giving Eleanor a cup of tea. Dear\nLucy, I am much worried, and I advise you to make a clean breast of his\npast behaviour to your mother, Freddy, and Mr. Vyse, who will forbid him\nto enter the house, etc. That was a great misfortune, and I dare say you\nhave told them already. Mr. Vyse is so sensitive. I remember how I used\nto get on his nerves at Rome. I am very sorry about it all, and should\nnot feel easy unless I warned you.\n\n\"Believe me,\n\n\"Your anxious and loving cousin,\n\n\"Charlotte.\"\n\n\nLucy was much annoyed, and replied as follows:\n\n\n\"Beauchamp Mansions, S.W.\n\n\"Dear Charlotte,\n\n\"Many thanks for your warning. When Mr. Emerson forgot himself on the\nmountain, you made me promise not to tell mother, because you said she\nwould blame you for not being always with me. I have kept that promise,\nand cannot possibly tell her now. I have said both to her and Cecil\nthat I met the Emersons at Florence, and that they are respectable\npeople--which I do think--and the reason that he offered Miss Lavish no\ntea was probably that he had none himself. She should have tried at the\nRectory. I cannot begin making a fuss at this stage. You must see that\nit would be too absurd. If the Emersons heard I had complained of them,\nthey would think themselves of importance, which is exactly what they\nare not. I like the old father, and look forward to seeing him again.\nAs for the son, I am sorry for him when we meet, rather than for myself.\nThey are known to Cecil, who is very well and spoke of you the other\nday. We expect to be married in January.\n\n\"Miss Lavish cannot have told you much about me, for I am not at Windy\nCorner at all, but here. Please do not put 'Private' outside your\nenvelope again. No one opens my letters.\n\n\"Yours affectionately,\n\n\"L. M. Honeychurch.\"\n\n\nSecrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion; we\ncannot tell whether our secret is important or not. Were Lucy and her\ncousin closeted with a great thing which would destroy Cecil's life if\nhe discovered it, or with a little thing which he would laugh at? Miss\nBartlett suggested the former. Perhaps she was right. It had become a\ngreat thing now. Left to herself, Lucy would have told her mother\nand her lover ingenuously, and it would have remained a little thing.\n\"Emerson, not Harris\"; it was only that a few weeks ago. She tried to\ntell Cecil even now when they were laughing about some beautiful\nlady who had smitten his heart at school. But her body behaved so\nridiculously that she stopped.\n\nShe and her secret stayed ten days longer in the deserted Metropolis\nvisiting the scenes they were to know so well later on. It did her no\nharm, Cecil thought, to learn the framework of society, while society\nitself was absent on the golf-links or the moors. The weather was cool,\nand it did her no harm. In spite of the season, Mrs. Vyse managed to\nscrape together a dinner-party consisting entirely of the grandchildren\nof famous people. The food was poor, but the talk had a witty weariness\nthat impressed the girl. One was tired of everything, it seemed. One\nlaunched into enthusiasms only to collapse gracefully, and pick oneself\nup amid sympathetic laughter. In this atmosphere the Pension Bertolini\nand Windy Corner appeared equally crude, and Lucy saw that her London\ncareer would estrange her a little from all that she had loved in the\npast.\n\nThe grandchildren asked her to play the piano.\n\nShe played Schumann. \"Now some Beethoven\" called Cecil, when the\nquerulous beauty of the music had died. She shook her head and played\nSchumann again. The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It broke; it\nwas resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle to the grave. The\nsadness of the incomplete--the sadness that is often Life, but should\nnever be Art--throbbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of\nthe audience throb. Not thus had she played on the little draped piano\nat the Bertolini, and \"Too much Schumann\" was not the remark that Mr.\nBeebe had passed to himself when she returned.\n\nWhen the guests were gone, and Lucy had gone to bed, Mrs. Vyse paced\nup and down the drawing-room, discussing her little party with her son.\nMrs. Vyse was a nice woman, but her personality, like many another's,\nhad been swamped by London, for it needs a strong head to live among\nmany people. The too vast orb of her fate had crushed her; and she had\nseen too many seasons, too many cities, too many men, for her abilities,\nand even with Cecil she was mechanical, and behaved as if he was not one\nson, but, so to speak, a filial crowd.\n\n\"Make Lucy one of us,\" she said, looking round intelligently at the end\nof each sentence, and straining her lips apart until she spoke again.\n\"Lucy is becoming wonderful--wonderful.\"\n\n\"Her music always was wonderful.\"\n\n\"Yes, but she is purging off the Honeychurch taint, most excellent\nHoneychurches, but you know what I mean. She is not always quoting\nservants, or asking one how the pudding is made.\"\n\n\"Italy has done it.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" she murmured, thinking of the museum that represented Italy\nto her. \"It is just possible. Cecil, mind you marry her next January.\nShe is one of us already.\"\n\n\"But her music!\" he exclaimed. \"The style of her! How she kept to\nSchumann when, like an idiot, I wanted Beethoven. Schumann was right for\nthis evening. Schumann was the thing. Do you know, mother, I shall have\nour children educated just like Lucy. Bring them up among honest country\nfolks for freshness, send them to Italy for subtlety, and then--not\ntill then--let them come to London. I don't believe in these London\neducations--\" He broke off, remembering that he had had one himself, and\nconcluded, \"At all events, not for women.\"\n\n\"Make her one of us,\" repeated Mrs. Vyse, and processed to bed.\n\nAs she was dozing off, a cry--the cry of nightmare--rang from Lucy's\nroom. Lucy could ring for the maid if she liked but Mrs. Vyse thought it\nkind to go herself. She found the girl sitting upright with her hand on\nher cheek.\n\n\"I am so sorry, Mrs. Vyse--it is these dreams.\"\n\n\"Bad dreams?\"\n\n\"Just dreams.\"\n\nThe elder lady smiled and kissed her, saying very distinctly: \"You\nshould have heard us talking about you, dear. He admires you more than\never. Dream of that.\"\n\nLucy returned the kiss, still covering one cheek with her hand. Mrs.\nVyse recessed to bed. Cecil, whom the cry had not awoke, snored.\nDarkness enveloped the flat.\n\n\n\nChapter XII: Twelfth Chapter\n\nIt was a Saturday afternoon, gay and brilliant after abundant rains, and\nthe spirit of youth dwelt in it, though the season was now autumn. All\nthat was gracious triumphed. As the motorcars passed through Summer\nStreet they raised only a little dust, and their stench was soon\ndispersed by the wind and replaced by the scent of the wet birches or\nof the pines. Mr. Beebe, at leisure for life's amenities, leant over his\nRectory gate. Freddy leant by him, smoking a pendant pipe.\n\n\"Suppose we go and hinder those new people opposite for a little.\"\n\n\"M'm.\"\n\n\"They might amuse you.\"\n\nFreddy, whom his fellow-creatures never amused, suggested that the new\npeople might be feeling a bit busy, and so on, since they had only just\nmoved in.\n\n\"I suggested we should hinder them,\" said Mr. Beebe. \"They are worth\nit.\" Unlatching the gate, he sauntered over the triangular green to\nCissie Villa. \"Hullo!\" he cried, shouting in at the open door, through\nwhich much squalor was visible.\n\nA grave voice replied, \"Hullo!\"\n\n\"I've brought someone to see you.\"\n\n\"I'll be down in a minute.\"\n\nThe passage was blocked by a wardrobe, which the removal men had failed\nto carry up the stairs. Mr. Beebe edged round it with difficulty. The\nsitting-room itself was blocked with books.\n\n\"Are these people great readers?\" Freddy whispered. \"Are they that\nsort?\"\n\n\"I fancy they know how to read--a rare accomplishment. What have they\ngot? Byron. Exactly. A Shropshire Lad. Never heard of it. The Way of\nAll Flesh. Never heard of it. Gibbon. Hullo! dear George reads German.\nUm--um--Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and so we go on. Well, I suppose your\ngeneration knows its own business, Honeychurch.\"\n\n\"Mr. Beebe, look at that,\" said Freddy in awestruck tones.\n\nOn the cornice of the wardrobe, the hand of an amateur had painted this\ninscription: \"Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.\"\n\n\"I know. Isn't it jolly? I like that. I'm certain that's the old man's\ndoing.\"\n\n\"How very odd of him!\"\n\n\"Surely you agree?\"\n\nBut Freddy was his mother's son and felt that one ought not to go on\nspoiling the furniture.\n\n\"Pictures!\" the clergyman continued, scrambling about the room.\n\"Giotto--they got that at Florence, I'll be bound.\"\n\n\"The same as Lucy's got.\"\n\n\"Oh, by-the-by, did Miss Honeychurch enjoy London?\"\n\n\"She came back yesterday.\"\n\n\"I suppose she had a good time?\"\n\n\"Yes, very,\" said Freddy, taking up a book. \"She and Cecil are thicker\nthan ever.\"\n\n\"That's good hearing.\"\n\n\"I wish I wasn't such a fool, Mr. Beebe.\"\n\nMr. Beebe ignored the remark.\n\n\"Lucy used to be nearly as stupid as I am, but it'll be very different\nnow, mother thinks. She will read all kinds of books.\"\n\n\"So will you.\"\n\n\"Only medical books. Not books that you can talk about afterwards. Cecil\nis teaching Lucy Italian, and he says her playing is wonderful. There\nare all kinds of things in it that we have never noticed. Cecil says--\"\n\n\"What on earth are those people doing upstairs? Emerson--we think we'll\ncome another time.\"\n\nGeorge ran down-stairs and pushed them into the room without speaking.\n\n\"Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, a neighbour.\"\n\nThen Freddy hurled one of the thunderbolts of youth. Perhaps he was shy,\nperhaps he was friendly, or perhaps he thought that George's face wanted\nwashing. At all events he greeted him with, \"How d'ye do? Come and have\na bathe.\"\n\n\"Oh, all right,\" said George, impassive.\n\nMr. Beebe was highly entertained.\n\n\"'How d'ye do? how d'ye do? Come and have a bathe,'\" he chuckled.\n\"That's the best conversational opening I've ever heard. But I'm afraid\nit will only act between men. Can you picture a lady who has been\nintroduced to another lady by a third lady opening civilities with 'How\ndo you do? Come and have a bathe'? And yet you will tell me that the\nsexes are equal.\"\n\n\"I tell you that they shall be,\" said Mr. Emerson, who had been slowly\ndescending the stairs. \"Good afternoon, Mr. Beebe. I tell you they shall\nbe comrades, and George thinks the same.\"\n\n\"We are to raise ladies to our level?\" the clergyman inquired.\n\n\"The Garden of Eden,\" pursued Mr. Emerson, still descending, \"which you\nplace in the past, is really yet to come. We shall enter it when we no\nlonger despise our bodies.\"\n\nMr. Beebe disclaimed placing the Garden of Eden anywhere.\n\n\"In this--not in other things--we men are ahead. We despise the body\nless than women do. But not until we are comrades shall we enter the\ngarden.\"\n\n\"I say, what about this bathe?\" murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass of\nphilosophy that was approaching him.\n\n\"I believed in a return to Nature once. But how can we return to\nNature when we have never been with her? To-day, I believe that we must\ndiscover Nature. After many conquests we shall attain simplicity. It is\nour heritage.\"\n\n\"Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, whose sister you will remember at\nFlorence.\"\n\n\"How do you do? Very glad to see you, and that you are taking George for\na bathe. Very glad to hear that your sister is going to marry. Marriage\nis a duty. I am sure that she will be happy, for we know Mr. Vyse, too.\nHe has been most kind. He met us by chance in the National Gallery, and\narranged everything about this delightful house. Though I hope I have\nnot vexed Sir Harry Otway. I have met so few Liberal landowners, and\nI was anxious to compare his attitude towards the game laws with the\nConservative attitude. Ah, this wind! You do well to bathe. Yours is a\nglorious country, Honeychurch!\"\n\n\"Not a bit!\" mumbled Freddy. \"I must--that is to say, I have to--have\nthe pleasure of calling on you later on, my mother says, I hope.\"\n\n\"CALL, my lad? Who taught us that drawing-room twaddle? Call on your\ngrandmother! Listen to the wind among the pines! Yours is a glorious\ncountry.\"\n\nMr. Beebe came to the rescue.\n\n\"Mr. Emerson, he will call, I shall call; you or your son will return\nour calls before ten days have elapsed. I trust that you have realized\nabout the ten days' interval. It does not count that I helped you with\nthe stair-eyes yesterday. It does not count that they are going to bathe\nthis afternoon.\"\n\n\"Yes, go and bathe, George. Why do you dawdle talking? Bring them back\nto tea. Bring back some milk, cakes, honey. The change will do you good.\nGeorge has been working very hard at his office. I can't believe he's\nwell.\"\n\nGeorge bowed his head, dusty and sombre, exhaling the peculiar smell of\none who has handled furniture.\n\n\"Do you really want this bathe?\" Freddy asked him. \"It is only a pond,\ndon't you know. I dare say you are used to something better.\"\n\n\"Yes--I have said 'Yes' already.\"\n\nMr. Beebe felt bound to assist his young friend, and led the way out\nof the house and into the pine-woods. How glorious it was! For a little\ntime the voice of old Mr. Emerson pursued them dispensing good wishes\nand philosophy. It ceased, and they only heard the fair wind blowing the\nbracken and the trees. Mr. Beebe, who could be silent, but who could not\nbear silence, was compelled to chatter, since the expedition looked like\na failure, and neither of his companions would utter a word. He spoke of\nFlorence. George attended gravely, assenting or dissenting with slight\nbut determined gestures that were as inexplicable as the motions of the\ntree-tops above their heads.\n\n\"And what a coincidence that you should meet Mr. Vyse! Did you realize\nthat you would find all the Pension Bertolini down here?\"\n\n\"I did not. Miss Lavish told me.\"\n\n\"When I was a young man, I always meant to write a 'History of\nCoincidence.'\"\n\nNo enthusiasm.\n\n\"Though, as a matter of fact, coincidences are much rarer than we\nsuppose. For example, it isn't purely coincidentally that you are here\nnow, when one comes to reflect.\"\n\nTo his relief, George began to talk.\n\n\"It is. I have reflected. It is Fate. Everything is Fate. We are flung\ntogether by Fate, drawn apart by Fate--flung together, drawn apart. The\ntwelve winds blow us--we settle nothing--\"\n\n\"You have not reflected at all,\" rapped the clergyman. \"Let me give you\na useful tip, Emerson: attribute nothing to Fate. Don't say, 'I didn't\ndo this,' for you did it, ten to one. Now I'll cross-question you. Where\ndid you first meet Miss Honeychurch and myself?\"\n\n\"Italy.\"\n\n\"And where did you meet Mr. Vyse, who is going to marry Miss\nHoneychurch?\"\n\n\"National Gallery.\"\n\n\"Looking at Italian art. There you are, and yet you talk of coincidence\nand Fate. You naturally seek out things Italian, and so do we and our\nfriends. This narrows the field immeasurably we meet again in it.\"\n\n\"It is Fate that I am here,\" persisted George. \"But you can call it\nItaly if it makes you less unhappy.\"\n\nMr. Beebe slid away from such heavy treatment of the subject. But he was\ninfinitely tolerant of the young, and had no desire to snub George.\n\n\"And so for this and for other reasons my 'History of Coincidence' is\nstill to write.\"\n\nSilence.\n\nWishing to round off the episode, he added; \"We are all so glad that you\nhave come.\"\n\nSilence.\n\n\"Here we are!\" called Freddy.\n\n\"Oh, good!\" exclaimed Mr. Beebe, mopping his brow.\n\n\"In there's the pond. I wish it was bigger,\" he added apologetically.\n\nThey climbed down a slippery bank of pine-needles. There lay the pond,\nset in its little alp of green--only a pond, but large enough to contain\nthe human body, and pure enough to reflect the sky. On account of the\nrains, the waters had flooded the surrounding grass, which showed like a\nbeautiful emerald path, tempting these feet towards the central pool.\n\n\"It's distinctly successful, as ponds go,\" said Mr. Beebe. \"No apologies\nare necessary for the pond.\"\n\nGeorge sat down where the ground was dry, and drearily unlaced his\nboots.\n\n\"Aren't those masses of willow-herb splendid? I love willow-herb in\nseed. What's the name of this aromatic plant?\"\n\nNo one knew, or seemed to care.\n\n\"These abrupt changes of vegetation--this little spongeous tract of\nwater plants, and on either side of it all the growths are tough or\nbrittle--heather, bracken, hurts, pines. Very charming, very charming.\"\n\n\"Mr. Beebe, aren't you bathing?\" called Freddy, as he stripped himself.\n\nMr. Beebe thought he was not.\n\n\"Water's wonderful!\" cried Freddy, prancing in.\n\n\"Water's water,\" murmured George. Wetting his hair first--a sure sign of\napathy--he followed Freddy into the divine, as indifferent as if he were\na statue and the pond a pail of soapsuds. It was necessary to use his\nmuscles. It was necessary to keep clean. Mr. Beebe watched them, and\nwatched the seeds of the willow-herb dance chorically above their heads.\n\n\"Apooshoo, apooshoo, apooshoo,\" went Freddy, swimming for two strokes in\neither direction, and then becoming involved in reeds or mud.\n\n\"Is it worth it?\" asked the other, Michelangelesque on the flooded\nmargin.\n\nThe bank broke away, and he fell into the pool before he had weighed the\nquestion properly.\n\n\"Hee-poof--I've swallowed a pollywog, Mr. Beebe, water's wonderful,\nwater's simply ripping.\"\n\n\"Water's not so bad,\" said George, reappearing from his plunge, and\nsputtering at the sun.\n\n\"Water's wonderful. Mr. Beebe, do.\"\n\n\"Apooshoo, kouf.\"\n\nMr. Beebe, who was hot, and who always acquiesced where possible, looked\naround him. He could detect no parishioners except the pine-trees,\nrising up steeply on all sides, and gesturing to each other against\nthe blue. How glorious it was! The world of motor-cars and rural Deans\nreceded inimitably. Water, sky, evergreens, a wind--these things not\neven the seasons can touch, and surely they lie beyond the intrusion of\nman?\n\n\"I may as well wash too\"; and soon his garments made a third little pile\non the sward, and he too asserted the wonder of the water.\n\nIt was ordinary water, nor was there very much of it, and, as Freddy\nsaid, it reminded one of swimming in a salad. The three gentlemen\nrotated in the pool breast high, after the fashion of the nymphs in\nGotterdammerung. But either because the rains had given a freshness or\nbecause the sun was shedding a most glorious heat, or because two of the\ngentlemen were young in years and the third young in spirit--for some\nreason or other a change came over them, and they forgot Italy and\nBotany and Fate. They began to play. Mr. Beebe and Freddy splashed each\nother. A little deferentially, they splashed George. He was quiet: they\nfeared they had offended him. Then all the forces of youth burst out. He\nsmiled, flung himself at them, splashed them, ducked them, kicked them,\nmuddied them, and drove them out of the pool.\n\n\"Race you round it, then,\" cried Freddy, and they raced in the sunshine,\nand George took a short cut and dirtied his shins, and had to bathe a\nsecond time. Then Mr. Beebe consented to run--a memorable sight.\n\nThey ran to get dry, they bathed to get cool, they played at being\nIndians in the willow-herbs and in the bracken, they bathed to get\nclean. And all the time three little bundles lay discreetly on the\nsward, proclaiming:\n\n\"No. We are what matters. Without us shall no enterprise begin. To us\nshall all flesh turn in the end.\"\n\n\"A try! A try!\" yelled Freddy, snatching up George's bundle and placing\nit beside an imaginary goal-post.\n\n\"Socker rules,\" George retorted, scattering Freddy's bundle with a kick.\n\n\"Goal!\"\n\n\"Goal!\"\n\n\"Pass!\"\n\n\"Take care my watch!\" cried Mr. Beebe.\n\nClothes flew in all directions.\n\n\"Take care my hat! No, that's enough, Freddy. Dress now. No, I say!\"\n\nBut the two young men were delirious. Away they twinkled into the trees,\nFreddy with a clerical waistcoat under his arm, George with a wide-awake\nhat on his dripping hair.\n\n\"That'll do!\" shouted Mr. Beebe, remembering that after all he was in\nhis own parish. Then his voice changed as if every pine-tree was a Rural\nDean. \"Hi! Steady on! I see people coming you fellows!\"\n\nYells, and widening circles over the dappled earth.\n\n\"Hi! hi! LADIES!\"\n\nNeither George nor Freddy was truly refined. Still, they did not hear\nMr. Beebe's last warning or they would have avoided Mrs. Honeychurch,\nCecil, and Lucy, who were walking down to call on old Mrs. Butterworth.\nFreddy dropped the waistcoat at their feet, and dashed into some\nbracken. George whooped in their faces, turned and scudded away down the\npath to the pond, still clad in Mr. Beebe's hat.\n\n\"Gracious alive!\" cried Mrs. Honeychurch. \"Whoever were those\nunfortunate people? Oh, dears, look away! And poor Mr. Beebe, too!\nWhatever has happened?\"\n\n\"Come this way immediately,\" commanded Cecil, who always felt that he\nmust lead women, though he knew not whither, and protect them, though he\nknew not against what. He led them now towards the bracken where Freddy\nsat concealed.\n\n\"Oh, poor Mr. Beebe! Was that his waistcoat we left in the path? Cecil,\nMr. Beebe's waistcoat--\"\n\n\"No business of ours,\" said Cecil, glancing at Lucy, who was all parasol\nand evidently 'minded.'\n\n\"I fancy Mr. Beebe jumped back into the pond.\"\n\n\"This way, please, Mrs. Honeychurch, this way.\"\n\nThey followed him up the bank attempting the tense yet nonchalant\nexpression that is suitable for ladies on such occasions.\n\n\"Well, I can't help it,\" said a voice close ahead, and Freddy reared a\nfreckled face and a pair of snowy shoulders out of the fronds. \"I can't\nbe trodden on, can I?\"\n\n\"Good gracious me, dear; so it's you! What miserable management! Why not\nhave a comfortable bath at home, with hot and cold laid on?\"\n\n\"Look here, mother, a fellow must wash, and a fellow's got to dry, and\nif another fellow--\"\n\n\"Dear, no doubt you're right as usual, but you are in no position to\nargue. Come, Lucy.\" They turned. \"Oh, look--don't look! Oh, poor Mr.\nBeebe! How unfortunate again--\"\n\nFor Mr. Beebe was just crawling out of the pond, on whose surface\ngarments of an intimate nature did float; while George, the world-weary\nGeorge, shouted to Freddy that he had hooked a fish.\n\n\"And me, I've swallowed one,\" answered he of the bracken. \"I've\nswallowed a pollywog. It wriggleth in my tummy. I shall die--Emerson you\nbeast, you've got on my bags.\"\n\n\"Hush, dears,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch, who found it impossible to remain\nshocked. \"And do be sure you dry yourselves thoroughly first. All these\ncolds come of not drying thoroughly.\"\n\n\"Mother, do come away,\" said Lucy. \"Oh for goodness' sake, do come.\"\n\n\"Hullo!\" cried George, so that again the ladies stopped.\n\nHe regarded himself as dressed. Barefoot, bare-chested, radiant and\npersonable against the shadowy woods, he called:\n\n\"Hullo, Miss Honeychurch! Hullo!\"\n\n\"Bow, Lucy; better bow. Whoever is it? I shall bow.\"\n\nMiss Honeychurch bowed.\n\nThat evening and all that night the water ran away. On the morrow the\npool had shrunk to its old size and lost its glory. It had been a\ncall to the blood and to the relaxed will, a passing benediction whose\ninfluence did not pass, a holiness, a spell, a momentary chalice for\nyouth.\n\n\n\nChapter XIII: How Miss Bartlett's Boiler Was So Tiresome\n\nHow often had Lucy rehearsed this bow, this interview! But she had\nalways rehearsed them indoors, and with certain accessories, which\nsurely we have a right to assume. Who could foretell that she and George\nwould meet in the rout of a civilization, amidst an army of coats\nand collars and boots that lay wounded over the sunlit earth? She had\nimagined a young Mr. Emerson, who might be shy or morbid or indifferent\nor furtively impudent. She was prepared for all of these. But she had\nnever imagined one who would be happy and greet her with the shout of\nthe morning star.\n\nIndoors herself, partaking of tea with old Mrs. Butterworth, she\nreflected that it is impossible to foretell the future with any degree\nof accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the\nscenery, a face in the audience, an irruption of the audience on to the\nstage, and all our carefully planned gestures mean nothing, or mean too\nmuch. \"I will bow,\" she had thought. \"I will not shake hands with him.\nThat will be just the proper thing.\" She had bowed--but to whom? To\ngods, to heroes, to the nonsense of school-girls! She had bowed across\nthe rubbish that cumbers the world.\n\nSo ran her thoughts, while her faculties were busy with Cecil. It was\nanother of those dreadful engagement calls. Mrs. Butterworth had wanted\nto see him, and he did not want to be seen. He did not want to hear\nabout hydrangeas, why they change their colour at the seaside. He did\nnot want to join the C. O. S. When cross he was always elaborate, and\nmade long, clever answers where \"Yes\" or \"No\" would have done. Lucy\nsoothed him and tinkered at the conversation in a way that promised well\nfor their married peace. No one is perfect, and surely it is wiser to\ndiscover the imperfections before wedlock. Miss Bartlett, indeed, though\nnot in word, had taught the girl that this our life contains nothing\nsatisfactory. Lucy, though she disliked the teacher, regarded the\nteaching as profound, and applied it to her lover.\n\n\"Lucy,\" said her mother, when they got home, \"is anything the matter\nwith Cecil?\"\n\nThe question was ominous; up till now Mrs. Honeychurch had behaved with\ncharity and restraint.\n\n\"No, I don't think so, mother; Cecil's all right.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he's tired.\"\n\nLucy compromised: perhaps Cecil was a little tired.\n\n\"Because otherwise\"--she pulled out her bonnet-pins with gathering\ndispleasure--\"because otherwise I cannot account for him.\"\n\n\"I do think Mrs. Butterworth is rather tiresome, if you mean that.\"\n\n\"Cecil has told you to think so. You were devoted to her as a little\ngirl, and nothing will describe her goodness to you through the typhoid\nfever. No--it is just the same thing everywhere.\"\n\n\"Let me just put your bonnet away, may I?\"\n\n\"Surely he could answer her civilly for one half-hour?\"\n\n\"Cecil has a very high standard for people,\" faltered Lucy, seeing\ntrouble ahead. \"It's part of his ideals--it is really that that makes\nhim sometimes seem--\"\n\n\"Oh, rubbish! If high ideals make a young man rude, the sooner he gets\nrid of them the better,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch, handing her the bonnet.\n\n\"Now, mother! I've seen you cross with Mrs. Butterworth yourself!\"\n\n\"Not in that way. At times I could wring her neck. But not in that way.\nNo. It is the same with Cecil all over.\"\n\n\"By-the-by--I never told you. I had a letter from Charlotte while I was\naway in London.\"\n\nThis attempt to divert the conversation was too puerile, and Mrs.\nHoneychurch resented it.\n\n\"Since Cecil came back from London, nothing appears to please him.\nWhenever I speak he winces;--I see him, Lucy; it is useless to\ncontradict me. No doubt I am neither artistic nor literary nor\nintellectual nor musical, but I cannot help the drawing-room furniture;\nyour father bought it and we must put up with it, will Cecil kindly\nremember.\"\n\n\"I--I see what you mean, and certainly Cecil oughtn't to. But he does\nnot mean to be uncivil--he once explained--it is the things that upset\nhim--he is easily upset by ugly things--he is not uncivil to PEOPLE.\"\n\n\"Is it a thing or a person when Freddy sings?\"\n\n\"You can't expect a really musical person to enjoy comic songs as we\ndo.\"\n\n\"Then why didn't he leave the room? Why sit wriggling and sneering and\nspoiling everyone's pleasure?\"\n\n\"We mustn't be unjust to people,\" faltered Lucy. Something had enfeebled\nher, and the case for Cecil, which she had mastered so perfectly in\nLondon, would not come forth in an effective form. The two civilizations\nhad clashed--Cecil hinted that they might--and she was dazzled and\nbewildered, as though the radiance that lies behind all civilization\nhad blinded her eyes. Good taste and bad taste were only catchwords,\ngarments of diverse cut; and music itself dissolved to a whisper through\npine-trees, where the song is not distinguishable from the comic song.\n\nShe remained in much embarrassment, while Mrs. Honeychurch changed\nher frock for dinner; and every now and then she said a word, and made\nthings no better. There was no concealing the fact, Cecil had meant\nto be supercilious, and he had succeeded. And Lucy--she knew not\nwhy--wished that the trouble could have come at any other time.\n\n\"Go and dress, dear; you'll be late.\"\n\n\"All right, mother--\"\n\n\"Don't say 'All right' and stop. Go.\"\n\nShe obeyed, but loitered disconsolately at the landing window. It faced\nnorth, so there was little view, and no view of the sky. Now, as in the\nwinter, the pine-trees hung close to her eyes. One connected the landing\nwindow with depression. No definite problem menaced her, but she sighed\nto herself, \"Oh, dear, what shall I do, what shall I do?\" It seemed to\nher that everyone else was behaving very badly. And she ought not to\nhave mentioned Miss Bartlett's letter. She must be more careful; her\nmother was rather inquisitive, and might have asked what it was about.\nOh, dear, what should she do?--and then Freddy came bounding upstairs, and\njoined the ranks of the ill-behaved.\n\n\"I say, those are topping people.\"\n\n\"My dear baby, how tiresome you've been! You have no business to take\nthem bathing in the Sacred Lake; it's much too public. It was all right for\nyou but most awkward for everyone else. Do be more careful. You forget\nthe place is growing half suburban.\"\n\n\"I say, is anything on to-morrow week?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of.\"\n\n\"Then I want to ask the Emersons up to Sunday tennis.\"\n\n\"Oh, I wouldn't do that, Freddy, I wouldn't do that with all this\nmuddle.\"\n\n\"What's wrong with the court? They won't mind a bump or two, and I've\nordered new balls.\"\n\n\"I meant it's better not. I really mean it.\"\n\nHe seized her by the elbows and humorously danced her up and down the\npassage. She pretended not to mind, but she could have screamed with\ntemper. Cecil glanced at them as he proceeded to his toilet and they\nimpeded Mary with her brood of hot-water cans. Then Mrs. Honeychurch\nopened her door and said: \"Lucy, what a noise you're making! I\nhave something to say to you. Did you say you had had a letter from\nCharlotte?\" and Freddy ran away.\n\n\"Yes. I really can't stop. I must dress too.\"\n\n\"How's Charlotte?\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"Lucy!\"\n\nThe unfortunate girl returned.\n\n\"You've a bad habit of hurrying away in the middle of one's sentences.\nDid Charlotte mention her boiler?\"\n\n\"Her WHAT?\"\n\n\"Don't you remember that her boiler was to be had out in October, and\nher bath cistern cleaned out, and all kinds of terrible to-doings?\"\n\n\"I can't remember all Charlotte's worries,\" said Lucy bitterly. \"I shall\nhave enough of my own, now that you are not pleased with Cecil.\"\n\nMrs. Honeychurch might have flamed out. She did not. She said: \"Come\nhere, old lady--thank you for putting away my bonnet--kiss me.\" And,\nthough nothing is perfect, Lucy felt for the moment that her mother and\nWindy Corner and the Weald in the declining sun were perfect.\n\nSo the grittiness went out of life. It generally did at Windy Corner.\nAt the last minute, when the social machine was clogged hopelessly, one\nmember or other of the family poured in a drop of oil. Cecil despised\ntheir methods--perhaps rightly. At all events, they were not his own.\n\nDinner was at half-past seven. Freddy gabbled the grace, and they drew\nup their heavy chairs and fell to. Fortunately, the men were hungry.\nNothing untoward occurred until the pudding. Then Freddy said:\n\n\"Lucy, what's Emerson like?\"\n\n\"I saw him in Florence,\" said Lucy, hoping that this would pass for a\nreply.\n\n\"Is he the clever sort, or is he a decent chap?\"\n\n\"Ask Cecil; it is Cecil who brought him here.\"\n\n\"He is the clever sort, like myself,\" said Cecil.\n\nFreddy looked at him doubtfully.\n\n\"How well did you know them at the Bertolini?\" asked Mrs. Honeychurch.\n\n\"Oh, very slightly. I mean, Charlotte knew them even less than I did.\"\n\n\"Oh, that reminds me--you never told me what Charlotte said in her\nletter.\"\n\n\"One thing and another,\" said Lucy, wondering whether she would get\nthrough the meal without a lie. \"Among other things, that an awful\nfriend of hers had been bicycling through Summer Street, wondered if\nshe'd come up and see us, and mercifully didn't.\"\n\n\"Lucy, I do call the way you talk unkind.\"\n\n\"She was a novelist,\" said Lucy craftily. The remark was a happy one,\nfor nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much as literature in the hands\nof females. She would abandon every topic to inveigh against those women\nwho (instead of minding their houses and their children) seek notoriety\nby print. Her attitude was: \"If books must be written, let them be\nwritten by men\"; and she developed it at great length, while Cecil\nyawned and Freddy played at \"This year, next year, now, never,\" with his\nplum-stones, and Lucy artfully fed the flames of her mother's wrath. But\nsoon the conflagration died down, and the ghosts began to gather in the\ndarkness. There were too many ghosts about. The original ghost--that\ntouch of lips on her cheek--had surely been laid long ago; it could be\nnothing to her that a man had kissed her on a mountain once. But it\nhad begotten a spectral family--Mr. Harris, Miss Bartlett's letter,\nMr. Beebe's memories of violets--and one or other of these was bound to\nhaunt her before Cecil's very eyes. It was Miss Bartlett who returned\nnow, and with appalling vividness.\n\n\"I have been thinking, Lucy, of that letter of Charlotte's. How is she?\"\n\n\"I tore the thing up.\"\n\n\"Didn't she say how she was? How does she sound? Cheerful?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes I suppose so--no--not very cheerful, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Then, depend upon it, it IS the boiler. I know myself how water preys\nupon one's mind. I would rather anything else--even a misfortune with\nthe meat.\"\n\nCecil laid his hand over his eyes.\n\n\"So would I,\" asserted Freddy, backing his mother up--backing up the\nspirit of her remark rather than the substance.\n\n\"And I have been thinking,\" she added rather nervously, \"surely we could\nsqueeze Charlotte in here next week, and give her a nice holiday while\nplumbers at Tunbridge Wells finish. I have not seen poor Charlotte for\nso long.\"\n\nIt was more than her nerves could stand. And she could not protest\nviolently after her mother's goodness to her upstairs.\n\n\"Mother, no!\" she pleaded. \"It's impossible. We can't have Charlotte on\nthe top of the other things; we're squeezed to death as it is. Freddy's\ngot a friend coming Tuesday, there's Cecil, and you've promised to take\nin Minnie Beebe because of the diphtheria scare. It simply can't be\ndone.\"\n\n\"Nonsense! It can.\"\n\n\"If Minnie sleeps in the bath. Not otherwise.\"\n\n\"Minnie can sleep with you.\"\n\n\"I won't have her.\"\n\n\"Then, if you're so selfish, Mr. Floyd must share a room with Freddy.\"\n\n\"Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett,\" moaned Cecil, again\nlaying his hand over his eyes.\n\n\"It's impossible,\" repeated Lucy. \"I don't want to make difficulties,\nbut it really isn't fair on the maids to fill up the house so.\"\n\nAlas!\n\n\"The truth is, dear, you don't like Charlotte.\"\n\n\"No, I don't. And no more does Cecil. She gets on our nerves. You\nhaven't seen her lately, and don't realize how tiresome she can be,\nthough so good. So please, mother, don't worry us this last summer; but\nspoil us by not asking her to come.\"\n\n\"Hear, hear!\" said Cecil.\n\nMrs. Honeychurch, with more gravity than usual, and with more feeling\nthan she usually permitted herself, replied: \"This isn't very kind of\nyou two. You have each other and all these woods to walk in, so full of\nbeautiful things; and poor Charlotte has only the water turned off and\nplumbers. You are young, dears, and however clever young people are, and\nhowever many books they read, they will never guess what it feels like\nto grow old.\"\n\nCecil crumbled his bread.\n\n\"I must say Cousin Charlotte was very kind to me that year I called on\nmy bike,\" put in Freddy. \"She thanked me for coming till I felt like\nsuch a fool, and fussed round no end to get an egg boiled for my tea\njust right.\"\n\n\"I know, dear. She is kind to everyone, and yet Lucy makes this\ndifficulty when we try to give her some little return.\"\n\nBut Lucy hardened her heart. It was no good being kind to Miss Bartlett.\nShe had tried herself too often and too recently. One might lay up\ntreasure in heaven by the attempt, but one enriched neither Miss\nBartlett nor any one else upon earth. She was reduced to saying: \"I\ncan't help it, mother. I don't like Charlotte. I admit it's horrid of\nme.\"\n\n\"From your own account, you told her as much.\"\n\n\"Well, she would leave Florence so stupidly. She flurried--\"\n\nThe ghosts were returning; they filled Italy, they were even usurping\nthe places she had known as a child. The Sacred Lake would never be the\nsame again, and, on Sunday week, something would even happen to Windy\nCorner. How would she fight against ghosts? For a moment the visible\nworld faded away, and memories and emotions alone seemed real.\n\n\"I suppose Miss Bartlett must come, since she boils eggs so well,\"\nsaid Cecil, who was in rather a happier frame of mind, thanks to the\nadmirable cooking.\n\n\"I didn't mean the egg was WELL boiled,\" corrected Freddy, \"because in\npoint of fact she forgot to take it off, and as a matter of fact I don't\ncare for eggs. I only meant how jolly kind she seemed.\"\n\nCecil frowned again. Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers, hydrangeas,\nmaids--of such were their lives compact. \"May me and Lucy get down from\nour chairs?\" he asked, with scarcely veiled insolence. \"We don't want no\ndessert.\"\n\n\n\nChapter XIV: How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely\n\nOf course Miss Bartlett accepted. And, equally of course, she felt sure\nthat she would prove a nuisance, and begged to be given an inferior\nspare room--something with no view, anything. Her love to Lucy. And,\nequally of course, George Emerson could come to tennis on the Sunday\nweek.\n\nLucy faced the situation bravely, though, like most of us, she only\nfaced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If at\ntimes strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to nerves.\nWhen Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset her\nnerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might\nupset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to\nGeorge--they met again almost immediately at the Rectory--his voice\nmoved her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How dreadful if she\nreally wished to remain near him! Of course, the wish was due to nerves,\nwhich love to play such perverse tricks upon us. Once she had suffered\nfrom \"things that came out of nothing and meant she didn't know what.\"\nNow Cecil had explained psychology to her one wet afternoon, and all the\ntroubles of youth in an unknown world could be dismissed.\n\nIt is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, \"She loves young\nEmerson.\" A reader in Lucy's place would not find it obvious. Life is\neasy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome \"nerves\"\nor any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved\nCecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the\nphrases should have been reversed?\n\nBut the external situation--she will face that bravely.\n\nThe meeting at the Rectory had passed off well enough. Standing between\nMr. Beebe and Cecil, she had made a few temperate allusions to Italy,\nand George had replied. She was anxious to show that she was not shy,\nand was glad that he did not seem shy either.\n\n\"A nice fellow,\" said Mr. Beebe afterwards \"He will work off his\ncrudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life\ngracefully.\"\n\nLucy said, \"He seems in better spirits. He laughs more.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied the clergyman. \"He is waking up.\"\n\nThat was all. But, as the week wore on, more of her defences fell,\nand she entertained an image that had physical beauty. In spite of the\nclearest directions, Miss Bartlett contrived to bungle her arrival.\nShe was due at the South-Eastern station at Dorking, whither Mrs.\nHoneychurch drove to meet her. She arrived at the London and Brighton\nstation, and had to hire a cab up. No one was at home except Freddy\nand his friend, who had to stop their tennis and to entertain her for\na solid hour. Cecil and Lucy turned up at four o'clock, and these, with\nlittle Minnie Beebe, made a somewhat lugubrious sextette upon the upper\nlawn for tea.\n\n\"I shall never forgive myself,\" said Miss Bartlett, who kept on rising\nfrom her seat, and had to be begged by the united company to remain.\n\"I have upset everything. Bursting in on young people! But I insist on\npaying for my cab up. Grant that, at any rate.\"\n\n\"Our visitors never do such dreadful things,\" said Lucy, while her\nbrother, in whose memory the boiled egg had already grown unsubstantial,\nexclaimed in irritable tones: \"Just what I've been trying to convince\nCousin Charlotte of, Lucy, for the last half hour.\"\n\n\"I do not feel myself an ordinary visitor,\" said Miss Bartlett, and\nlooked at her frayed glove.\n\n\"All right, if you'd really rather. Five shillings, and I gave a bob to\nthe driver.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett looked in her purse. Only sovereigns and pennies. Could\nany one give her change? Freddy had half a quid and his friend had four\nhalf-crowns. Miss Bartlett accepted their moneys and then said: \"But who\nam I to give the sovereign to?\"\n\n\"Let's leave it all till mother comes back,\" suggested Lucy.\n\n\"No, dear; your mother may take quite a long drive now that she is not\nhampered with me. We all have our little foibles, and mine is the prompt\nsettling of accounts.\"\n\nHere Freddy's friend, Mr. Floyd, made the one remark of his that need be\nquoted: he offered to toss Freddy for Miss Bartlett's quid. A solution\nseemed in sight, and even Cecil, who had been ostentatiously drinking\nhis tea at the view, felt the eternal attraction of Chance, and turned\nround.\n\nBut this did not do, either.\n\n\"Please--please--I know I am a sad spoil-sport, but it would make me\nwretched. I should practically be robbing the one who lost.\"\n\n\"Freddy owes me fifteen shillings,\" interposed Cecil. \"So it will work\nout right if you give the pound to me.\"\n\n\"Fifteen shillings,\" said Miss Bartlett dubiously. \"How is that, Mr.\nVyse?\"\n\n\"Because, don't you see, Freddy paid your cab. Give me the pound, and we\nshall avoid this deplorable gambling.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett, who was poor at figures, became bewildered and rendered\nup the sovereign, amidst the suppressed gurgles of the other youths. For\na moment Cecil was happy. He was playing at nonsense among his peers.\nThen he glanced at Lucy, in whose face petty anxieties had marred the\nsmiles. In January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying\ntwaddle.\n\n\"But I don't see that!\" exclaimed Minnie Beebe who had narrowly watched\nthe iniquitous transaction. \"I don't see why Mr. Vyse is to have the\nquid.\"\n\n\"Because of the fifteen shillings and the five,\" they said solemnly.\n\"Fifteen shillings and five shillings make one pound, you see.\"\n\n\"But I don't see--\"\n\nThey tried to stifle her with cake.\n\n\"No, thank you. I'm done. I don't see why--Freddy, don't poke me. Miss\nHoneychurch, your brother's hurting me. Ow! What about Mr. Floyd's\nten shillings? Ow! No, I don't see and I never shall see why Miss\nWhat's-her-name shouldn't pay that bob for the driver.\"\n\n\"I had forgotten the driver,\" said Miss Bartlett, reddening. \"Thank you,\ndear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me change\nfor half a crown?\"\n\n\"I'll get it,\" said the young hostess, rising with decision.\n\n\"Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I'll get\nEuphemia to change it, and we'll start the whole thing again from the\nbeginning.\"\n\n\"Lucy--Lucy--what a nuisance I am!\" protested Miss Bartlett, and\nfollowed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity.\nWhen they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said\nquite briskly: \"Have you told him about him yet?\"\n\n\"No, I haven't,\" replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue\nfor understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. \"Let me see--a\nsovereign's worth of silver.\"\n\nShe escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett's sudden transitions were\ntoo uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke\nor caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had\nbeen a ruse to surprise the soul.\n\n\"No, I haven't told Cecil or any one,\" she remarked, when she returned.\n\"I promised you I shouldn't. Here is your money--all shillings, except\ntwo half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely\nnow.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St.\nJohn ascending, which had been framed.\n\n\"How dreadful!\" she murmured, \"how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse\nshould come to hear of it from some other source.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Charlotte,\" said the girl, entering the battle. \"George Emerson\nis all right, and what other source is there?\"\n\nMiss Bartlett considered. \"For instance, the driver. I saw him looking\nthrough the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth.\"\n\nLucy shuddered a little. \"We shall get the silly affair on our nerves\nif we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold of\nCecil?\"\n\n\"We must think of every possibility.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's all right.\"\n\n\"Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know.\"\n\n\"I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but\neven if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at\nit.\"\n\n\"To contradict it?\"\n\n\"No, to laugh at it.\" But she knew in her heart that she could not trust\nhim, for he desired her untouched.\n\n\"Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what\nthey were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different.\"\n\n\"Now, Charlotte!\" She struck at her playfully. \"You kind, anxious thing.\nWhat WOULD you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell'; and then you say,\n'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick!\"\n\nMiss Bartlett sighed \"I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I\nblush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able\nto look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You\nwill never forgive me.\"\n\n\"Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don't.\"\n\nFor the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with\na teaspoon.\n\n\"Dear, one moment--we may not have this chance for a chat again. Have\nyou seen the young one yet?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"We met at the Rectory.\"\n\n\"What line is he taking up?\"\n\n\"No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is really all\nright. What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it bluntly?\nI do wish I could make you see it my way. He really won't be any\nnuisance, Charlotte.\"\n\n\"Once a cad, always a cad. That is my poor opinion.\"\n\nLucy paused. \"Cecil said one day--and I thought it so profound--that\nthere are two kinds of cads--the conscious and the subconscious.\" She\npaused again, to be sure of doing justice to Cecil's profundity. Through\nthe window she saw Cecil himself, turning over the pages of a novel. It\nwas a new one from Smith's library. Her mother must have returned from\nthe station.\n\n\"Once a cad, always a cad,\" droned Miss Bartlett.\n\n\"What I mean by subconscious is that Emerson lost his head. I fell into\nall those violets, and he was silly and surprised. I don't think we\nought to blame him very much. It makes such a difference when you see a\nperson with beautiful things behind him unexpectedly. It really does;\nit makes an enormous difference, and he lost his head: he doesn't admire\nme, or any of that nonsense, one straw. Freddy rather likes him, and\nhas asked him up here on Sunday, so you can judge for yourself. He has\nimproved; he doesn't always look as if he's going to burst into\ntears. He is a clerk in the General Manager's office at one of the big\nrailways--not a porter! and runs down to his father for week-ends. Papa\nwas to do with journalism, but is rheumatic and has retired. There!\nNow for the garden.\" She took hold of her guest by the arm. \"Suppose we\ndon't talk about this silly Italian business any more. We want you to\nhave a nice restful visit at Windy Corner, with no worriting.\"\n\nLucy thought this rather a good speech. The reader may have detected\nan unfortunate slip in it. Whether Miss Bartlett detected the slip one\ncannot say, for it is impossible to penetrate into the minds of elderly\npeople. She might have spoken further, but they were interrupted by the\nentrance of her hostess. Explanations took place, and in the midst of\nthem Lucy escaped, the images throbbing a little more vividly in her\nbrain.\n\n\n\nChapter XV: The Disaster Within\n\nThe Sunday after Miss Bartlett's arrival was a glorious day, like most\nof the days of that year. In the Weald, autumn approached, breaking up\nthe green monotony of summer, touching the parks with the grey bloom of\nmist, the beech-trees with russet, the oak-trees with gold. Up on the\nheights, battalions of black pines witnessed the change, themselves\nunchangeable. Either country was spanned by a cloudless sky, and in\neither arose the tinkle of church bells.\n\nThe garden of Windy Corners was deserted except for a red book, which\nlay sunning itself upon the gravel path. From the house came incoherent\nsounds, as of females preparing for worship. \"The men say they won't\ngo\"--\"Well, I don't blame them\"--Minnie says, \"need she go?\"--\"Tell\nher, no nonsense\"--\"Anne! Mary! Hook me behind!\"--\"Dearest Lucia, may I\ntrespass upon you for a pin?\" For Miss Bartlett had announced that she\nat all events was one for church.\n\nThe sun rose higher on its journey, guided, not by Phaethon, but by\nApollo, competent, unswerving, divine. Its rays fell on the ladies\nwhenever they advanced towards the bedroom windows; on Mr. Beebe down\nat Summer Street as he smiled over a letter from Miss Catharine Alan; on\nGeorge Emerson cleaning his father's boots; and lastly, to complete the\ncatalogue of memorable things, on the red book mentioned previously. The\nladies move, Mr. Beebe moves, George moves, and movement may engender\nshadow. But this book lies motionless, to be caressed all the morning\nby the sun and to raise its covers slightly, as though acknowledging the\ncaress.\n\nPresently Lucy steps out of the drawing-room window. Her new cerise\ndress has been a failure, and makes her look tawdry and wan. At her\nthroat is a garnet brooch, on her finger a ring set with rubies--an\nengagement ring. Her eyes are bent to the Weald. She frowns a\nlittle--not in anger, but as a brave child frowns when he is trying not\nto cry. In all that expanse no human eye is looking at her, and she may\nfrown unrebuked and measure the spaces that yet survive between Apollo\nand the western hills.\n\n\"Lucy! Lucy! What's that book? Who's been taking a book out of the shelf\nand leaving it about to spoil?\"\n\n\"It's only the library book that Cecil's been reading.\"\n\n\"But pick it up, and don't stand idling there like a flamingo.\"\n\nLucy picked up the book and glanced at the title listlessly, Under a\nLoggia. She no longer read novels herself, devoting all her spare time\nto solid literature in the hope of catching Cecil up. It was dreadful\nhow little she knew, and even when she thought she knew a thing, like\nthe Italian painters, she found she had forgotten it. Only this morning\nshe had confused Francesco Francia with Piero della Francesca, and Cecil\nhad said, \"What! you aren't forgetting your Italy already?\" And this too\nhad lent anxiety to her eyes when she saluted the dear view and the\ndear garden in the foreground, and above them, scarcely conceivable\nelsewhere, the dear sun.\n\n\"Lucy--have you a sixpence for Minnie and a shilling for yourself?\"\n\nShe hastened in to her mother, who was rapidly working herself into a\nSunday fluster.\n\n\"It's a special collection--I forget what for. I do beg, no vulgar\nclinking in the plate with halfpennies; see that Minnie has a nice\nbright sixpence. Where is the child? Minnie! That book's all warped.\n(Gracious, how plain you look!) Put it under the Atlas to press.\nMinnie!\"\n\n\"Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch--\" from the upper regions.\n\n\"Minnie, don't be late. Here comes the horse\"--it was always the horse,\nnever the carriage. \"Where's Charlotte? Run up and hurry her. Why is she\nso long? She had nothing to do. She never brings anything but blouses.\nPoor Charlotte--How I do detest blouses! Minnie!\"\n\nPaganism is infectious--more infectious than diphtheria or piety--and\nthe Rector's niece was taken to church protesting. As usual, she didn't\nsee why. Why shouldn't she sit in the sun with the young men? The\nyoung men, who had now appeared, mocked her with ungenerous words. Mrs.\nHoneychurch defended orthodoxy, and in the midst of the confusion Miss\nBartlett, dressed in the very height of the fashion, came strolling down\nthe stairs.\n\n\"Dear Marian, I am very sorry, but I have no small change--nothing but\nsovereigns and half crowns. Could any one give me--\"\n\n\"Yes, easily. Jump in. Gracious me, how smart you look! What a lovely\nfrock! You put us all to shame.\"\n\n\"If I did not wear my best rags and tatters now, when should I wear\nthem?\" said Miss Bartlett reproachfully. She got into the victoria and\nplaced herself with her back to the horse. The necessary roar ensued,\nand then they drove off.\n\n\"Good-bye! Be good!\" called out Cecil.\n\nLucy bit her lip, for the tone was sneering. On the subject of \"church\nand so on\" they had had rather an unsatisfactory conversation. He had\nsaid that people ought to overhaul themselves, and she did not want to\noverhaul herself; she did not know it was done. Honest orthodoxy\nCecil respected, but he always assumed that honesty is the result of a\nspiritual crisis; he could not imagine it as a natural birthright, that\nmight grow heavenward like flowers. All that he said on this subject\npained her, though he exuded tolerance from every pore; somehow the\nEmersons were different.\n\nShe saw the Emersons after church. There was a line of carriages down\nthe road, and the Honeychurch vehicle happened to be opposite Cissie\nVilla. To save time, they walked over the green to it, and found father\nand son smoking in the garden.\n\n\"Introduce me,\" said her mother. \"Unless the young man considers that he\nknows me already.\"\n\nHe probably did; but Lucy ignored the Sacred Lake and introduced them\nformally. Old Mr. Emerson claimed her with much warmth, and said how\nglad he was that she was going to be married. She said yes, she was glad\ntoo; and then, as Miss Bartlett and Minnie were lingering behind with\nMr. Beebe, she turned the conversation to a less disturbing topic, and\nasked him how he liked his new house.\n\n\"Very much,\" he replied, but there was a note of offence in his voice;\nshe had never known him offended before. He added: \"We find, though,\nthat the Miss Alans were coming, and that we have turned them out. Women\nmind such a thing. I am very much upset about it.\"\n\n\"I believe that there was some misunderstanding,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch\nuneasily.\n\n\"Our landlord was told that we should be a different type of person,\"\nsaid George, who seemed disposed to carry the matter further. \"He\nthought we should be artistic. He is disappointed.\"\n\n\"And I wonder whether we ought to write to the Miss Alans and offer to\ngive it up. What do you think?\" He appealed to Lucy.\n\n\"Oh, stop now you have come,\" said Lucy lightly. She must avoid\ncensuring Cecil. For it was on Cecil that the little episode turned,\nthough his name was never mentioned.\n\n\"So George says. He says that the Miss Alans must go to the wall. Yet it\ndoes seem so unkind.\"\n\n\"There is only a certain amount of kindness in the world,\" said George,\nwatching the sunlight flash on the panels of the passing carriages.\n\n\"Yes!\" exclaimed Mrs. Honeychurch. \"That's exactly what I say. Why all\nthis twiddling and twaddling over two Miss Alans?\"\n\n\"There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain\namount of light,\" he continued in measured tones. \"We cast a shadow\non something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to\nplace to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place\nwhere you won't do harm--yes, choose a place where you won't do very\nmuch harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Emerson, I see you're clever!\"\n\n\"Eh--?\"\n\n\"I see you're going to be clever. I hope you didn't go behaving like\nthat to poor Freddy.\"\n\nGeorge's eyes laughed, and Lucy suspected that he and her mother would\nget on rather well.\n\n\"No, I didn't,\" he said. \"He behaved that way to me. It is his\nphilosophy. Only he starts life with it; and I have tried the Note of\nInterrogation first.\"\n\n\"What DO you mean? No, never mind what you mean. Don't explain. He looks\nforward to seeing you this afternoon. Do you play tennis? Do you mind\ntennis on Sunday--?\"\n\n\"George mind tennis on Sunday! George, after his education, distinguish\nbetween Sunday--\"\n\n\"Very well, George doesn't mind tennis on Sunday. No more do I. That's\nsettled. Mr. Emerson, if you could come with your son we should be so\npleased.\"\n\nHe thanked her, but the walk sounded rather far; he could only potter\nabout in these days.\n\nShe turned to George: \"And then he wants to give up his house to the\nMiss Alans.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said George, and put his arm round his father's neck. The\nkindness that Mr. Beebe and Lucy had always known to exist in him came\nout suddenly, like sunlight touching a vast landscape--a touch of the\nmorning sun? She remembered that in all his perversities he had never\nspoken against affection.\n\nMiss Bartlett approached.\n\n\"You know our cousin, Miss Bartlett,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch pleasantly.\n\"You met her with my daughter in Florence.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed!\" said the old man, and made as if he would come out of the\ngarden to meet the lady. Miss Bartlett promptly got into the victoria.\nThus entrenched, she emitted a formal bow. It was the pension Bertolini\nagain, the dining-table with the decanters of water and wine. It was the\nold, old battle of the room with the view.\n\nGeorge did not respond to the bow. Like any boy, he blushed and was\nashamed; he knew that the chaperon remembered. He said: \"I--I'll come up\nto tennis if I can manage it,\" and went into the house. Perhaps anything\nthat he did would have pleased Lucy, but his awkwardness went straight\nto her heart; men were not gods after all, but as human and as clumsy as\ngirls; even men might suffer from unexplained desires, and need help. To\none of her upbringing, and of her destination, the weakness of men was a\ntruth unfamiliar, but she had surmised it at Florence, when George threw\nher photographs into the River Arno.\n\n\"George, don't go,\" cried his father, who thought it a great treat for\npeople if his son would talk to them. \"George has been in such good\nspirits today, and I am sure he will end by coming up this afternoon.\"\n\nLucy caught her cousin's eye. Something in its mute appeal made her\nreckless. \"Yes,\" she said, raising her voice, \"I do hope he will.\" Then\nshe went to the carriage and murmured, \"The old man hasn't been told;\nI knew it was all right.\" Mrs. Honeychurch followed her, and they drove\naway.\n\nSatisfactory that Mr. Emerson had not been told of the Florence\nescapade; yet Lucy's spirits should not have leapt up as if she had\nsighted the ramparts of heaven. Satisfactory; yet surely she greeted\nit with disproportionate joy. All the way home the horses' hoofs sang a\ntune to her: \"He has not told, he has not told.\" Her brain expanded the\nmelody: \"He has not told his father--to whom he tells all things. It was\nnot an exploit. He did not laugh at me when I had gone.\" She raised her\nhand to her cheek. \"He does not love me. No. How terrible if he did! But\nhe has not told. He will not tell.\"\n\nShe longed to shout the words: \"It is all right. It's a secret between\nus two for ever. Cecil will never hear.\" She was even glad that Miss\nBartlett had made her promise secrecy, that last dark evening at\nFlorence, when they had knelt packing in his room. The secret, big or\nlittle, was guarded.\n\nOnly three English people knew of it in the world. Thus she interpreted\nher joy. She greeted Cecil with unusual radiance, because she felt so\nsafe. As he helped her out of the carriage, she said:\n\n\"The Emersons have been so nice. George Emerson has improved\nenormously.\"\n\n\"How are my proteges?\" asked Cecil, who took no real interest in them,\nand had long since forgotten his resolution to bring them to Windy\nCorner for educational purposes.\n\n\"Proteges!\" she exclaimed with some warmth. For the only relationship\nwhich Cecil conceived was feudal: that of protector and protected. He\nhad no glimpse of the comradeship after which the girl's soul yearned.\n\n\"You shall see for yourself how your proteges are. George Emerson is\ncoming up this afternoon. He is a most interesting man to talk to. Only\ndon't--\" She nearly said, \"Don't protect him.\" But the bell was ringing\nfor lunch, and, as often happened, Cecil had paid no great attention to\nher remarks. Charm, not argument, was to be her forte.\n\nLunch was a cheerful meal. Generally Lucy was depressed at meals. Some\none had to be soothed--either Cecil or Miss Bartlett or a Being not\nvisible to the mortal eye--a Being who whispered to her soul: \"It\nwill not last, this cheerfulness. In January you must go to London to\nentertain the grandchildren of celebrated men.\" But to-day she felt she\nhad received a guarantee. Her mother would always sit there, her brother\nhere. The sun, though it had moved a little since the morning, would\nnever be hidden behind the western hills. After luncheon they asked her\nto play. She had seen Gluck's Armide that year, and played from memory\nthe music of the enchanted garden--the music to which Renaud approaches,\nbeneath the light of an eternal dawn, the music that never gains, never\nwanes, but ripples for ever like the tideless seas of fairyland. Such\nmusic is not for the piano, and her audience began to get restive,\nand Cecil, sharing the discontent, called out: \"Now play us the other\ngarden--the one in Parsifal.\"\n\nShe closed the instrument.\n\n\"Not very dutiful,\" said her mother's voice.\n\nFearing that she had offended Cecil, she turned quickly round. There\nGeorge was. He had crept in without interrupting her.\n\n\"Oh, I had no idea!\" she exclaimed, getting very red; and then, without\na word of greeting, she reopened the piano. Cecil should have the\nParsifal, and anything else that he liked.\n\n\"Our performer has changed her mind,\" said Miss Bartlett, perhaps\nimplying, she will play the music to Mr. Emerson. Lucy did not know\nwhat to do nor even what she wanted to do. She played a few bars of the\nFlower Maidens' song very badly and then she stopped.\n\n\"I vote tennis,\" said Freddy, disgusted at the scrappy entertainment.\n\n\"Yes, so do I.\" Once more she closed the unfortunate piano. \"I vote you\nhave a men's four.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"Not for me, thank you,\" said Cecil. \"I will not spoil the set.\" He\nnever realized that it may be an act of kindness in a bad player to make\nup a fourth.\n\n\"Oh, come along Cecil. I'm bad, Floyd's rotten, and so I dare say's\nEmerson.\"\n\nGeorge corrected him: \"I am not bad.\"\n\nOne looked down one's nose at this. \"Then certainly I won't play,\" said\nCecil, while Miss Bartlett, under the impression that she was snubbing\nGeorge, added: \"I agree with you, Mr. Vyse. You had much better not\nplay. Much better not.\"\n\nMinnie, rushing in where Cecil feared to tread, announced that she would\nplay. \"I shall miss every ball anyway, so what does it matter?\" But\nSunday intervened and stamped heavily upon the kindly suggestion.\n\n\"Then it will have to be Lucy,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch; \"you must fall\nback on Lucy. There is no other way out of it. Lucy, go and change your\nfrock.\"\n\nLucy's Sabbath was generally of this amphibious nature. She kept it\nwithout hypocrisy in the morning, and broke it without reluctance in\nthe afternoon. As she changed her frock, she wondered whether Cecil was\nsneering at her; really she must overhaul herself and settle everything\nup before she married him.\n\nMr. Floyd was her partner. She liked music, but how much better tennis\nseemed. How much better to run about in comfortable clothes than to sit\nat the piano and feel girt under the arms. Once more music appeared to\nher the employment of a child. George served, and surprised her by his\nanxiety to win. She remembered how he had sighed among the tombs at\nSanta Croce because things wouldn't fit; how after the death of that\nobscure Italian he had leant over the parapet by the Arno and said to\nher: \"I shall want to live, I tell you.\" He wanted to live now, to win\nat tennis, to stand for all he was worth in the sun--the sun which had\nbegun to decline and was shining in her eyes; and he did win.\n\nAh, how beautiful the Weald looked! The hills stood out above its\nradiance, as Fiesole stands above the Tuscan Plain, and the South Downs,\nif one chose, were the mountains of Carrara. She might be forgetting her\nItaly, but she was noticing more things in her England. One could play\na new game with the view, and try to find in its innumerable folds some\ntown or village that would do for Florence. Ah, how beautiful the Weald\nlooked!\n\nBut now Cecil claimed her. He chanced to be in a lucid critical mood,\nand would not sympathize with exaltation. He had been rather a nuisance\nall through the tennis, for the novel that he was reading was so bad\nthat he was obliged to read it aloud to others. He would stroll round\nthe precincts of the court and call out: \"I say, listen to this, Lucy.\nThree split infinitives.\"\n\n\"Dreadful!\" said Lucy, and missed her stroke. When they had finished\ntheir set, he still went on reading; there was some murder scene, and\nreally everyone must listen to it. Freddy and Mr. Floyd were obliged to\nhunt for a lost ball in the laurels, but the other two acquiesced.\n\n\"The scene is laid in Florence.\"\n\n\"What fun, Cecil! Read away. Come, Mr. Emerson, sit down after all your\nenergy.\" She had \"forgiven\" George, as she put it, and she made a point\nof being pleasant to him.\n\nHe jumped over the net and sat down at her feet asking: \"You--and are\nyou tired?\"\n\n\"Of course I'm not!\"\n\n\"Do you mind being beaten?\"\n\nShe was going to answer, \"No,\" when it struck her that she did mind,\nso she answered, \"Yes.\" She added merrily, \"I don't see you're such\na splendid player, though. The light was behind you, and it was in my\neyes.\"\n\n\"I never said I was.\"\n\n\"Why, you did!\"\n\n\"You didn't attend.\"\n\n\"You said--oh, don't go in for accuracy at this house. We all\nexaggerate, and we get very angry with people who don't.\"\n\n\"'The scene is laid in Florence,'\" repeated Cecil, with an upward note.\n\nLucy recollected herself.\n\n\"'Sunset. Leonora was speeding--'\"\n\nLucy interrupted. \"Leonora? Is Leonora the heroine? Who's the book by?\"\n\n\"Joseph Emery Prank. 'Sunset. Leonora speeding across the square. Pray\nthe saints she might not arrive too late. Sunset--the sunset of Italy.\nUnder Orcagna's Loggia--the Loggia de' Lanzi, as we sometimes call it\nnow--'\"\n\nLucy burst into laughter. \"'Joseph Emery Prank' indeed! Why it's Miss\nLavish! It's Miss Lavish's novel, and she's publishing it under somebody\nelse's name.\"\n\n\"Who may Miss Lavish be?\"\n\n\"Oh, a dreadful person--Mr. Emerson, you remember Miss Lavish?\"\n\nExcited by her pleasant afternoon, she clapped her hands.\n\nGeorge looked up. \"Of course I do. I saw her the day I arrived at Summer\nStreet. It was she who told me that you lived here.\"\n\n\"Weren't you pleased?\" She meant \"to see Miss Lavish,\" but when he bent\ndown to the grass without replying, it struck her that she could mean\nsomething else. She watched his head, which was almost resting against\nher knee, and she thought that the ears were reddening. \"No wonder the\nnovel's bad,\" she added. \"I never liked Miss Lavish. But I suppose one\nought to read it as one's met her.\"\n\n\"All modern books are bad,\" said Cecil, who was annoyed at her\ninattention, and vented his annoyance on literature. \"Every one writes\nfor money in these days.\"\n\n\"Oh, Cecil--!\"\n\n\"It is so. I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer.\"\n\nCecil, this afternoon seemed such a twittering sparrow. The ups and\ndowns in his voice were noticeable, but they did not affect her. She had\ndwelt amongst melody and movement, and her nerves refused to answer to\nthe clang of his. Leaving him to be annoyed, she gazed at the black head\nagain. She did not want to stroke it, but she saw herself wanting to\nstroke it; the sensation was curious.\n\n\"How do you like this view of ours, Mr. Emerson?\"\n\n\"I never notice much difference in views.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Because they're all alike. Because all that matters in them is distance\nand air.\"\n\n\"H'm!\" said Cecil, uncertain whether the remark was striking or not.\n\n\"My father\"--he looked up at her (and he was a little flushed)--\"says\nthat there is only one perfect view--the view of the sky straight over\nour heads, and that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of\nit.\"\n\n\"I expect your father has been reading Dante,\" said Cecil, fingering the\nnovel, which alone permitted him to lead the conversation.\n\n\"He told us another day that views are really crowds--crowds of trees\nand houses and hills--and are bound to resemble each other, like human\ncrowds--and that the power they have over us is sometimes supernatural,\nfor the same reason.\"\n\nLucy's lips parted.\n\n\"For a crowd is more than the people who make it up. Something gets\nadded to it--no one knows how--just as something has got added to those\nhills.\"\n\nHe pointed with his racquet to the South Downs.\n\n\"What a splendid idea!\" she murmured. \"I shall enjoy hearing your father\ntalk again. I'm so sorry he's not so well.\"\n\n\"No, he isn't well.\"\n\n\"There's an absurd account of a view in this book,\" said Cecil. \"Also\nthat men fall into two classes--those who forget views and those who\nremember them, even in small rooms.\"\n\n\"Mr. Emerson, have you any brothers or sisters?\"\n\n\"None. Why?\"\n\n\"You spoke of 'us.'\"\n\n\"My mother, I was meaning.\"\n\nCecil closed the novel with a bang.\n\n\"Oh, Cecil--how you made me jump!\"\n\n\"I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer.\"\n\n\"I can just remember us all three going into the country for the day and\nseeing as far as Hindhead. It is the first thing that I remember.\"\n\nCecil got up; the man was ill-bred--he hadn't put on his coat after\ntennis--he didn't do. He would have strolled away if Lucy had not\nstopped him.\n\n\"Cecil, do read the thing about the view.\"\n\n\"Not while Mr. Emerson is here to entertain us.\"\n\n\"No--read away. I think nothing's funnier than to hear silly things read\nout loud. If Mr. Emerson thinks us frivolous, he can go.\"\n\nThis struck Cecil as subtle, and pleased him. It put their visitor in\nthe position of a prig. Somewhat mollified, he sat down again.\n\n\"Mr. Emerson, go and find tennis balls.\" She opened the book. Cecil\nmust have his reading and anything else that he liked. But her attention\nwandered to George's mother, who--according to Mr. Eager--had been\nmurdered in the sight of God and--according to her son--had seen as far as\nHindhead.\n\n\"Am I really to go?\" asked George.\n\n\"No, of course not really,\" she answered.\n\n\"Chapter two,\" said Cecil, yawning. \"Find me chapter two, if it isn't\nbothering you.\"\n\nChapter two was found, and she glanced at its opening sentences.\n\nShe thought she had gone mad.\n\n\"Here--hand me the book.\"\n\nShe heard her voice saying: \"It isn't worth reading--it's too silly\nto read--I never saw such rubbish--it oughtn't to be allowed to be\nprinted.\"\n\nHe took the book from her.\n\n\"'Leonora,'\" he read, \"'sat pensive and alone. Before her lay the rich\nchampaign of Tuscany, dotted over with many a smiling village. The\nseason was spring.'\"\n\nMiss Lavish knew, somehow, and had printed the past in draggled prose,\nfor Cecil to read and for George to hear.\n\n\"'A golden haze,'\" he read. He read: \"'Afar off the towers of Florence,\nwhile the bank on which she sat was carpeted with violets. All\nunobserved Antonio stole up behind her--'\"\n\nLest Cecil should see her face she turned to George and saw his face.\n\nHe read: \"'There came from his lips no wordy protestation such as formal\nlovers use. No eloquence was his, nor did he suffer from the lack of it.\nHe simply enfolded her in his manly arms.'\"\n\n\"This isn't the passage I wanted,\" he informed them, \"there is another\nmuch funnier, further on.\" He turned over the leaves.\n\n\"Should we go in to tea?\" said Lucy, whose voice remained steady.\n\nShe led the way up the garden, Cecil following her, George last. She\nthought a disaster was averted. But when they entered the shrubbery\nit came. The book, as if it had not worked mischief enough, had\nbeen forgotten, and Cecil must go back for it; and George, who loved\npassionately, must blunder against her in the narrow path.\n\n\"No--\" she gasped, and, for the second time, was kissed by him.\n\nAs if no more was possible, he slipped back; Cecil rejoined her; they\nreached the upper lawn alone.\n\n\n\nChapter XVI: Lying to George\n\nBut Lucy had developed since the spring. That is to say, she was now\nbetter able to stifle the emotions of which the conventions and the\nworld disapprove. Though the danger was greater, she was not shaken by\ndeep sobs. She said to Cecil, \"I am not coming in to tea--tell mother--I\nmust write some letters,\" and went up to her room. Then she prepared\nfor action. Love felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and\nour hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that\nwe shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world's enemy, and she must\nstifle it.\n\nShe sent for Miss Bartlett.\n\nThe contest lay not between love and duty. Perhaps there never is such a\ncontest. It lay between the real and the pretended, and Lucy's first aim\nwas to defeat herself. As her brain clouded over, as the memory of the\nviews grew dim and the words of the book died away, she returned to her\nold shibboleth of nerves. She \"conquered her breakdown.\" Tampering with\nthe truth, she forgot that the truth had ever been. Remembering that she\nwas engaged to Cecil, she compelled herself to confused remembrances\nof George; he was nothing to her; he never had been anything; he\nhad behaved abominably; she had never encouraged him. The armour of\nfalsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only\nfrom others, but from his own soul. In a few moments Lucy was equipped\nfor battle.\n\n\"Something too awful has happened,\" she began, as soon as her cousin\narrived. \"Do you know anything about Miss Lavish's novel?\"\n\nMiss Bartlett looked surprised, and said that she had not read the book,\nnor known that it was published; Eleanor was a reticent woman at heart.\n\n\"There is a scene in it. The hero and heroine make love. Do you know\nabout that?\"\n\n\"Dear--?\"\n\n\"Do you know about it, please?\" she repeated. \"They are on a hillside,\nand Florence is in the distance.\"\n\n\"My good Lucia, I am all at sea. I know nothing about it whatever.\"\n\n\"There are violets. I cannot believe it is a coincidence. Charlotte,\nCharlotte, how could you have told her? I have thought before speaking;\nit must be you.\"\n\n\"Told her what?\" she asked, with growing agitation.\n\n\"About that dreadful afternoon in February.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett was genuinely moved. \"Oh, Lucy, dearest girl--she hasn't\nput that in her book?\"\n\nLucy nodded.\n\n\"Not so that one could recognize it. Yes.\"\n\n\"Then never--never--never more shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of\nmine.\"\n\n\"So you did tell?\"\n\n\"I did just happen--when I had tea with her at Rome--in the course of\nconversation--\"\n\n\"But Charlotte--what about the promise you gave me when we were packing?\nWhy did you tell Miss Lavish, when you wouldn't even let me tell\nmother?\"\n\n\"I will never forgive Eleanor. She has betrayed my confidence.\"\n\n\"Why did you tell her, though? This is a most serious thing.\"\n\nWhy does any one tell anything? The question is eternal, and it was not\nsurprising that Miss Bartlett should only sigh faintly in response. She\nhad done wrong--she admitted it, she only hoped that she had not done\nharm; she had told Eleanor in the strictest confidence.\n\nLucy stamped with irritation.\n\n\"Cecil happened to read out the passage aloud to me and to Mr. Emerson;\nit upset Mr. Emerson and he insulted me again. Behind Cecil's back. Ugh!\nIs it possible that men are such brutes? Behind Cecil's back as we were\nwalking up the garden.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett burst into self-accusations and regrets.\n\n\"What is to be done now? Can you tell me?\"\n\n\"Oh, Lucy--I shall never forgive myself, never to my dying day. Fancy if\nyour prospects--\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Lucy, wincing at the word. \"I see now why you wanted me\nto tell Cecil, and what you meant by 'some other source.' You knew that\nyou had told Miss Lavish, and that she was not reliable.\"\n\nIt was Miss Bartlett's turn to wince. \"However,\" said the girl,\ndespising her cousin's shiftiness, \"What's done's done. You have put me\nin a most awkward position. How am I to get out of it?\"\n\nMiss Bartlett could not think. The days of her energy were over. She was\na visitor, not a chaperon, and a discredited visitor at that. She stood\nwith clasped hands while the girl worked herself into the necessary\nrage.\n\n\"He must--that man must have such a setting down that he won't forget.\nAnd who's to give it him? I can't tell mother now--owing to you. Nor\nCecil, Charlotte, owing to you. I am caught up every way. I think I\nshall go mad. I have no one to help me. That's why I've sent for you.\nWhat's wanted is a man with a whip.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett agreed: one wanted a man with a whip.\n\n\"Yes--but it's no good agreeing. What's to be DONE. We women go\nmaundering on. What DOES a girl do when she comes across a cad?\"\n\n\"I always said he was a cad, dear. Give me credit for that, at all\nevents. From the very first moment--when he said his father was having a\nbath.\"\n\n\"Oh, bother the credit and who's been right or wrong! We've both made a\nmuddle of it. George Emerson is still down the garden there, and is he\nto be left unpunished, or isn't he? I want to know.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett was absolutely helpless. Her own exposure had unnerved\nher, and thoughts were colliding painfully in her brain. She moved\nfeebly to the window, and tried to detect the cad's white flannels among\nthe laurels.\n\n\"You were ready enough at the Bertolini when you rushed me off to Rome.\nCan't you speak again to him now?\"\n\n\"Willingly would I move heaven and earth--\"\n\n\"I want something more definite,\" said Lucy contemptuously. \"Will you\nspeak to him? It is the least you can do, surely, considering it all\nhappened because you broke your word.\"\n\n\"Never again shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine.\"\n\nReally, Charlotte was outdoing herself.\n\n\"Yes or no, please; yes or no.\"\n\n\"It is the kind of thing that only a gentleman can settle.\" George\nEmerson was coming up the garden with a tennis ball in his hand.\n\n\"Very well,\" said Lucy, with an angry gesture. \"No one will help me. I\nwill speak to him myself.\" And immediately she realized that this was\nwhat her cousin had intended all along.\n\n\"Hullo, Emerson!\" called Freddy from below. \"Found the lost ball? Good\nman! Want any tea?\" And there was an irruption from the house on to the\nterrace.\n\n\"Oh, Lucy, but that is brave of you! I admire you--\"\n\nThey had gathered round George, who beckoned, she felt, over the\nrubbish, the sloppy thoughts, the furtive yearnings that were beginning\nto cumber her soul. Her anger faded at the sight of him. Ah! The\nEmersons were fine people in their way. She had to subdue a rush in her\nblood before saying:\n\n\"Freddy has taken him into the dining-room. The others are going down\nthe garden. Come. Let us get this over quickly. Come. I want you in the\nroom, of course.\"\n\n\"Lucy, do you mind doing it?\"\n\n\"How can you ask such a ridiculous question?\"\n\n\"Poor Lucy--\" She stretched out her hand. \"I seem to bring nothing\nbut misfortune wherever I go.\" Lucy nodded. She remembered their\nlast evening at Florence--the packing, the candle, the shadow of Miss\nBartlett's toque on the door. She was not to be trapped by pathos a\nsecond time. Eluding her cousin's caress, she led the way downstairs.\n\n\"Try the jam,\" Freddy was saying. \"The jam's jolly good.\"\n\nGeorge, looking big and dishevelled, was pacing up and down the\ndining-room. As she entered he stopped, and said:\n\n\"No--nothing to eat.\"\n\n\"You go down to the others,\" said Lucy; \"Charlotte and I will give Mr.\nEmerson all he wants. Where's mother?\"\n\n\"She's started on her Sunday writing. She's in the drawing-room.\"\n\n\"That's all right. You go away.\"\n\nHe went off singing.\n\nLucy sat down at the table. Miss Bartlett, who was thoroughly\nfrightened, took up a book and pretended to read.\n\nShe would not be drawn into an elaborate speech. She just said: \"I can't\nhave it, Mr. Emerson. I cannot even talk to you. Go out of this house,\nand never come into it again as long as I live here--\" flushing as she\nspoke and pointing to the door. \"I hate a row. Go please.\"\n\n\"What--\"\n\n\"No discussion.\"\n\n\"But I can't--\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Go, please. I do not want to call in Mr. Vyse.\"\n\n\"You don't mean,\" he said, absolutely ignoring Miss Bartlett--\"you don't\nmean that you are going to marry that man?\"\n\nThe line was unexpected.\n\nShe shrugged her shoulders, as if his vulgarity wearied her. \"You are\nmerely ridiculous,\" she said quietly.\n\nThen his words rose gravely over hers: \"You cannot live with Vyse. He's\nonly for an acquaintance. He is for society and cultivated talk. He\nshould know no one intimately, least of all a woman.\"\n\nIt was a new light on Cecil's character.\n\n\"Have you ever talked to Vyse without feeling tired?\"\n\n\"I can scarcely discuss--\"\n\n\"No, but have you ever? He is the sort who are all right so long as\nthey keep to things--books, pictures--but kill when they come to\npeople. That's why I'll speak out through all this muddle even now. It's\nshocking enough to lose you in any case, but generally a man must\ndeny himself joy, and I would have held back if your Cecil had been a\ndifferent person. I would never have let myself go. But I saw him first\nin the National Gallery, when he winced because my father mispronounced\nthe names of great painters. Then he brings us here, and we find it\nis to play some silly trick on a kind neighbour. That is the man all\nover--playing tricks on people, on the most sacred form of life that\nhe can find. Next, I meet you together, and find him protecting and\nteaching you and your mother to be shocked, when it was for YOU to\nsettle whether you were shocked or no. Cecil all over again. He daren't\nlet a woman decide. He's the type who's kept Europe back for a thousand\nyears. Every moment of his life he's forming you, telling you what's\ncharming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly;\nand you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own.\nSo it was at the Rectory, when I met you both again; so it has been\nthe whole of this afternoon. Therefore--not 'therefore I kissed you,'\nbecause the book made me do that, and I wish to goodness I had more\nself-control. I'm not ashamed. I don't apologize. But it has frightened\nyou, and you may not have noticed that I love you. Or would you have\ntold me to go, and dealt with a tremendous thing so lightly? But\ntherefore--therefore I settled to fight him.\"\n\nLucy thought of a very good remark.\n\n\"You say Mr. Vyse wants me to listen to him, Mr. Emerson. Pardon me for\nsuggesting that you have caught the habit.\"\n\nAnd he took the shoddy reproof and touched it into immortality. He said:\n\n\"Yes, I have,\" and sank down as if suddenly weary. \"I'm the same kind of\nbrute at bottom. This desire to govern a woman--it lies very deep, and\nmen and women must fight it together before they shall enter the garden.\nBut I do love you surely in a better way than he does.\" He thought.\n\"Yes--really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even\nwhen I hold you in my arms.\" He stretched them towards her. \"Lucy, be\nquick--there's no time for us to talk now--come to me as you came in the\nspring, and afterwards I will be gentle and explain. I have cared\nfor you since that man died. I cannot live without you, 'No good,' I\nthought; 'she is marrying someone else'; but I meet you again when all\nthe world is glorious water and sun. As you came through the wood I\nsaw that nothing else mattered. I called. I wanted to live and have my\nchance of joy.\"\n\n\"And Mr. Vyse?\" said Lucy, who kept commendably calm. \"Does he not\nmatter? That I love Cecil and shall be his wife shortly? A detail of no\nimportance, I suppose?\"\n\nBut he stretched his arms over the table towards her.\n\n\"May I ask what you intend to gain by this exhibition?\"\n\nHe said: \"It is our last chance. I shall do all that I can.\" And as\nif he had done all else, he turned to Miss Bartlett, who sat like some\nportent against the skies of the evening. \"You wouldn't stop us this\nsecond time if you understood,\" he said. \"I have been into the dark, and\nI am going back into it, unless you will try to understand.\"\n\nHer long, narrow head drove backwards and forwards, as though\ndemolishing some invisible obstacle. She did not answer.\n\n\"It is being young,\" he said quietly, picking up his racquet from the\nfloor and preparing to go. \"It is being certain that Lucy cares for me\nreally. It is that love and youth matter intellectually.\"\n\nIn silence the two women watched him. His last remark, they knew, was\nnonsense, but was he going after it or not? Would not he, the cad,\nthe charlatan, attempt a more dramatic finish? No. He was apparently\ncontent. He left them, carefully closing the front door; and when they\nlooked through the hall window, they saw him go up the drive and begin\nto climb the slopes of withered fern behind the house. Their tongues\nwere loosed, and they burst into stealthy rejoicings.\n\n\"Oh, Lucia--come back here--oh, what an awful man!\"\n\nLucy had no reaction--at least, not yet. \"Well, he amuses me,\" she\nsaid. \"Either I'm mad, or else he is, and I'm inclined to think it's the\nlatter. One more fuss through with you, Charlotte. Many thanks. I think,\nthough, that this is the last. My admirer will hardly trouble me again.\"\n\nAnd Miss Bartlett, too, essayed the roguish:\n\n\"Well, it isn't everyone who could boast such a conquest, dearest, is\nit? Oh, one oughtn't to laugh, really. It might have been very serious.\nBut you were so sensible and brave--so unlike the girls of my day.\"\n\n\"Let's go down to them.\"\n\nBut, once in the open air, she paused. Some emotion--pity, terror, love,\nbut the emotion was strong--seized her, and she was aware of autumn.\nSummer was ending, and the evening brought her odours of decay, the\nmore pathetic because they were reminiscent of spring. That something or\nother mattered intellectually? A leaf, violently agitated, danced past\nher, while other leaves lay motionless. That the earth was hastening to\nre-enter darkness, and the shadows of those trees over Windy Corner?\n\n\"Hullo, Lucy! There's still light enough for another set, if you two'll\nhurry.\"\n\n\"Mr. Emerson has had to go.\"\n\n\"What a nuisance! That spoils the four. I say, Cecil, do play, do,\nthere's a good chap. It's Floyd's last day. Do play tennis with us, just\nthis once.\"\n\nCecil's voice came: \"My dear Freddy, I am no athlete. As you well\nremarked this very morning, 'There are some chaps who are no good for\nanything but books'; I plead guilty to being such a chap, and will not\ninflict myself on you.\"\n\nThe scales fell from Lucy's eyes. How had she stood Cecil for a moment?\nHe was absolutely intolerable, and the same evening she broke off her\nengagement.\n\n\n\nChapter XVII: Lying to Cecil\n\nHe was bewildered. He had nothing to say. He was not even angry, but\nstood, with a glass of whiskey between his hands, trying to think what\nhad led her to such a conclusion.\n\nShe had chosen the moment before bed, when, in accordance with their\nbourgeois habit, she always dispensed drinks to the men. Freddy and Mr.\nFloyd were sure to retire with their glasses, while Cecil invariably\nlingered, sipping at his while she locked up the sideboard.\n\n\"I am very sorry about it,\" she said; \"I have carefully thought things\nover. We are too different. I must ask you to release me, and try to\nforget that there ever was such a foolish girl.\"\n\nIt was a suitable speech, but she was more angry than sorry, and her\nvoice showed it.\n\n\"Different--how--how--\"\n\n\"I haven't had a really good education, for one thing,\" she continued,\nstill on her knees by the sideboard. \"My Italian trip came too late, and\nI am forgetting all that I learnt there. I shall never be able to talk\nto your friends, or behave as a wife of yours should.\"\n\n\"I don't understand you. You aren't like yourself. You're tired, Lucy.\"\n\n\"Tired!\" she retorted, kindling at once. \"That is exactly like you. You\nalways think women don't mean what they say.\"\n\n\"Well, you sound tired, as if something has worried you.\"\n\n\"What if I do? It doesn't prevent me from realizing the truth. I can't\nmarry you, and you will thank me for saying so some day.\"\n\n\"You had that bad headache yesterday--All right\"--for she had exclaimed\nindignantly: \"I see it's much more than headaches. But give me a\nmoment's time.\" He closed his eyes. \"You must excuse me if I say stupid\nthings, but my brain has gone to pieces. Part of it lives three minutes\nback, when I was sure that you loved me, and the other part--I find it\ndifficult--I am likely to say the wrong thing.\"\n\nIt struck her that he was not behaving so badly, and her irritation\nincreased. She again desired a struggle, not a discussion. To bring on\nthe crisis, she said:\n\n\"There are days when one sees clearly, and this is one of them. Things\nmust come to a breaking-point some time, and it happens to be to-day. If\nyou want to know, quite a little thing decided me to speak to you--when\nyou wouldn't play tennis with Freddy.\"\n\n\"I never do play tennis,\" said Cecil, painfully bewildered; \"I never\ncould play. I don't understand a word you say.\"\n\n\"You can play well enough to make up a four. I thought it abominably\nselfish of you.\"\n\n\"No, I can't--well, never mind the tennis. Why couldn't you--couldn't\nyou have warned me if you felt anything wrong? You talked of our wedding\nat lunch--at least, you let me talk.\"\n\n\"I knew you wouldn't understand,\" said Lucy quite crossly. \"I might have\nknown there would have been these dreadful explanations. Of course,\nit isn't the tennis--that was only the last straw to all I have been\nfeeling for weeks. Surely it was better not to speak until I felt\ncertain.\" She developed this position. \"Often before I have wondered if\nI was fitted for your wife--for instance, in London; and are you fitted\nto be my husband? I don't think so. You don't like Freddy, nor my\nmother. There was always a lot against our engagement, Cecil, but all\nour relations seemed pleased, and we met so often, and it was no good\nmentioning it until--well, until all things came to a point. They have\nto-day. I see clearly. I must speak. That's all.\"\n\n\"I cannot think you were right,\" said Cecil gently. \"I cannot tell\nwhy, but though all that you say sounds true, I feel that you are not\ntreating me fairly. It's all too horrible.\"\n\n\"What's the good of a scene?\"\n\n\"No good. But surely I have a right to hear a little more.\"\n\nHe put down his glass and opened the window. From where she knelt,\njangling her keys, she could see a slit of darkness, and, peering into\nit, as if it would tell him that \"little more,\" his long, thoughtful\nface.\n\n\"Don't open the window; and you'd better draw the curtain, too; Freddy\nor any one might be outside.\" He obeyed. \"I really think we had better\ngo to bed, if you don't mind. I shall only say things that will make me\nunhappy afterwards. As you say it is all too horrible, and it is no good\ntalking.\"\n\nBut to Cecil, now that he was about to lose her, she seemed each moment\nmore desirable. He looked at her, instead of through her, for the first\ntime since they were engaged. From a Leonardo she had become a living\nwoman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even\neluded art. His brain recovered from the shock, and, in a burst of\ngenuine devotion, he cried: \"But I love you, and I did think you loved\nme!\"\n\n\"I did not,\" she said. \"I thought I did at first. I am sorry, and ought\nto have refused you this last time, too.\"\n\nHe began to walk up and down the room, and she grew more and more vexed\nat his dignified behaviour. She had counted on his being petty. It would\nhave made things easier for her. By a cruel irony she was drawing out\nall that was finest in his disposition.\n\n\"You don't love me, evidently. I dare say you are right not to. But it\nwould hurt a little less if I knew why.\"\n\n\"Because\"--a phrase came to her, and she accepted it--\"you're the sort\nwho can't know any one intimately.\"\n\nA horrified look came into his eyes.\n\n\"I don't mean exactly that. But you will question me, though I beg you\nnot to, and I must say something. It is that, more or less. When we\nwere only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always\nprotecting me.\" Her voice swelled. \"I won't be protected. I will choose\nfor myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't\nI be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through\nyou? A woman's place! You despise my mother--I know you do--because\nshe's conventional and bothers over puddings; but, oh goodness!\"--she\nrose to her feet--\"conventional, Cecil, you're that, for you may\nunderstand beautiful things, but you don't know how to use them; and you\nwrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up\nme. I won't be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are\nmore glorious, and you hide them from me. That's why I break off my\nengagement. You were all right as long as you kept to things, but when\nyou came to people--\" She stopped.\n\nThere was a pause. Then Cecil said with great emotion:\n\n\"It is true.\"\n\n\"True on the whole,\" she corrected, full of some vague shame.\n\n\"True, every word. It is a revelation. It is--I.\"\n\n\"Anyhow, those are my reasons for not being your wife.\"\n\nHe repeated: \"'The sort that can know no one intimately.' It is true. I\nfell to pieces the very first day we were engaged. I behaved like a cad\nto Beebe and to your brother. You are even greater than I thought.\" She\nwithdrew a step. \"I'm not going to worry you. You are far too good to\nme. I shall never forget your insight; and, dear, I only blame you for\nthis: you might have warned me in the early stages, before you felt\nyou wouldn't marry me, and so have given me a chance to improve. I have\nnever known you till this evening. I have just used you as a peg for\nmy silly notions of what a woman should be. But this evening you are a\ndifferent person: new thoughts--even a new voice--\"\n\n\"What do you mean by a new voice?\" she asked, seized with incontrollable\nanger.\n\n\"I mean that a new person seems speaking through you,\" said he.\n\nThen she lost her balance. She cried: \"If you think I am in love with\nsomeone else, you are very much mistaken.\"\n\n\"Of course I don't think that. You are not that kind, Lucy.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, you do think it. It's your old idea, the idea that has kept\nEurope back--I mean the idea that women are always thinking of men. If\na girl breaks off her engagement, everyone says: 'Oh, she had some\none else in her mind; she hopes to get someone else.' It's disgusting,\nbrutal! As if a girl can't break it off for the sake of freedom.\"\n\nHe answered reverently: \"I may have said that in the past. I shall never\nsay it again. You have taught me better.\"\n\nShe began to redden, and pretended to examine the windows again. \"Of\ncourse, there is no question of 'someone else' in this, no 'jilting' or\nany such nauseous stupidity. I beg your pardon most humbly if my words\nsuggested that there was. I only meant that there was a force in you\nthat I hadn't known of up till now.\"\n\n\"All right, Cecil, that will do. Don't apologize to me. It was my\nmistake.\"\n\n\"It is a question between ideals, yours and mine--pure abstract ideals,\nand yours are the nobler. I was bound up in the old vicious notions,\nand all the time you were splendid and new.\" His voice broke. \"I must\nactually thank you for what you have done--for showing me what I really\nam. Solemnly, I thank you for showing me a true woman. Will you shake\nhands?\"\n\n\"Of course I will,\" said Lucy, twisting up her other hand in the\ncurtains. \"Good-night, Cecil. Good-bye. That's all right. I'm sorry\nabout it. Thank you very much for your gentleness.\"\n\n\"Let me light your candle, shall I?\"\n\nThey went into the hall.\n\n\"Thank you. Good-night again. God bless you, Lucy!\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Cecil.\"\n\nShe watched him steal up-stairs, while the shadows from three banisters\npassed over her face like the beat of wings. On the landing he paused\nstrong in his renunciation, and gave her a look of memorable beauty. For\nall his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his love\nbecame him like the leaving of it.\n\nShe could never marry. In the tumult of her soul, that stood firm. Cecil\nbelieved in her; she must some day believe in herself. She must be one\nof the women whom she had praised so eloquently, who care for liberty\nand not for men; she must forget that George loved her, that George had\nbeen thinking through her and gained her this honourable release, that\nGeorge had gone away into--what was it?--the darkness.\n\nShe put out the lamp.\n\nIt did not do to think, nor, for the matter of that, to feel. She gave up\ntrying to understand herself, and joined the vast armies of the benighted, who\nfollow neither the heart nor the brain, and march to their destiny by\ncatch-words. The armies are full of pleasant and pious folk. But they\nhave yielded to the only enemy that matters--the enemy within. They have\nsinned against passion and truth, and vain will be their strife after\nvirtue. As the years pass, they are censured. Their pleasantry and\ntheir piety show cracks, their wit becomes cynicism, their unselfishness\nhypocrisy; they feel and produce discomfort wherever they go. They have\nsinned against Eros and against Pallas Athene, and not by any heavenly\nintervention, but by the ordinary course of nature, those allied deities\nwill be avenged.\n\nLucy entered this army when she pretended to George that she did not\nlove him, and pretended to Cecil that she loved no one. The night\nreceived her, as it had received Miss Bartlett thirty years before.\n\n\n\nChapter XVIII: Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and The\nServants\n\nWindy Corner lay, not on the summit of the ridge, but a few hundred feet\ndown the southern slope, at the springing of one of the great buttresses\nthat supported the hill. On either side of it was a shallow ravine,\nfilled with ferns and pine-trees, and down the ravine on the left ran\nthe highway into the Weald.\n\nWhenever Mr. Beebe crossed the ridge and caught sight of these noble\ndispositions of the earth, and, poised in the middle of them, Windy\nCorner,--he laughed. The situation was so glorious, the house so\ncommonplace, not to say impertinent. The late Mr. Honeychurch had\naffected the cube, because it gave him the most accommodation for his\nmoney, and the only addition made by his widow had been a small turret,\nshaped like a rhinoceros' horn, where she could sit in wet weather and\nwatch the carts going up and down the road. So impertinent--and yet the\nhouse \"did,\" for it was the home of people who loved their surroundings\nhonestly. Other houses in the neighborhood had been built by expensive\narchitects, over others their inmates had fidgeted sedulously, yet all\nthese suggested the accidental, the temporary; while Windy Corner seemed\nas inevitable as an ugliness of Nature's own creation. One might laugh\nat the house, but one never shuddered. Mr. Beebe was bicycling over\nthis Monday afternoon with a piece of gossip. He had heard from the Miss\nAlans. These admirable ladies, since they could not go to Cissie Villa,\nhad changed their plans. They were going to Greece instead.\n\n\"Since Florence did my poor sister so much good,\" wrote Miss Catharine,\n\"we do not see why we should not try Athens this winter. Of course,\nAthens is a plunge, and the doctor has ordered her special digestive\nbread; but, after all, we can take that with us, and it is only getting\nfirst into a steamer and then into a train. But is there an English\nChurch?\" And the letter went on to say: \"I do not expect we shall go any\nfurther than Athens, but if you knew of a really comfortable pension at\nConstantinople, we should be so grateful.\"\n\nLucy would enjoy this letter, and the smile with which Mr. Beebe greeted\nWindy Corner was partly for her. She would see the fun of it, and some\nof its beauty, for she must see some beauty. Though she was hopeless\nabout pictures, and though she dressed so unevenly--oh, that cerise\nfrock yesterday at church!--she must see some beauty in life, or she\ncould not play the piano as she did. He had a theory that musicians are\nincredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want\nand what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends;\nthat their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been\nunderstood. This theory, had he known it, had possibly just been\nillustrated by facts. Ignorant of the events of yesterday he was only\nriding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to observe whether\nMiss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the desire of two old ladies\nto visit Athens.\n\nA carriage was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he caught\nsight of the house it started, bowled up the drive, and stopped abruptly\nwhen it reached the main road. Therefore it must be the horse, who\nalways expected people to walk up the hill in case they tired him. The\ndoor opened obediently, and two men emerged, whom Mr. Beebe recognized\nas Cecil and Freddy. They were an odd couple to go driving; but he saw\na trunk beside the coachman's legs. Cecil, who wore a bowler, must be\ngoing away, while Freddy (a cap)--was seeing him to the station. They\nwalked rapidly, taking the short cuts, and reached the summit while the\ncarriage was still pursuing the windings of the road.\n\nThey shook hands with the clergyman, but did not speak.\n\n\"So you're off for a minute, Mr. Vyse?\" he asked.\n\nCecil said, \"Yes,\" while Freddy edged away.\n\n\"I was coming to show you this delightful letter from those friends\nof Miss Honeychurch.\" He quoted from it. \"Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it\nromance? Most certainly they will go to Constantinople. They are taken\nin a snare that cannot fail. They will end by going round the world.\"\n\nCecil listened civilly, and said he was sure that Lucy would be amused\nand interested.\n\n\"Isn't Romance capricious! I never notice it in you young people; you\ndo nothing but play lawn tennis, and say that romance is dead, while the\nMiss Alans are struggling with all the weapons of propriety against the\nterrible thing. 'A really comfortable pension at Constantinople!' So\nthey call it out of decency, but in their hearts they want a pension\nwith magic windows opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairyland\nforlorn! No ordinary view will content the Miss Alans. They want the\nPension Keats.\"\n\n\"I'm awfully sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beebe,\" said Freddy, \"but have you\nany matches?\"\n\n\"I have,\" said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe's notice that he\nspoke to the boy more kindly.\n\n\"You have never met these Miss Alans, have you, Mr. Vyse?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Then you don't see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven't been\nto Greece myself, and don't mean to go, and I can't imagine any of my\nfriends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot. Don't you\nthink so? Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is heroic,\nbut Greece is godlike or devilish--I am not sure which, and in either\ncase absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, Freddy--I am\nnot being clever, upon my word I am not--I took the idea from another\nfellow; and give me those matches when you've done with them.\" He lit a\ncigarette, and went on talking to the two young men. \"I was saying, if\nour poor little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be Italian.\nBig enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for\nme. There the contrast is just as much as I can realize. But not the\nParthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price; and here comes the\nvictoria.\"\n\n\"You're quite right,\" said Cecil. \"Greece is not for our little lot\";\nand he got in. Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman, whom he\ntrusted not to be pulling one's leg, really. And before they had gone a\ndozen yards he jumped out, and came running back for Vyse's match-box,\nwhich had not been returned. As he took it, he said: \"I'm so glad you\nonly talked about books. Cecil's hard hit. Lucy won't marry him. If\nyou'd gone on about her, as you did about them, he might have broken\ndown.\"\n\n\"But when--\"\n\n\"Late last night. I must go.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they won't want me down there.\"\n\n\"No--go on. Good-bye.\"\n\n\"Thank goodness!\" exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the saddle\nof his bicycle approvingly, \"It was the one foolish thing she ever\ndid. Oh, what a glorious riddance!\" And, after a little thought, he\nnegotiated the slope into Windy Corner, light of heart. The house was\nagain as it ought to be--cut off forever from Cecil's pretentious world.\n\nHe would find Miss Minnie down in the garden.\n\nIn the drawing-room Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart Sonata. He hesitated a\nmoment, but went down the garden as requested. There he found a mournful\ncompany. It was a blustering day, and the wind had taken and broken the\ndahlias. Mrs. Honeychurch, who looked cross, was tying them up,\nwhile Miss Bartlett, unsuitably dressed, impeded her with offers of\nassistance. At a little distance stood Minnie and the \"garden-child,\" a\nminute importation, each holding either end of a long piece of bass.\n\n\"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Beebe? Gracious what a mess everything is! Look\nat my scarlet pompoms, and the wind blowing your skirts about, and the\nground so hard that not a prop will stick in, and then the carriage\nhaving to go out, when I had counted on having Powell, who--give every\none their due--does tie up dahlias properly.\"\n\nEvidently Mrs. Honeychurch was shattered.\n\n\"How do you do?\" said Miss Bartlett, with a meaning glance, as though\nconveying that more than dahlias had been broken off by the autumn\ngales.\n\n\"Here, Lennie, the bass,\" cried Mrs. Honeychurch. The garden-child, who\ndid not know what bass was, stood rooted to the path with horror. Minnie\nslipped to her uncle and whispered that everyone was very disagreeable\nto-day, and that it was not her fault if dahlia-strings would tear\nlongways instead of across.\n\n\"Come for a walk with me,\" he told her. \"You have worried them as much\nas they can stand. Mrs. Honeychurch, I only called in aimlessly. I shall\ntake her up to tea at the Beehive Tavern, if I may.\"\n\n\"Oh, must you? Yes do.--Not the scissors, thank you, Charlotte, when\nboth my hands are full already--I'm perfectly certain that the orange\ncactus will go before I can get to it.\"\n\nMr. Beebe, who was an adept at relieving situations, invited Miss\nBartlett to accompany them to this mild festivity.\n\n\"Yes, Charlotte, I don't want you--do go; there's nothing to stop about\nfor, either in the house or out of it.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett said that her duty lay in the dahlia bed, but when she had\nexasperated everyone, except Minnie, by a refusal, she turned round and\nexasperated Minnie by an acceptance. As they walked up the garden, the\norange cactus fell, and Mr. Beebe's last vision was of the garden-child\nclasping it like a lover, his dark head buried in a wealth of blossom.\n\n\"It is terrible, this havoc among the flowers,\" he remarked.\n\n\"It is always terrible when the promise of months is destroyed in a\nmoment,\" enunciated Miss Bartlett.\n\n\"Perhaps we ought to send Miss Honeychurch down to her mother. Or will\nshe come with us?\"\n\n\"I think we had better leave Lucy to herself, and to her own pursuits.\"\n\n\"They're angry with Miss Honeychurch because she was late for\nbreakfast,\" whispered Minnie, \"and Floyd has gone, and Mr. Vyse has\ngone, and Freddy won't play with me. In fact, Uncle Arthur, the house is\nnot AT ALL what it was yesterday.\"\n\n\"Don't be a prig,\" said her Uncle Arthur. \"Go and put on your boots.\"\n\nHe stepped into the drawing-room, where Lucy was still attentively\npursuing the Sonatas of Mozart. She stopped when he entered.\n\n\"How do you do? Miss Bartlett and Minnie are coming with me to tea at\nthe Beehive. Would you come too?\"\n\n\"I don't think I will, thank you.\"\n\n\"No, I didn't suppose you would care to much.\"\n\nLucy turned to the piano and struck a few chords.\n\n\"How delicate those Sonatas are!\" said Mr. Beebe, though at the bottom\nof his heart, he thought them silly little things.\n\nLucy passed into Schumann.\n\n\"Miss Honeychurch!\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I met them on the hill. Your brother told me.\"\n\n\"Oh he did?\" She sounded annoyed. Mr. Beebe felt hurt, for he had\nthought that she would like him to be told.\n\n\"I needn't say that it will go no further.\"\n\n\"Mother, Charlotte, Cecil, Freddy, you,\" said Lucy, playing a note for\neach person who knew, and then playing a sixth note.\n\n\"If you'll let me say so, I am very glad, and I am certain that you have\ndone the right thing.\"\n\n\"So I hoped other people would think, but they don't seem to.\"\n\n\"I could see that Miss Bartlett thought it unwise.\"\n\n\"So does mother. Mother minds dreadfully.\"\n\n\"I am very sorry for that,\" said Mr. Beebe with feeling.\n\nMrs. Honeychurch, who hated all changes, did mind, but not nearly as\nmuch as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It was really\na ruse of Lucy's to justify her despondency--a ruse of which she was not\nherself conscious, for she was marching in the armies of darkness.\n\n\"And Freddy minds.\"\n\n\"Still, Freddy never hit it off with Vyse much, did he? I gathered that\nhe disliked the engagement, and felt it might separate him from you.\"\n\n\"Boys are so odd.\"\n\nMinnie could be heard arguing with Miss Bartlett through the floor. Tea\nat the Beehive apparently involved a complete change of apparel. Mr.\nBeebe saw that Lucy--very properly--did not wish to discuss her action,\nso after a sincere expression of sympathy, he said, \"I have had an\nabsurd letter from Miss Alan. That was really what brought me over. I\nthought it might amuse you all.\"\n\n\"How delightful!\" said Lucy, in a dull voice.\n\nFor the sake of something to do, he began to read her the letter. After\na few words her eyes grew alert, and soon she interrupted him with\n\"Going abroad? When do they start?\"\n\n\"Next week, I gather.\"\n\n\"Did Freddy say whether he was driving straight back?\"\n\n\"No, he didn't.\"\n\n\"Because I do hope he won't go gossiping.\"\n\nSo she did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always complaisant,\nhe put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed in a high voice, \"Oh,\ndo tell me more about the Miss Alans! How perfectly splendid of them to\ngo abroad!\"\n\n\"I want them to start from Venice, and go in a cargo steamer down the\nIllyrian coast!\"\n\nShe laughed heartily. \"Oh, delightful! I wish they'd take me.\"\n\n\"Has Italy filled you with the fever of travel? Perhaps George Emerson\nis right. He says that 'Italy is only an euphuism for Fate.'\"\n\n\"Oh, not Italy, but Constantinople. I have always longed to go to\nConstantinople. Constantinople is practically Asia, isn't it?\"\n\nMr. Beebe reminded her that Constantinople was still unlikely, and that\nthe Miss Alans only aimed at Athens, \"with Delphi, perhaps, if the roads\nare safe.\" But this made no difference to her enthusiasm. She had always\nlonged to go to Greece even more, it seemed. He saw, to his surprise,\nthat she was apparently serious.\n\n\"I didn't realize that you and the Miss Alans were still such friends,\nafter Cissie Villa.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's nothing; I assure you Cissie Villa's nothing to me; I would\ngive anything to go with them.\"\n\n\"Would your mother spare you again so soon? You have scarcely been home\nthree months.\"\n\n\"She MUST spare me!\" cried Lucy, in growing excitement. \"I simply MUST\ngo away. I have to.\" She ran her fingers hysterically through her hair.\n\"Don't you see that I HAVE to go away? I didn't realize at the time--and\nof course I want to see Constantinople so particularly.\"\n\n\"You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you feel--\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. I knew you'd understand.\"\n\nMr. Beebe did not quite understand. Why could not Miss Honeychurch\nrepose in the bosom of her family? Cecil had evidently taken up the\ndignified line, and was not going to annoy her. Then it struck him that\nher family itself might be annoying. He hinted this to her, and she\naccepted the hint eagerly.\n\n\"Yes, of course; to go to Constantinople until they are used to the idea\nand everything has calmed down.\"\n\n\"I am afraid it has been a bothersome business,\" he said gently.\n\n\"No, not at all. Cecil was very kind indeed; only--I had better tell\nyou the whole truth, since you have heard a little--it was that he is\nso masterful. I found that he wouldn't let me go my own way. He would\nimprove me in places where I can't be improved. Cecil won't let a woman\ndecide for herself--in fact, he daren't. What nonsense I do talk! But\nthat is the kind of thing.\"\n\n\"It is what I gathered from my own observation of Mr. Vyse; it is what I\ngather from all that I have known of you. I do sympathize and agree\nmost profoundly. I agree so much that you must let me make one little\ncriticism: Is it worth while rushing off to Greece?\"\n\n\"But I must go somewhere!\" she cried. \"I have been worrying all the\nmorning, and here comes the very thing.\" She struck her knees with\nclenched fists, and repeated: \"I must! And the time I shall have with\nmother, and all the money she spent on me last spring. You all think\nmuch too highly of me. I wish you weren't so kind.\" At this moment Miss\nBartlett entered, and her nervousness increased. \"I must get away, ever\nso far. I must know my own mind and where I want to go.\"\n\n\"Come along; tea, tea, tea,\" said Mr. Beebe, and bustled his guests out\nof the front-door. He hustled them so quickly that he forgot his hat.\nWhen he returned for it he heard, to his relief and surprise, the\ntinkling of a Mozart Sonata.\n\n\"She is playing again,\" he said to Miss Bartlett.\n\n\"Lucy can always play,\" was the acid reply.\n\n\"One is very thankful that she has such a resource. She is evidently\nmuch worried, as, of course, she ought to be. I know all about it. The\nmarriage was so near that it must have been a hard struggle before she\ncould wind herself up to speak.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett gave a kind of wriggle, and he prepared for a discussion.\nHe had never fathomed Miss Bartlett. As he had put it to himself\nat Florence, \"she might yet reveal depths of strangeness, if not of\nmeaning.\" But she was so unsympathetic that she must be reliable. He\nassumed that much, and he had no hesitation in discussing Lucy with her.\nMinnie was fortunately collecting ferns.\n\nShe opened the discussion with: \"We had much better let the matter\ndrop.\"\n\n\"I wonder.\"\n\n\"It is of the highest importance that there should be no gossip in\nSummer Street. It would be DEATH to gossip about Mr. Vyse's dismissal at\nthe present moment.\"\n\nMr. Beebe raised his eyebrows. Death is a strong word--surely too\nstrong. There was no question of tragedy. He said: \"Of course, Miss\nHoneychurch will make the fact public in her own way, and when she\nchooses. Freddy only told me because he knew she would not mind.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Miss Bartlett civilly. \"Yet Freddy ought not to have told\neven you. One cannot be too careful.\"\n\n\"Quite so.\"\n\n\"I do implore absolute secrecy. A chance word to a chattering friend,\nand--\"\n\n\"Exactly.\" He was used to these nervous old maids and to the exaggerated\nimportance that they attach to words. A rector lives in a web of petty\nsecrets, and confidences and warnings, and the wiser he is the less he\nwill regard them. He will change the subject, as did Mr. Beebe, saying\ncheerfully: \"Have you heard from any Bertolini people lately? I believe\nyou keep up with Miss Lavish. It is odd how we of that pension,\nwho seemed such a fortuitous collection, have been working into one\nanother's lives. Two, three, four, six of us--no, eight; I had forgotten\nthe Emersons--have kept more or less in touch. We must really give the\nSignora a testimonial.\"\n\nAnd, Miss Bartlett not favouring the scheme, they walked up the hill in\na silence which was only broken by the rector naming some fern. On the\nsummit they paused. The sky had grown wilder since he stood there last\nhour, giving to the land a tragic greatness that is rare in Surrey.\nGrey clouds were charging across tissues of white, which stretched and\nshredded and tore slowly, until through their final layers there gleamed\na hint of the disappearing blue. Summer was retreating. The wind roared,\nthe trees groaned, yet the noise seemed insufficient for those vast\noperations in heaven. The weather was breaking up, breaking, broken,\nand it is a sense of the fit rather than of the supernatural that equips\nsuch crises with the salvos of angelic artillery. Mr. Beebe's eyes\nrested on Windy Corner, where Lucy sat, practising Mozart. No smile came\nto his lips, and, changing the subject again, he said: \"We shan't have\nrain, but we shall have darkness, so let us hurry on. The darkness last\nnight was appalling.\"\n\nThey reached the Beehive Tavern at about five o'clock. That amiable\nhostelry possesses a verandah, in which the young and the unwise do\ndearly love to sit, while guests of more mature years seek a pleasant\nsanded room, and have tea at a table comfortably. Mr. Beebe saw that\nMiss Bartlett would be cold if she sat out, and that Minnie would be\ndull if she sat in, so he proposed a division of forces. They would hand\nthe child her food through the window. Thus he was incidentally enabled\nto discuss the fortunes of Lucy.\n\n\"I have been thinking, Miss Bartlett,\" he said, \"and, unless you\nvery much object, I would like to reopen that discussion.\" She bowed.\n\"Nothing about the past. I know little and care less about that; I am\nabsolutely certain that it is to your cousin's credit. She has acted\nloftily and rightly, and it is like her gentle modesty to say that we\nthink too highly of her. But the future. Seriously, what do you think of\nthis Greek plan?\" He pulled out the letter again. \"I don't know whether\nyou overheard, but she wants to join the Miss Alans in their mad career.\nIt's all--I can't explain--it's wrong.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett read the letter in silence, laid it down, seemed to\nhesitate, and then read it again.\n\n\"I can't see the point of it myself.\"\n\nTo his astonishment, she replied: \"There I cannot agree with you. In it\nI spy Lucy's salvation.\"\n\n\"Really. Now, why?\"\n\n\"She wanted to leave Windy Corner.\"\n\n\"I know--but it seems so odd, so unlike her, so--I was going to\nsay--selfish.\"\n\n\"It is natural, surely--after such painful scenes--that she should\ndesire a change.\"\n\nHere, apparently, was one of those points that the male intellect\nmisses. Mr. Beebe exclaimed: \"So she says herself, and since another\nlady agrees with her, I must own that I am partially convinced. Perhaps\nshe must have a change. I have no sisters or--and I don't understand\nthese things. But why need she go as far as Greece?\"\n\n\"You may well ask that,\" replied Miss Bartlett, who was evidently\ninterested, and had almost dropped her evasive manner. \"Why Greece?\n(What is it, Minnie dear--jam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells? Oh, Mr. Beebe!\nI had a long and most unsatisfactory interview with dear Lucy this\nmorning. I cannot help her. I will say no more. Perhaps I have already\nsaid too much. I am not to talk. I wanted her to spend six months with\nme at Tunbridge Wells, and she refused.\"\n\nMr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife.\n\n\"But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get on\nLucy's nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave Florence, and\nwhen we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome, and all the time I\nfelt that I was spending her mother's money--.\"\n\n\"Let us keep to the future, though,\" interrupted Mr. Beebe. \"I want your\nadvice.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was new to\nhim, though familiar to Lucy. \"I for one will help her to go to Greece.\nWill you?\"\n\nMr. Beebe considered.\n\n\"It is absolutely necessary,\" she continued, lowering her veil and\nwhispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that surprised him.\n\"I know--I know.\" The darkness was coming on, and he felt that this odd\nwoman really did know. \"She must not stop here a moment, and we must\nkeep quiet till she goes. I trust that the servants know nothing.\nAfterwards--but I may have said too much already. Only, Lucy and I are\nhelpless against Mrs. Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed.\nOtherwise--\"\n\n\"Otherwise--?\"\n\n\"Otherwise,\" she repeated as if the word held finality.\n\n\"Yes, I will help her,\" said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm. \"Come,\nlet us go back now, and settle the whole thing up.\"\n\nMiss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern sign--a beehive\ntrimmed evenly with bees--creaked in the wind outside as she thanked\nhim. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the situation; but then, he did\nnot desire to understand it, nor to jump to the conclusion of \"another\nman\" that would have attracted a grosser mind. He only felt that Miss\nBartlett knew of some vague influence from which the girl desired to be\ndelivered, and which might well be clothed in the fleshly form. Its very\nvagueness spurred him into knight-errantry. His belief in celibacy, so\nreticent, so carefully concealed beneath his tolerance and culture, now\ncame to the surface and expanded like some delicate flower. \"They that\nmarry do well, but they that refrain do better.\" So ran his belief,\nand he never heard that an engagement was broken off but with a slight\nfeeling of pleasure. In the case of Lucy, the feeling was intensified\nthrough dislike of Cecil; and he was willing to go further--to place her\nout of danger until she could confirm her resolution of virginity. The\nfeeling was very subtle and quite undogmatic, and he never imparted it\nto any other of the characters in this entanglement. Yet it existed,\nand it alone explains his action subsequently, and his influence on the\naction of others. The compact that he made with Miss Bartlett in the\ntavern, was to help not only Lucy, but religion also.\n\nThey hurried home through a world of black and grey. He conversed on\nindifferent topics: the Emersons' need of a housekeeper; servants;\nItalian servants; novels about Italy; novels with a purpose; could\nliterature influence life? Windy Corner glimmered. In the garden, Mrs.\nHoneychurch, now helped by Freddy, still wrestled with the lives of her\nflowers.\n\n\"It gets too dark,\" she said hopelessly. \"This comes of putting off. We\nmight have known the weather would break up soon; and now Lucy wants to\ngo to Greece. I don't know what the world's coming to.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Honeychurch,\" he said, \"go to Greece she must. Come up to the\nhouse and let's talk it over. Do you, in the first place, mind her\nbreaking with Vyse?\"\n\n\"Mr. Beebe, I'm thankful--simply thankful.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" said Freddy.\n\n\"Good. Now come up to the house.\"\n\nThey conferred in the dining-room for half an hour.\n\nLucy would never have carried the Greek scheme alone. It was expensive\nand dramatic--both qualities that her mother loathed. Nor would\nCharlotte have succeeded. The honours of the day rested with Mr. Beebe.\nBy his tact and common sense, and by his influence as a clergyman--for\na clergyman who was not a fool influenced Mrs. Honeychurch greatly--he\nbent her to their purpose, \"I don't see why Greece is necessary,\" she\nsaid; \"but as you do, I suppose it is all right. It must be something I\ncan't understand. Lucy! Let's tell her. Lucy!\"\n\n\"She is playing the piano,\" Mr. Beebe said. He opened the door, and\nheard the words of a song:\n\n     \"Look not thou on beauty's charming.\"\n\n\"I didn't know that Miss Honeychurch sang, too.\"\n\n  \"Sit thou still when kings are arming,\n   Taste not when the wine-cup glistens--\"\n\n\"It's a song that Cecil gave her. How odd girls are!\"\n\n\"What's that?\" called Lucy, stopping short.\n\n\"All right, dear,\" said Mrs. Honeychurch kindly. She went into the\ndrawing-room, and Mr. Beebe heard her kiss Lucy and say: \"I am sorry I\nwas so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of the dahlias.\"\n\nRather a hard voice said: \"Thank you, mother; that doesn't matter a\nbit.\"\n\n\"And you are right, too--Greece will be all right; you can go if the\nMiss Alans will have you.\"\n\n\"Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you!\"\n\nMr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the\nkeys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother\nbent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the\nfloor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips.\nOddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of\nthe past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the Santa Conversazione,\nin which people who care for one another are painted chatting together\nabout noble things--a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and\ntherefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to\nmarry or to travel when she had such friends at home?\n\n  \"Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,\n   Speak not when the people listens,\"\n\nshe continued.\n\n\"Here's Mr. Beebe.\"\n\n\"Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways.\"\n\n\"It's a beautiful song and a wise one,\" said he. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"It isn't very good,\" she said listlessly. \"I forget why--harmony or\nsomething.\"\n\n\"I suspected it was unscholarly. It's so beautiful.\"\n\n\"The tune's right enough,\" said Freddy, \"but the words are rotten. Why\nthrow up the sponge?\"\n\n\"How stupidly you talk!\" said his sister. The Santa Conversazione was\nbroken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about\nGreece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said good-bye.\n\nFreddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual\nfelicity of phrase, said: \"This has been a day and a half.\"\n\n    \"Stop thine ear against the singer--\"\n\n\"Wait a minute; she is finishing.\"\n\n   \"From the red gold keep thy finger;\n    Vacant heart and hand and eye\n    Easy live and quiet die.\"\n\n\"I love weather like this,\" said Freddy.\n\nMr. Beebe passed into it.\n\nThe two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had\nhelped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a change\nin a girl's life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or puzzled, he\nmust acquiesce; she was choosing the better part.\n\n   \"Vacant heart and hand and eye--\"\n\nPerhaps the song stated \"the better part\" rather too strongly. He half\nfancied that the soaring accompaniment--which he did not lose in the\nshout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing\nthe words that it adorned:\n\n  \"Vacant heart and hand and eye\n   Easy live and quiet die.\"\n\nHowever, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--now as a\nbeacon in the roaring tides of darkness.\n\n\n\nChapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson\n\nThe Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near\nBloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial\nEngland. They always perched there before crossing the great seas,\nand for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books,\nmackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries.\nThat there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for\nthey regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken\nby those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss\nHoneychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly.\nQuinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help\ntowards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little\ndepressed.\n\n\"But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse\nto help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by.\"\n\nMrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to\ndrum nervously upon her card-case.\n\n\"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you,\" Miss Catharine\ncontinued. \"It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But\nperhaps he will come out and join you later on.\"\n\n\"Or does his work keep him in London?\" said Miss Teresa, the more acute\nand less kindly of the two sisters.\n\n\"However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see\nhim.\"\n\n\"No one will see Lucy off,\" interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. \"She doesn't\nlike it.\"\n\n\"No, I hate seeings-off,\" said Lucy.\n\n\"Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--\"\n\n\"Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have\nmet you!\"\n\nThey escaped, and Lucy said with relief: \"That's all right. We just got\nthrough that time.\"\n\nBut her mother was annoyed. \"I should be told, dear, that I am\nunsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about\nCecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and\nalmost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most\nunpleasant.\"\n\nLucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans'\ncharacter: they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news would\nbe everywhere in no time.\n\n\"But why shouldn't it be everywhere in no time?\"\n\n\"Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England. I\nshall tell them then. It's much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let's turn in\nhere.\"\n\n\"Here\" was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they must\ntake shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she was\non the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed a\nmythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddesses\nand gods.\n\n\"Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let's go to Mudie's. I'll buy a\nguide-book.\"\n\n\"You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'm\nso stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this\nhole-and-corner work. You've got rid of Cecil--well and good, and I'm\nthankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not\nannounce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?\"\n\n\"It's only for a few days.\"\n\n\"But why at all?\"\n\nLucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quite\neasy to say, \"Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if he\nhears I've given up Cecil may begin again\"--quite easy, and it had\nthe incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. She\ndisliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that\nking of terrors--Light. Ever since that last evening at Florence she had\ndeemed it unwise to reveal her soul.\n\nMrs. Honeychurch, too, was silent. She was thinking, \"My daughter won't\nanswer me; she would rather be with those inquisitive old maids than\nwith Freddy and me. Any rag, tag, and bobtail apparently does if she\ncan leave her home.\" And as in her case thoughts never remained unspoken\nlong, she burst out with: \"You're tired of Windy Corner.\"\n\nThis was perfectly true. Lucy had hoped to return to Windy Corner when\nshe escaped from Cecil, but she discovered that her home existed no\nlonger. It might exist for Freddy, who still lived and thought straight,\nbut not for one who had deliberately warped the brain. She did not\nacknowledge that her brain was warped, for the brain itself must assist\nin that acknowledgment, and she was disordering the very instruments of\nlife. She only felt, \"I do not love George; I broke off my engagement\nbecause I did not love George; I must go to Greece because I do not\nlove George; it is more important that I should look up gods in the\ndictionary than that I should help my mother; everyone else is behaving\nvery badly.\" She only felt irritable and petulant, and anxious to do\nwhat she was not expected to do, and in this spirit she proceeded with\nthe conversation.\n\n\"Oh, mother, what rubbish you talk! Of course I'm not tired of Windy\nCorner.\"\n\n\"Then why not say so at once, instead of considering half an hour?\"\n\nShe laughed faintly, \"Half a minute would be nearer.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether?\"\n\n\"Hush, mother! People will hear you\"; for they had entered Mudie's. She\nbought Baedeker, and then continued: \"Of course I want to live at home;\nbut as we are talking about it, I may as well say that I shall want to\nbe away in the future more than I have been. You see, I come into my\nmoney next year.\"\n\nTears came into her mother's eyes.\n\nDriven by nameless bewilderment, by what is in older people termed\n\"eccentricity,\" Lucy determined to make this point clear. \"I've seen the\nworld so little--I felt so out of things in Italy. I have seen so little\nof life; one ought to come up to London more--not a cheap ticket like\nto-day, but to stop. I might even share a flat for a little with some\nother girl.\"\n\n\"And mess with typewriters and latch-keys,\" exploded Mrs. Honeychurch.\n\"And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. And\ncall it a Mission--when no one wants you! And call it Duty--when\nit means that you can't stand your own home! And call it Work--when\nthousands of men are starving with the competition as it is! And then\nto prepare yourself, find two doddering old ladies, and go abroad with\nthem.\"\n\n\"I want more independence,\" said Lucy lamely; she knew that she wanted\nsomething, and independence is a useful cry; we can always say that we\nhave not got it. She tried to remember her emotions in Florence: those\nhad been sincere and passionate, and had suggested beauty rather than\nshort skirts and latch-keys. But independence was certainly her cue.\n\n\"Very well. Take your independence and be gone. Rush up and down and\nround the world, and come back as thin as a lath with the bad food.\nDespise the house that your father built and the garden that he planted,\nand our dear view--and then share a flat with another girl.\"\n\nLucy screwed up her mouth and said: \"Perhaps I spoke hastily.\"\n\n\"Oh, goodness!\" her mother flashed. \"How you do remind me of Charlotte\nBartlett!\"\n\n\"Charlotte!\" flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last by a vivid pain.\n\n\"More every moment.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean, mother; Charlotte and I are not the very\nleast alike.\"\n\n\"Well, I see the likeness. The same eternal worrying, the same taking\nback of words. You and Charlotte trying to divide two apples among three\npeople last night might be sisters.\"\n\n\"What rubbish! And if you dislike Charlotte so, it's rather a pity you\nasked her to stop. I warned you about her; I begged you, implored you\nnot to, but of course it was not listened to.\"\n\n\"There you go.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\"\n\n\"Charlotte again, my dear; that's all; her very words.\"\n\nLucy clenched her teeth. \"My point is that you oughtn't to have\nasked Charlotte to stop. I wish you would keep to the point.\" And the\nconversation died off into a wrangle.\n\nShe and her mother shopped in silence, spoke little in the train, little\nagain in the carriage, which met them at Dorking Station. It had poured\nall day and as they ascended through the deep Surrey lanes showers of\nwater fell from the over-hanging beech-trees and rattled on the hood.\nLucy complained that the hood was stuffy. Leaning forward, she looked\nout into the steaming dusk, and watched the carriage-lamp pass like a\nsearch-light over mud and leaves, and reveal nothing beautiful. \"The\ncrush when Charlotte gets in will be abominable,\" she remarked. For\nthey were to pick up Miss Bartlett at Summer Street, where she had been\ndropped as the carriage went down, to pay a call on Mr. Beebe's old\nmother. \"We shall have to sit three a side, because the trees drop, and\nyet it isn't raining. Oh, for a little air!\" Then she listened to the\nhorse's hoofs--\"He has not told--he has not told.\" That melody was\nblurred by the soft road. \"CAN'T we have the hood down?\" she demanded,\nand her mother, with sudden tenderness, said: \"Very well, old lady, stop\nthe horse.\" And the horse was stopped, and Lucy and Powell wrestled with\nthe hood, and squirted water down Mrs. Honeychurch's neck. But now\nthat the hood was down, she did see something that she would have\nmissed--there were no lights in the windows of Cissie Villa, and round\nthe garden gate she fancied she saw a padlock.\n\n\"Is that house to let again, Powell?\" she called.\n\n\"Yes, miss,\" he replied.\n\n\"Have they gone?\"\n\n\"It is too far out of town for the young gentleman, and his father's\nrheumatism has come on, so he can't stop on alone, so they are trying to\nlet furnished,\" was the answer.\n\n\"They have gone, then?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss, they have gone.\"\n\nLucy sank back. The carriage stopped at the Rectory. She got out to call\nfor Miss Bartlett. So the Emersons had gone, and all this bother about\nGreece had been unnecessary. Waste! That word seemed to sum up the whole\nof life. Wasted plans, wasted money, wasted love, and she had wounded\nher mother. Was it possible that she had muddled things away? Quite\npossible. Other people had. When the maid opened the door, she was\nunable to speak, and stared stupidly into the hall.\n\nMiss Bartlett at once came forward, and after a long preamble asked\na great favour: might she go to church? Mr. Beebe and his mother had\nalready gone, but she had refused to start until she obtained her\nhostess's full sanction, for it would mean keeping the horse waiting a\ngood ten minutes more.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said the hostess wearily. \"I forgot it was Friday. Let's\nall go. Powell can go round to the stables.\"\n\n\"Lucy dearest--\"\n\n\"No church for me, thank you.\"\n\nA sigh, and they departed. The church was invisible, but up in the\ndarkness to the left there was a hint of colour. This was a stained\nwindow, through which some feeble light was shining, and when the door\nopened Lucy heard Mr. Beebe's voice running through the litany to a\nminute congregation. Even their church, built upon the slope of the hill\nso artfully, with its beautiful raised transept and its spire of silvery\nshingle--even their church had lost its charm; and the thing one never\ntalked about--religion--was fading like all the other things.\n\nShe followed the maid into the Rectory.\n\nWould she object to sitting in Mr. Beebe's study? There was only that\none fire.\n\nShe would not object.\n\nSome one was there already, for Lucy heard the words: \"A lady to wait,\nsir.\"\n\nOld Mr. Emerson was sitting by the fire, with his foot upon a\ngout-stool.\n\n\"Oh, Miss Honeychurch, that you should come!\" he quavered; and Lucy saw\nan alteration in him since last Sunday.\n\nNot a word would come to her lips. George she had faced, and could have\nfaced again, but she had forgotten how to treat his father.\n\n\"Miss Honeychurch, dear, we are so sorry! George is so sorry! He thought\nhe had a right to try. I cannot blame my boy, and yet I wish he had told\nme first. He ought not to have tried. I knew nothing about it at all.\"\n\nIf only she could remember how to behave!\n\nHe held up his hand. \"But you must not scold him.\"\n\nLucy turned her back, and began to look at Mr. Beebe's books.\n\n\"I taught him,\" he quavered, \"to trust in love. I said: 'When love\ncomes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion\nis sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever\nreally understand.'\" He sighed: \"True, everlastingly true, though my day\nis over, and though there is the result. Poor boy! He is so sorry!\nHe said he knew it was madness when you brought your cousin in; that\nwhatever you felt you did not mean. Yet\"--his voice gathered strength:\nhe spoke out to make certain--\"Miss Honeychurch, do you remember Italy?\"\n\nLucy selected a book--a volume of Old Testament commentaries. Holding\nit up to her eyes, she said: \"I have no wish to discuss Italy or any\nsubject connected with your son.\"\n\n\"But you do remember it?\"\n\n\"He has misbehaved himself from the first.\"\n\n\"I only was told that he loved you last Sunday. I never could judge\nbehaviour. I--I--suppose he has.\"\n\nFeeling a little steadier, she put the book back and turned round to\nhim. His face was drooping and swollen, but his eyes, though they were\nsunken deep, gleamed with a child's courage.\n\n\"Why, he has behaved abominably,\" she said. \"I am glad he is sorry. Do\nyou know what he did?\"\n\n\"Not 'abominably,'\" was the gentle correction. \"He only tried when he\nshould not have tried. You have all you want, Miss Honeychurch: you are\ngoing to marry the man you love. Do not go out of George's life saying\nhe is abominable.\"\n\n\"No, of course,\" said Lucy, ashamed at the reference to Cecil.\n\"'Abominable' is much too strong. I am sorry I used it about your son. I\nthink I will go to church, after all. My mother and my cousin have gone.\nI shall not be so very late--\"\n\n\"Especially as he has gone under,\" he said quietly.\n\n\"What was that?\"\n\n\"Gone under naturally.\" He beat his palms together in silence; his head\nfell on his chest.\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"As his mother did.\"\n\n\"But, Mr. Emerson--MR. EMERSON--what are you talking about?\"\n\n\"When I wouldn't have George baptized,\" said he.\n\nLucy was frightened.\n\n\"And she agreed that baptism was nothing, but he caught that fever\nwhen he was twelve and she turned round. She thought it a judgement.\" He\nshuddered. \"Oh, horrible, when we had given up that sort of thing and\nbroken away from her parents. Oh, horrible--worst of all--worse than\ndeath, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, planted\nyour little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep in\nagain! A judgement! And our boy had typhoid because no clergyman had\ndropped water on him in church! Is it possible, Miss Honeychurch? Shall\nwe slip back into the darkness for ever?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" gasped Lucy. \"I don't understand this sort of thing. I\nwas not meant to understand it.\"\n\n\"But Mr. Eager--he came when I was out, and acted according to his\nprinciples. I don't blame him or any one... but by the time George\nwas well she was ill. He made her think about sin, and she went under\nthinking about it.\"\n\nIt was thus that Mr. Emerson had murdered his wife in the sight of God.\n\n\"Oh, how terrible!\" said Lucy, forgetting her own affairs at last.\n\n\"He was not baptized,\" said the old man. \"I did hold firm.\" And he\nlooked with unwavering eyes at the rows of books, as if--at what\ncost!--he had won a victory over them. \"My boy shall go back to the\nearth untouched.\"\n\nShe asked whether young Mr. Emerson was ill.\n\n\"Oh--last Sunday.\" He started into the present. \"George last Sunday--no,\nnot ill: just gone under. He is never ill. But he is his mother's son.\nHer eyes were his, and she had that forehead that I think so beautiful,\nand he will not think it worth while to live. It was always touch and\ngo. He will live; but he will not think it worth while to live. He will\nnever think anything worth while. You remember that church at Florence?\"\n\nLucy did remember, and how she had suggested that George should collect\npostage stamps.\n\n\"After you left Florence--horrible. Then we took the house here, and he\ngoes bathing with your brother, and became better. You saw him bathing?\"\n\n\"I am so sorry, but it is no good discussing this affair. I am deeply\nsorry about it.\"\n\n\"Then there came something about a novel. I didn't follow it at all; I\nhad to hear so much, and he minded telling me; he finds me too old. Ah,\nwell, one must have failures. George comes down to-morrow, and takes me\nup to his London rooms. He can't bear to be about here, and I must be\nwhere he is.\"\n\n\"Mr. Emerson,\" cried the girl, \"don't leave at least, not on my account.\nI am going to Greece. Don't leave your comfortable house.\"\n\nIt was the first time her voice had been kind and he smiled. \"How good\neveryone is! And look at Mr. Beebe housing me--came over this morning\nand heard I was going! Here I am so comfortable with a fire.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you won't go back to London. It's absurd.\"\n\n\"I must be with George; I must make him care to live, and down here he\ncan't. He says the thought of seeing you and of hearing about you--I am\nnot justifying him: I am only saying what has happened.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Emerson\"--she took hold of his hand--\"you mustn't. I've been\nbother enough to the world by now. I can't have you moving out of your\nhouse when you like it, and perhaps losing money through it--all on my\naccount. You must stop! I am just going to Greece.\"\n\n\"All the way to Greece?\"\n\nHer manner altered.\n\n\"To Greece?\"\n\n\"So you must stop. You won't talk about this business, I know. I can\ntrust you both.\"\n\n\"Certainly you can. We either have you in our lives, or leave you to the\nlife that you have chosen.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't want--\"\n\n\"I suppose Mr. Vyse is very angry with George? No, it was wrong of\nGeorge to try. We have pushed our beliefs too far. I fancy that we\ndeserve sorrow.\"\n\nShe looked at the books again--black, brown, and that acrid theological\nblue. They surrounded the visitors on every side; they were piled on the\ntables, they pressed against the very ceiling. To Lucy who could not see\nthat Mr. Emerson was profoundly religious, and differed from Mr. Beebe\nchiefly by his acknowledgment of passion--it seemed dreadful that the\nold man should crawl into such a sanctum, when he was unhappy, and be\ndependent on the bounty of a clergyman.\n\nMore certain than ever that she was tired, he offered her his chair.\n\n\"No, please sit still. I think I will sit in the carriage.\"\n\n\"Miss Honeychurch, you do sound tired.\"\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Lucy, with trembling lips.\n\n\"But you are, and there's a look of George about you. And what were you\nsaying about going abroad?\"\n\nShe was silent.\n\n\"Greece\"--and she saw that he was thinking the word over--\"Greece; but\nyou were to be married this year, I thought.\"\n\n\"Not till January, it wasn't,\" said Lucy, clasping her hands. Would she\ntell an actual lie when it came to the point?\n\n\"I suppose that Mr. Vyse is going with you. I hope--it isn't because\nGeorge spoke that you are both going?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I hope that you will enjoy Greece with Mr. Vyse.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nAt that moment Mr. Beebe came back from church. His cassock was covered\nwith rain. \"That's all right,\" he said kindly. \"I counted on you two\nkeeping each other company. It's pouring again. The entire congregation,\nwhich consists of your cousin, your mother, and my mother, stands\nwaiting in the church, till the carriage fetches it. Did Powell go\nround?\"\n\n\"I think so; I'll see.\"\n\n\"No--of course, I'll see. How are the Miss Alans?\"\n\n\"Very well, thank you.\"\n\n\"Did you tell Mr. Emerson about Greece?\"\n\n\"I--I did.\"\n\n\"Don't you think it very plucky of her, Mr. Emerson, to undertake the\ntwo Miss Alans? Now, Miss Honeychurch, go back--keep warm. I think three\nis such a courageous number to go travelling.\" And he hurried off to the\nstables.\n\n\"He is not going,\" she said hoarsely. \"I made a slip. Mr. Vyse does stop\nbehind in England.\"\n\nSomehow it was impossible to cheat this old man. To George, to Cecil,\nshe would have lied again; but he seemed so near the end of things, so\ndignified in his approach to the gulf, of which he gave one account, and\nthe books that surrounded him another, so mild to the rough paths that\nhe had traversed, that the true chivalry--not the worn-out chivalry\nof sex, but the true chivalry that all the young may show to all the\nold--awoke in her, and, at whatever risk, she told him that Cecil was\nnot her companion to Greece. And she spoke so seriously that the risk\nbecame a certainty, and he, lifting his eyes, said: \"You are leaving\nhim? You are leaving the man you love?\"\n\n\"I--I had to.\"\n\n\"Why, Miss Honeychurch, why?\"\n\nTerror came over her, and she lied again. She made the long, convincing\nspeech that she had made to Mr. Beebe, and intended to make to the world\nwhen she announced that her engagement was no more. He heard her in\nsilence, and then said: \"My dear, I am worried about you. It seems to\nme\"--dreamily; she was not alarmed--\"that you are in a muddle.\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the\nworld. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound\nso dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror--on the\nthings that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I\nused to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know\nbetter now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware\nof muddle. Do you remember in that church, when you pretended to be\nannoyed with me and weren't? Do you remember before, when you refused\nthe room with the view? Those were muddles--little, but ominous--and I\nam fearing that you are in one now.\" She was silent. \"Don't trust me,\nMiss Honeychurch. Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.\"\nShe was still silent. \"'Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public\nperformance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you\ngo along.' I think he puts it well. Man has to pick up the use of his\nfunctions as he goes along--especially the function of Love.\" Then he\nburst out excitedly; \"That's it; that's what I mean. You love George!\"\nAnd after his long preamble, the three words burst against Lucy like\nwaves from the open sea.\n\n\"But you do,\" he went on, not waiting for contradiction. \"You love the\nboy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word\nexpresses it. You won't marry the other man for his sake.\"\n\n\"How dare you!\" gasped Lucy, with the roaring of waters in her ears.\n\"Oh, how like a man!--I mean, to suppose that a woman is always thinking\nabout a man.\"\n\n\"But you are.\"\n\nShe summoned physical disgust.\n\n\"You're shocked, but I mean to shock you. It's the only hope at times. I\ncan reach you no other way. You must marry, or your life will be wasted.\nYou have gone too far to retreat. I have no time for the tenderness, and\nthe comradeship, and the poetry, and the things that really matter, and\nfor which you marry. I know that, with George, you will find them, and\nthat you love him. Then be his wife. He is already part of you. Though\nyou fly to Greece, and never see him again, or forget his very name,\nGeorge will work in your thoughts till you die. It isn't possible to\nlove and to part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love,\nignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by\nexperience that the poets are right: love is eternal.\"\n\nLucy began to cry with anger, and though her anger passed away soon, her\ntears remained.\n\n\"I only wish poets would say this, too: love is of the body; not\nthe body, but of the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we\nconfessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul! Your\nsoul, dear Lucy! I hate the word now, because of all the cant with which\nsuperstition has wrapped it round. But we have souls. I cannot say how\nthey came nor whither they go, but we have them, and I see you ruining\nyours. I cannot bear it. It is again the darkness creeping in; it\nis hell.\" Then he checked himself. \"What nonsense I have talked--how\nabstract and remote! And I have made you cry! Dear girl, forgive my\nprosiness; marry my boy. When I think what life is, and how seldom love\nis answered by love--Marry him; it is one of the moments for which the\nworld was made.\"\n\nShe could not understand him; the words were indeed remote. Yet as he\nspoke the darkness was withdrawn, veil after veil, and she saw to the\nbottom of her soul.\n\n\"Then, Lucy--\"\n\n\"You've frightened me,\" she moaned. \"Cecil--Mr. Beebe--the ticket's\nbought--everything.\" She fell sobbing into the chair. \"I'm caught in\nthe tangle. I must suffer and grow old away from him. I cannot break the\nwhole of life for his sake. They trusted me.\"\n\nA carriage drew up at the front-door.\n\n\"Give George my love--once only. Tell him 'muddle.'\" Then she arranged\nher veil, while the tears poured over her cheeks inside.\n\n\"Lucy--\"\n\n\"No--they are in the hall--oh, please not, Mr. Emerson--they trust me--\"\n\n\"But why should they, when you have deceived them?\"\n\nMr. Beebe opened the door, saying: \"Here's my mother.\"\n\n\"You're not worthy of their trust.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" said Mr. Beebe sharply.\n\n\"I was saying, why should you trust her when she deceived you?\"\n\n\"One minute, mother.\" He came in and shut the door.\n\n\"I don't follow you, Mr. Emerson. To whom do you refer? Trust whom?\"\n\n\"I mean she has pretended to you that she did not love George. They have\nloved one another all along.\"\n\nMr. Beebe looked at the sobbing girl. He was very quiet, and his white\nface, with its ruddy whiskers, seemed suddenly inhuman. A long black\ncolumn, he stood and awaited her reply.\n\n\"I shall never marry him,\" quavered Lucy.\n\nA look of contempt came over him, and he said, \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Mr. Beebe--I have misled you--I have misled myself--\"\n\n\"Oh, rubbish, Miss Honeychurch!\"\n\n\"It is not rubbish!\" said the old man hotly. \"It's the part of people\nthat you don't understand.\"\n\nMr. Beebe laid his hand on the old man's shoulder pleasantly.\n\n\"Lucy! Lucy!\" called voices from the carriage.\n\n\"Mr. Beebe, could you help me?\"\n\nHe looked amazed at the request, and said in a low, stern voice: \"I\nam more grieved than I can possibly express. It is lamentable,\nlamentable--incredible.\"\n\n\"What's wrong with the boy?\" fired up the other again.\n\n\"Nothing, Mr. Emerson, except that he no longer interests me. Marry\nGeorge, Miss Honeychurch. He will do admirably.\"\n\nHe walked out and left them. They heard him guiding his mother\nup-stairs.\n\n\"Lucy!\" the voices called.\n\nShe turned to Mr. Emerson in despair. But his face revived her. It was\nthe face of a saint who understood.\n\n\"Now it is all dark. Now Beauty and Passion seem never to have existed.\nI know. But remember the mountains over Florence and the view. Ah, dear,\nif I were George, and gave you one kiss, it would make you brave. You\nhave to go cold into a battle that needs warmth, out into the muddle\nthat you have made yourself; and your mother and all your friends\nwill despise you, oh, my darling, and rightly, if it is ever right to\ndespise. George still dark, all the tussle and the misery without a word\nfrom him. Am I justified?\" Into his own eyes tears came. \"Yes, for we\nfight for more than Love or Pleasure; there is Truth. Truth counts,\nTruth does count.\"\n\n\"You kiss me,\" said the girl. \"You kiss me. I will try.\"\n\nHe gave her a sense of deities reconciled, a feeling that, in gaining\nthe man she loved, she would gain something for the whole world.\nThroughout the squalor of her homeward drive--she spoke at once--his\nsalutation remained. He had robbed the body of its taint, the world's\ntaunts of their sting; he had shown her the holiness of direct desire.\nShe \"never exactly understood,\" she would say in after years, \"how he\nmanaged to strengthen her. It was as if he had made her see the whole of\neverything at once.\"\n\n\n\nChapter XX: The End of the Middle Ages\n\nThe Miss Alans did go to Greece, but they went by themselves. They alone\nof this little company will double Malea and plough the waters of the\nSaronic gulf. They alone will visit Athens and Delphi, and either shrine\nof intellectual song--that upon the Acropolis, encircled by blue seas;\nthat under Parnassus, where the eagles build and the bronze charioteer\ndrives undismayed towards infinity. Trembling, anxious, cumbered with\nmuch digestive bread, they did proceed to Constantinople, they did go\nround the world. The rest of us must be contented with a fair, but a\nless arduous, goal. Italiam petimus: we return to the Pension Bertolini.\n\nGeorge said it was his old room.\n\n\"No, it isn't,\" said Lucy; \"because it is the room I had, and I had your\nfather's room. I forget why; Charlotte made me, for some reason.\"\n\nHe knelt on the tiled floor, and laid his face in her lap.\n\n\"George, you baby, get up.\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't I be a baby?\" murmured George.\n\nUnable to answer this question, she put down his sock, which she was\ntrying to mend, and gazed out through the window. It was evening and\nagain the spring.\n\n\"Oh, bother Charlotte,\" she said thoughtfully. \"What can such people be\nmade of?\"\n\n\"Same stuff as parsons are made of.\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\"\n\n\"Quite right. It is nonsense.\"\n\n\"Now you get up off the cold floor, or you'll be starting rheumatism\nnext, and you stop laughing and being so silly.\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't I laugh?\" he asked, pinning her with his elbows, and\nadvancing his face to hers. \"What's there to cry at? Kiss me here.\" He\nindicated the spot where a kiss would be welcome.\n\nHe was a boy after all. When it came to the point, it was she who\nremembered the past, she into whose soul the iron had entered, she\nwho knew whose room this had been last year. It endeared him to her\nstrangely that he should be sometimes wrong.\n\n\"Any letters?\" he asked.\n\n\"Just a line from Freddy.\"\n\n\"Now kiss me here; then here.\"\n\nThen, threatened again with rheumatism, he strolled to the window,\nopened it (as the English will), and leant out. There was the parapet,\nthere the river, there to the left the beginnings of the hills. The\ncab-driver, who at once saluted him with the hiss of a serpent, might\nbe that very Phaethon who had set this happiness in motion twelve\nmonths ago. A passion of gratitude--all feelings grow to passions in the\nSouth--came over the husband, and he blessed the people and the things\nwho had taken so much trouble about a young fool. He had helped himself,\nit is true, but how stupidly!\n\nAll the fighting that mattered had been done by others--by Italy, by his\nfather, by his wife.\n\n\"Lucy, you come and look at the cypresses; and the church, whatever its\nname is, still shows.\"\n\n\"San Miniato. I'll just finish your sock.\"\n\n\"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro,\" called the cabman, with engaging\ncertainty.\n\nGeorge told him that he was mistaken; they had no money to throw away on\ndriving.\n\nAnd the people who had not meant to help--the Miss Lavishes, the Cecils,\nthe Miss Bartletts! Ever prone to magnify Fate, George counted up the\nforces that had swept him into this contentment.\n\n\"Anything good in Freddy's letter?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\nHis own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness: the\nHoneychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past\nhypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever.\n\n\"What does he say?\"\n\n\"Silly boy! He thinks he's being dignified. He knew we should go off in\nthe spring--he has known it for six months--that if mother wouldn't give\nher consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair\nwarning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy--\"\n\n\"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--\"\n\n\"But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up\nfrom the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so\ncynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why\nwill men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish,\ntoo, that Mr. Beebe--\"\n\n\"You may well wish that.\"\n\n\"He will never forgive us--I mean, he will never be interested in us\nagain. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I\nwish he hadn't--But if we act the truth, the people who really love us\nare sure to come back to us in the long run.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\" Then he said more gently: \"Well, I acted the truth--the\nonly thing I did do--and you came back to me. So possibly you know.\" He\nturned back into the room. \"Nonsense with that sock.\" He carried her\nto the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their\nknees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one\nanother's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they\nhad expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt.\nThey were silent.\n\n\"Signorino, domani faremo--\"\n\n\"Oh, bother that man!\"\n\nBut Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, \"No, don't be\nrude to him.\" Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured: \"Mr.\nEager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be\nto a man like that!\"\n\n\"Look at the lights going over the bridge.\"\n\n\"But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in\nCharlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't\nhave heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me\ngoing in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see\nsense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy\"--she kissed\nhim--\"I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only\nknown, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to\nsilly Greece, and become different for ever.\"\n\n\"But she did know,\" said George; \"she did see my father, surely. He said\nso.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don't\nyou remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so.\"\n\nGeorge was obstinate again. \"My father,\" said he, \"saw her, and I prefer\nhis word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes,\nand there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was\nturning to go as he woke up. He didn't speak to her.\"\n\nThen they spoke of other things--the desultory talk of those who have\nbeen fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly\nin each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett,\nbut when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who\ndisliked any darkness, said: \"It's clear that she knew. Then, why\ndid she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to\nchurch.\"\n\nThey tried to piece the thing together.\n\nAs they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. She\nrejected it, and said: \"How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble\nmuddle at the last moment.\" But something in the dying evening, in the\nroar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell\nshort of life, and George whispered: \"Or did she mean it?\"\n\n\"Mean what?\"\n\n\"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--\"\n\nLucy bent forward and said with gentleness: \"Lascia, prego, lascia.\nSiamo sposati.\"\n\n\"Scusi tanto, signora,\" he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up his\nhorse.\n\n\"Buona sera--e grazie.\"\n\n\"Niente.\"\n\nThe cabman drove away singing.\n\n\"Mean what, George?\"\n\nHe whispered: \"Is it this? Is this possible? I'll put a marvel to you.\nThat your cousin has always hoped. That from the very first moment we\nmet, she hoped, far down in her mind, that we should be like this--of\ncourse, very far down. That she fought us on the surface, and yet she\nhoped. I can't explain her any other way. Can you? Look how she kept me\nalive in you all the summer; how she gave you no peace; how month after\nmonth she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us haunted\nher--or she couldn't have described us as she did to her friend. There\nare details--it burnt. I read the book afterwards. She is not frozen,\nLucy, she is not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice, but\nin the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make us\nhappy. We can never make friends with her or thank her. But I do believe\nthat, far down in her heart, far below all speech and behaviour, she is\nglad.\"\n\n\"It is impossible,\" murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the experiences\nof her own heart, she said: \"No--it is just possible.\"\n\nYouth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited,\nlove attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than\nthis. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows\nof winter into the Mediterranean."